Tim Parilla isn’t just the Chief Legal Officer at LinkSquares… he’s also a customer. That unique position of being the leader of the legal department of a company whose mission is to improve the workflow and efficiency of corporate legal departments, creates an exciting environment for Tim and his team.

Juliette Kopecky is the Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares and is leading the company’s DEI Initiatives and works closely with the in-house legal team to handle everything from internal issues to reviewing all the marketing and business development contracts. Juliette points to the fact that both she and Tim sit on the company’s executive team and have aligned their individual departments to the company’s overall mission, helps both of them understand and prioritize their overall processes.

• Have clear communications
• Set scope and expectations
• Be professional and competent

Stuart Dodds is Principle at Positive Pricing and is an executive board member at the Legal Value Network. When it comes to the future of legal pricing, he sees a focus on setting expectations for delivering superior client service, understanding the need to find the right people with the correct skillsets, and establishing the correct change management processes to help lawyers and others adjust to the upcoming shifts in the legal market.

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 00:06
Welcome to The Geek in Review, podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 00:12
And I’m Greg Lambert. Marlene, we have a very interesting couple of guests from a corporate legal team whose company designs technology to improve the corporate legal team’s overall processes. So Tim Parilla, chief legal officer and Juliette Kopecky, Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares joins us to talk about how they deal with outside counsel, in house legal teams, and how they balance their roles as not just leaders at LinkSquares, but also as customers of LinkSquares as well. But first up, we have an answer to our crystal ball question from Stuart Dodds, Principal at Positive Pricing and a Legal Value Network board member. So let’s hear from Stuart first. And then we’ll jump into our conversation with Tim and Juliette.

Stuart Dodds 00:59
Hi, Greg, my role as a co founder and board member of LVM, I get to see quite a lot of different things, I also see a lot of different things in my role as a consultant with positive pricing. And the themes that are coming up again and again, I think are two or three fold. Firstly, this issue about expectations, I think within the league law firms, particularly about sustaining the levels of profitability that they’ve had over a number of years, and how they can best do that, while keeping very much focused in mind, the issue of delivering superior client value, so how can they continue to strong performance? But how they can they continue to meet those changing client expectations? I think that comes on to the second point, which is where do we find those people from? How do we build the skills and capabilities and a lot of firms certainly, I’m saying, are beginning to invest very, very heavily in training their partners are trading their associates and training as you those key business professionals who are having commercial conversations with our clients about how to do that better, how to be having much more of a conversation, having much more of a collaborative discussion about what to do. And therefore trying to work out what are the best ways that we can help our clients be successful, both at an organizational level, at an individual level? And also potentially, how are we better placed than other firms in our respective markets? I think that’s another challenge that sort of links into also, where are these business professionals coming from because we see a much broader range, particularly those here here at LVN. And it’s great to see so many different people, you know, we’ve got pricing professionals, what legal technology professionals, we’ve got data scientists, we’ve got legal project managers, you name it, the list is endless. And that’s a very, very specific skill set. And a lot of it is actually hard to find. So how can we as firms begin to grow that capability, make sure there’s a progression those individuals need. But also remember that a lot of this is about changing behaviors. And people, particularly those who are very senior in firms are, let’s be honest, a little bit sometimes set in their ways, they’ve been very successful, they are very successful. And they were successful doing certain things in a certain approach. We’re asking them to fundamentally change what they do tomorrow compared to what they did today. And that takes a very different skill. It’s around change management is around empathy. It’s around engagement, and it’s around patients. And I think sometimes we also need to have maybe suits of armor just to protect us from the bricks that may be coming our way. But I think being able to service and meet expectations, client and internal is a key challenge. I think there’s also the issue around how do we build that skill and capability internally, both from the fee earning population, the partner population from the business professional population, and also we see this and again, LVN is a great example of this, from the client perspective, how do they make sure that they’re getting the right value from their firms?

Greg Lambert 03:35
Right, let me let me follow up because you were saying about finding the right people. Law firms especially tend to want to have people who have practice come in and do operations. Is that kind of the benchmark? Is that a requirement for operations?

Stuart Dodds 03:53
I think I’m a bit biased. I mean, I came from a management consultancy background. And we would have, if I, if I’ve used me, as an example, I was a supply chain consultant, I supply chain strategy, and a procurement strategy. And I did a little bit of project management on the side because that’s what you were you’re required to do, to be able to deliver successful engagements to your clients. But if it was a very, very big complex project, we would get the specialists in project management to do that. It didn’t matter that they didn’t know what a truck was or what a warehouse was, or what a purchase order was. At the end of the day, I’d rather get the experts that are very, very good at doing something to drive those process changes because that’s what they’re skilled and that’s what they’re trained in, rather than somebody who is trying to do it on a best endeavours basis. Now, I appreciate that not everything justifies that investment in that special skill set. And for those other things, yeah, best endeavors. maybe it’s good enough or best endeavors with a little bit of training and coaching and support. But that support has to come from those experts. The fact that I didn’t practice law, the fact that many very successful pricing legal project management legal technology people did not practice, is irrelevant because that’s not what you’re hiring them for. You’re not hiring them for their legal expertise. You’re hiring them for their process skills expertise.

Greg Lambert 05:05
Thank you very much.

Marlene Gebauer 05:08
We’d like to welcome Tim Parilla, Chief Legal Officer at LinkSquares and Juliette Kopecky Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares to the show, Tim and Juliette, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Juliette Kopecky 05:18
Thank you so much for having us.

Tim Parilla 05:20
Thank you, Marlene.

Greg Lambert 05:21
So, Tim, I know you were at DraftKings before joining LinkSquares I really kind of I’m very curious about that endeavor. Because I think that must have been both very interesting, and at the same time, very challenging. As a company that, you know, as, as in house there, you’re working your way with an online sports betting company, and how did you approach your work there? And, you know, there just had to be so much risk management that you had to cover?

Tim Parilla 05:52
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s a good question. It was really, it was an incredible experience, I first started doing work with the company, and there were fewer than 20 people there, just helping them review some contracts. And then eventually, you know, over the course of let’s just call it six months or so, getting to know the team and the management there. Was brought on full times companies first in house counsel, and at the time, it really wasn’t a sports gambling company. And I know if anyone familiar with the situations would recognize that fantasy sports are a game of skill, which means it’s not really a betting company or a gambling company, as far as a legal term of art is concerned. But that being said, we definitely had regulatory issues associated with that. And we had to design products in such a way where we were able to demonstrate that skill was the factor that determines the winner in each of these contests. And a lot of the first two years that I was working with with DraftKings, it was just like any other high growth startup, you’re raising money, you’re doing a lot of commercial deals, brand awareness, trying to gain market share, trying to gain customers. And it really wasn’t until October of 2015, when some of the regulatory issues really started to come to a head. And you know, at that point, we had already done our due diligence, as far as what the law says, and how our games were structured and how people interacted with our games, when we were very confident in our legal position and every jurisdiction where we operated. You know, at that point, the risk management becomes a little bit different, I guess, when when you think about it, in terms of knowing that you’re right on the law. And by the way, we were proved right, in every single jurisdiction, either through legislative action, obtaining legislative clarity, or looking at what I was really happy about the decision coming out of the Court of Appeals in New York, probably about six months after I left the company in 2021. And so that was like a huge exclamation point. And really, I think everybody in the industry felt vindicated by that decision. So it was great. So the risk management actually really came down moreso to understanding how long you could continue to be effective and run your business with that sort of external regulatory pressure. Right, right, that uncertainty, and we’re able to navigate that well. And you know, I’d like to say that it was me really guiding that ship, but credit where credit is due, of course, Jason Robbins, Matt Kalish, Paul Lieberman, Tim Dan, the rest of the exec team. They were the driving force behind the success. And I was just sort of trying to spin plates and make sure that, that I gave him enough runway so that they could take off once we get, you know, these regulatory issues put put to bed.

Greg Lambert 08:50
Well, you know, and I was curious, because at the time, you were talking about brand awareness. And you couldn’t turn on a sports channel without, you know, every third commercial being a DraftKings commercial. So there was definitely a lot of brand awareness. So I was just curious as as an in house person, would you be saying, Man, it feels like you’re trying to put a target on our back by just putting our name out there so much. I thought it’d be very interesting to be on that in house legal team during that time, because it was such a big growth period of time.

Tim Parilla 09:25
It really was. And I think, you know, I think it’s important. This is something that I that I talk a lot about in different thought leadership forum. As an in house attorney, you have to be confident that you’re able to handle controversy at each step. And your you have to be competent, that you can handle risk at each step. So there’s a saying that I think is particularly pertinent for in house attorneys is a saying that I’ll borrow from aviation whereas it’s not the first mistake that kills you, it’s the tenth. So, you look at this in terms of you know, maybe had something going on with privacy or even the regulatory issues at DraftKings. Like, it’s not like one bad decision results in this cataclysmic outcome. But a series of things have to happen. And typically, if you’re running through and trying to manage this in a, you know, in a meaningful, thoughtful way, you have a number of different opportunities between everything’s okay. And worst case scenario where you can find a positive outcome or at least a survivable or reasonable outcome depending on on your situation. And so it really is important, and you think about it, and maybe just the simple litigation contacts you have, you know, okay, maybe you you got sued. Okay, well, that’s terrible. We’ll file a motion to dismiss. You lost the motion to dismiss now go and talk to the other party and you have an evidentiary issues, Discovery issues, go in argue and try to figure out what you can do to gain some advantage and negotiating leverage at that point, and go and see if there’s an opportunity for settlement, or does your case get better? Does your case get worse? He has a summary judgment phase, right and right, use a summary judgment and maybe you’re going to trial now. Right? Or maybe you’re not going to trial and is over for it. But there are different phases in any controversy, where if you’re able to leverage relationships, build relationships, rebuild relationships, and steer the ship in a positive way, where it makes a win win for both parties usually can avoid a worst case scenario.

Marlene Gebauer 11:29
Tim, tell us a little about what LinkSquares mission is. And Tim how life as an in house counsel at a legal solutions company differs from your previous role at DraftKings

Tim Parilla 11:41
sure i LinkSquares mission is to change the way that we will departments operate and elevate the status of the legal function within an organization. And we do that using cutting edge technology that’s specifically geared for and tailored to these the needs of the in house legal department. Juliette? Please tell me if I missed something.

Greg Lambert 12:01
it sounds like you’ve memorized it really well.

Marlene Gebauer 12:03
Does that sound right? Usually,

Juliette Kopecky 12:06
My work here is done.

Tim Parilla 12:10
So in as far as how the role is different than a lot of ways. It’s not, in a lot of ways. It’s kind of the same and fast growing tech startup, really outstanding growth trajectory, incredible user adoption, and continued product innovation. And so the legal issues around that are pretty similar, right? No matter sort of what kind of tech company you’re in, you’re, you’re going you’re raising money, you’re you’re figuring out, you know, the best way to communicate with your customers, the best way to position your product for broad acceptance, et cetera, et cetera. The aspect of LinkSquares that I think is really interesting, is that I’m a customer. Right. And it was similar at DraftKings. But it was, you know, fantasy sports. And so it kind of casually fantasy sports, but like, as an in house lawyer, and that’s what I do for a living, this product is built specifically with me in mind. So being able to have that customer mindset actually puts me into conversations that most in House lawyers in any other type of tech company wouldn’t be a part of it right? The level of involvement with the product teams, the level of involvement with the sales and marketing teams is, I think, much more involved than what you would see in other types of companies. And that’s been really exciting. You know, to be perfectly honest with you a lot of the legal work, the actual substantive legal works, a lot of contract review. And as I said, like different, you know, corporate matters and things like that. It’s pretty run of the mill, pretty plain vanilla. But what really gets me excited to come into the office every single day, is working with the sales team to help to give that that perspective of the customer to work with the product teams to help articulate the problems that our software is purporting to solve. That’s really the most exciting part of it.

Marlene Gebauer 13:54
Yeah, I would imagine.

Juliette Kopecky 13:56
I think like Tim is being too modest here, where obviously, there’s like the legal function that him and his team perform. But I very much so think that the legal team at LinkSquares kind of plays double duty, or even triple duty in some ways where there is a product feedback, you know, I think at LinkSquares, we’re our own best customer. And so much of the input that we get from like a product standpoint, from Tim and his team in terms of how they use the product, how they think about the legal function is such an important piece of that. And then certainly like the relationship that my team on the marketing side has with him and his team in terms of content that we develop, and how do we speak to this audience? How do we think about what legal teams you know the issues and topics that they care about the platforms and things that they read or listen to that partnership that we have and that I know that we spend a ton of time with the legal team in terms of developing out like content that persona, the feedback and input that we got that? I think in many ways like his team plays like triple duty, if not more than that, like in many different arenas?

Marlene Gebauer 14:58
Yeah, I mean, I would imagine being A user of the product, you know, gives an enormous advantage in terms of sort of understanding it, and, and understanding the, you know, and being able to offer the feedback for it.

Juliette Kopecky 15:10
Definitely. And we are so lucky that we have a legal team that wants to do that and wants to be involved and wants to make, you know, the company and our product and everything else even better, and sort of give us those insights and then input.

Tim Parilla 15:24
It’s funny. So when I said that the legal work is pretty like plain vanilla. Like, it’s like, cry in your cereal boring, okay. It’s not, it’s not thrilling work. And honestly, like, so I do an onboarding session for new employees every other week. And I tell them, like, that’s how I was able to convince people to come here is because we’re doing fun stuff, like having a conversation with you all. All of the cool stuff that Molly, that Juliette and her team have us doing is really like that. And the product in the interactions relationship with the business is what makes it fun.

Juliette Kopecky 16:06
Yeah. And for me as like the marketer and someone who runs our corporate communications or PR, I’m very, very happy for him and for like Tim’s team, to have very poor plain boring vanilla work as he calls it. We’re not embroiled in like, scandals, litigation, and all those items. So let’s just like let’s just keep it that way. Right.

Tim Parilla 16:29
Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 16:30
Exciting lawsuits. Yeah.

Tim Parilla 16:32
We’ll get there Julia.

Greg Lambert 16:36
That’s when you know you’re really successful is when you when you start getting sued.

Juliette Kopecky 16:41
I’ll remember that. The bright side of things.

Greg Lambert 16:45
Finally, we’ve been sued. So Julia, you’ve been at some high power companies before like HubSpot and Datto and Tala? How have those roles in I would say a non legal environment prepared you to come over into a legal tech world company, and Ron, the marketing team there. How do those compare and contrast?

Juliette Kopecky 17:10
I would say, for me, I have a fairly non traditional marketing background. I actually started out my early career working in finance, I went to business school at MIT and did a little bit of a complete like 180 with my career. I’d always been interested in tech companies and startups, and marketing in particular. And I joined HubSpot in sort of the early phases in the company back when that company was about 140 employees back in 2010, which is kind of crazy to think about when you look at HubSpot today. For my career, even at HubSpot, I worked in sales, I worked in product, and I worked in marketing, and then really grow my marketing career from there. And so when I think about my career, I’ve worked in a number of different departments, whether that’s finance, product sales and marketing. And so for me, when I think about how that experience really shaped my career and set me up for success and LinkSquares, I very much so care about that relationship between all those different teams and think about the company goals, and how does marketing support it? And I think from my experience working on the product side, you know, I think a lot about, you know, how do you understand the customer, when I was at HubSpot working in product, I ran the customer research and user testing group, and informing you know, how does our product team like, build a product for customers and take that feedback into account? So very much so when I joined LinkSquares. So previous to this, I had not had experienced marketing to legal teams in particular. But I took some of those things from like being on a product team and doing that research and really understanding the persona, and the user and the buyer, and what is that process? What are the things that you’re thinking about? What are the ways in which they use the product, and really set on sort of like a research mission to better understand it, just knowing that a legal audience like I don’t have a legal background, myself, I hadn’t marketed to this particular role before. But how do I really educate myself in it, and kind of what I was alluding to before, I mean, it’s amazing having the legal team at LinkSquares that we do led by Tim, and we we use them for research into that informs like our marketing campaigns and what we do and what’s going to resonate with our audience. I work a lot with our sales team in terms of understanding like, what’s going to be successful for them. I work with our customer success team in terms of like, which of our customers are really successful, and what is their feedback on the product? And what are the ways in which they’re thinking about it. And so, while I don’t have that legal background, I’m just I would say like, genuinely curious like to learn more about our audience to take all the different inputs. And that’s the thing that I think I’ve taken from my previous experience that has set me up for success here at LinkSquares.

Marlene Gebauer 19:57
So you’ve also focused on DEI initatives there at LinkSquares Right?

Juliette Kopecky 20:01
Yes.

Marlene Gebauer 20:01
So what does the work on DEI initiatives look like in the corporate environments?

Juliette Kopecky 20:08
If I had to. So I realized that we’re on a podcast and that it’s just audio, I think, like for me for Dei, as a woman, and both a person of color, you know, it’s certainly like a very personal issue for me. And I think for Dei, like if I had to give advice for, you know, other people in leadership roles within corporations, it’s all about how do you make it authentic? And how do you make it meaningful to your employees? So for me, even when I think about sort of the the early stages of us really building out like a dei initiative at LinkSquares. You know, I certainly have like one point of view, and in some ways, like dei is always going to be something that’s personal and has affected you know, me personally, in that, like, I really care about and thinking about, like, how do we shape our culture? How do we shape our approach? How do we put initiatives and plan sort of in place that are going to be meaningful to our employees, but one of the things that I personally have loved at LinkSquares is how much support and sort of ally ship that I’ve gotten from both the leadership and even within our employees, like, this is certainly a topic area that I am even, you know, continuing to educate myself about. And I have certainly one point of view. But it’s also like, how do you make space for people within the company with different points of view, different experiences, and really build out something that’s authentic to employees? And there are a number of different ways that we’ve sort of approached this topic? And how do we build out like true diversity, equity and inclusion within the company, certainly, like within hiring and the ways in which that we look at candidates and that we recruit, there’s kind of no way to build diversity into a company, if you’re not looking at like, are we really taking in, you know, sort of an unbiased approach, looking at ways in which we can build diversity from like a hiring perspective? And then also from like, an employee perspective? How do we give employees from different backgrounds, different experiences? And how do we give them a voice within the company, whether that comes from the hiring process, whether that comes from things like employee resource groups, there are a number of different things that we do across the company to really build this out?

Marlene Gebauer 22:20
Yeah, I like that. You’re saying, you know, that you’re trying to make it authentic for the different groups? Because I mean, that’s really a challenge, isn’t it? Because you have very different groups with, you know, possibly very different needs. So I appreciate that you’re working on that.

Juliette Kopecky 22:33
Absolutely. And there are different ways that we listen to employees and hear different viewpoints, whether that’s through things like our employee engagement survey, whether that’s through like one on ones and ways in which like, we communicate as both like a leadership side with different employees. And I think part of that is like, a lot of companies start dei initiatives, and maybe it just feels like lip service to employees, where they say it’s something that they care about, but they’re not seeing, like the true action and initiatives behind it.

Greg Lambert 23:04
Now, you’ve covered a lot on the internals of DEI, and how you are approaching it, how the employees in the leadership, they’re approaching it, I want to kind of flip that around, how are customers reacting to these types of initiatives? And and are they putting any kind of demands on companies like LinkSquares, to improve the equity parody and inclusion of the companies that they work with? So are you also seeing pressure coming in externally for this?

Juliette Kopecky 23:37
I mean, certainly, I think on all levels, I would say that legal teams, you know, there’s a lot of diversity built in and certainly with the companies in which they work with, and I think at like some level, right, people want to work with engage with people that sort of look like them, or that represent them, whether that’s different viewpoints, whether that’s different backgrounds, all across the board. And there are different ways that we listen to our customers, whether it’s through channels within our customer success team, we actually recently just hosted a customer event here in Boston, where we invited a number of our customers in for a couple days of programming and sessions, and ways in which we hear from our customers and that we listen to them. Also through other things like we hear about ways in which our customers are even thinking about dei initiatives through events that we host like virtual networking nights, which is an opportunity for general counsel’s and legal teams to meet up and discuss topics and you know, sort of a real, honest, meaningful way with with their peers, that we in some ways get to kind of like, learn from and hear from and help better inform things that we do as a company. content that we create are ways in which we can engage with our audience. So there’s some really interesting channels there that we hear both from what our customers want and expect from LinkSquares As a company, but also topics and areas of interest for them how they’re thinking about shaping their own businesses and the cultures within it.

Marlene Gebauer 25:07
So Tim, I’m going to turn it back to you. Now you’ve worked with outside counsel both at DraftKings and LinkSquares, and especially at LinkSquares, where your whole business model is on improving the efficiency of legal teams. And, you know, I always like asking this next question, because, you know, we don’t often get sort of the inside knowledge. So I’m very excited to hear what you have to say here. So when you actually need to work with outside counsel, you know, What expectations do you place on them when it comes to providing effective legal counsel? And also, you know, streamlining the work they do? So they don’t waste their time or your company’s money?

Tim Parilla 25:46
That’s, that’s, that’s a big question. How much time? Do we have? Much time? Outside? Yeah, outside counsel, is? That’s that’s a huge topic, I think, you know, working working in a legal tech company that’s specifically designed to increase the efficiency of your legal function. I think sort of the route of the interaction with outside counsel and efficiency is something that maybe historically has been in opposition. Right? I don’t think that our software necessarily will reduce your need for outside counsel, in most cases, which is, which is good. It will in certain, like project based circumstances, for example, due diligence around you know, any m&a activity, right, rather than having associates go through your contracts and pull out important information, Rei doesn’t does it just as well, if not better. But when you are working with outside attorneys, there’s a reason why right? You need that level of expertise, or you are experiencing volumes of work that your in house team just can’t process on a given timeline, right. So you need some overflow support. So, you know, how do you do that effectively? How do you do that efficiently, I think there are a couple of guiding principles that you need to keep in mind as an in house attorney, when you engage your outside attorneys. Number one is make sure that you’re comfortable with the cost of it. And what I mean by that is at the outset, get an estimate for the work that is to be done. If you’re going to go through a financing, right, like you took go venture financing, have a conversation, say, you know, ballpark, we’re gonna raise x amount, it’s probably going to take us y number of weeks, you know, how much how much in your experience, something like that gonna cost and it’s less about trying to hold the outside attorneys accountable, per se. It’s more about managing the expectations because no one’s gonna give you a guaranteed This is how much it costs. But anybody, anybody who’s who’s worth, you know, who’s worth the amount that you’re going to be paying them to do that work has done it before and has a good idea what the costs are, like I you know, I can tell you at a top tier law firm that a motion to dismiss, in your typical civil litigation contract dispute, or even in a in a class action suit, I can tell you that it’s going to be anywhere between 75 and $115,000. For that fully briefs, motion to dismiss, right, that’s about what you’re gonna pay at the big the big top tier top 10 law firm. And you will get, you know, due diligence around a financing transaction. And same thing, there’s, there’s these categories, depending on where you are in stage of company and your outside attorney, you should have an idea. But what that does is that set some expectations where if it’s looking like their bills are going to be way above that they call you and talk to you. And some of the downside of it is like if it looks like the bills are gonna be way below that, then maybe there might be a little bit of fluff in there. But you’ve, you’ve kind of come to expect that that’s okay. Right? Yeah, predictability oftentimes, is just as powerful as efficiency. So that’s the first thing make sure that you that you establish how you’re going to be managing the financial side of it. Second is how are you managing the communication side of it? When you are communicating with outside counsel? And you’re asking for thoughts on an issue? I’m always very deliberate about I need you to find the answer to this. I don’t want like oh, it should be this or just based on my experiences as like, go find an answer. I need the answer. Right? very deliberate about that. And I’m also very deliberate about I don’t need you to go spend and like do case law research about this, that and the next thing and come back to me in two weeks just partners Senior Associate you’ve had a lot of at bats, where do you think this is gonna come out? Happy to have a phone call on it if you rather that put it in an email 10 minutes, 15 minutes, good. So making sure that you communicate effectively with what you want with each sort of request is also really important. The other thing that I look at with outside counsel, that’s hugely important and honestly can make your life as an in house attorney either really good or really bad is whether your outside attorneys understand why you’re asking the question, like your best outside attorneys, when you ask them a question are going to follow up and say, Okay, your question is this, I get it, unless it’s like painfully obvious that is the issue. It’d be like, what else is going on? Is there something else happening? Is there other context around this that that you want to provide? Because normally, when people ask me this question, it’s actually part of the bigger thing, right, and being able to have that conversation with your outside attorney does a couple of things. Number one, it helps you, once you go back to whatever the source was that brought that question to you. It allows you a little bit more context and a different way to think about it. And quite frankly, as an as an in house attorney, it makes you look like you know what you’re talking about, which makes you look good. Write to your to your business. So you want you want outside attorneys that make you look good. Similarly, you want to make sure that in email communications, the way that people are communicating that your outside counsel are communicating to you is professional buttoned up neat, thoughtful, thorough, like anything that I have that calls for an email response or a document type response, I expect it to be of a certain quality, right. And I’m not a perfectionist, and I’m not going to have a fit about someone having a typo in their emails. But it’s something that I that I think about, right and are like Subject Verb Agreement, like different things like this. All of that kind of adds up. And if there’s something else that shortfalls like, alright, this, is this indicative of your attention to detail, is this indicative of the level of service that you provide? Like you’re not proofreading your emails, you’re not directly answering the question the way that it’s almost like you you’re responding back to my email so that I don’t email you again, like you like I pick up on these things. And as soon as you start to see something like that you have to have a conversation is rarely Will that get better and often just gets worse and worse. Yeah, that’s that’s kind of the way that I think about managing outside counsel effectively and efficiently.

Greg Lambert 32:32
I like that, if I can read that back to you a little bit is you’re saying, you know, have those conversations, set scope and expectation and professionalism? Those are the kind of the four things that really kind of drive the way that you deal with outside counsel.

Tim Parilla 32:50
Yeah. And it goes without saying that that competency, like, you have to make sure that you’re verifying that your outside counsel is competent, a lot of outside attorneys will hold themselves out to be experts in whatever it is, and they’re not.

Greg Lambert 33:05
Yeah, I imagine that conversation and expectations kind of nail those down pretty quickly. And I think that’s one of the things I hear over and over again, is that there’s this inability to have good, clear communication back and forth. Attorneys are notorious for not timely responses to emails or phone calls, things like that, that just just kind of drive outside counsel in any clients crazy.

Tim Parilla 33:33
That’s one of the biggest complaints for attorneys that are reported to the Bar Association’s for violations. Any complaints are usually based around the attorneys failure to communicate effectively.

Greg Lambert 33:45
So Juliette, I’m going to turn the tables. So Tim wants, you know, competency wants communication. He wants to set scope and expectation for his outside counsel now, for you. He’s your counsel. So how do you work with Tim’s group? And, you know, kind of make sure that you’re setting the expectations when you’re when you’re working with him?

Juliette Kopecky 34:12
It’s actually surprisingly easy, I would say for us. I mean, so I think first and foremost, I mean, both Tim and I both sit on the executive team at LinkSquares. And so there’s a lot of work that we do, and just as part of both of our roles and sitting on the exec team in terms of setting out that company vision, what are our company goals and building alignment there. And so when I’m thinking about whether it’s marketing campaigns that we’re working on with Tim and his team, or pieces of it that are part of let’s say, like the legal process, I’ll give you an example. So our teams just came back from a big event that we were sponsoring through the association of corporate counsel. They host their annual event this year. It was in Vegas just a couple of weeks ago, and we did a bit of a takeover campaign. At the event, we had a huge booth, we had some out of home add ons that we did. So the location that it was in Resorts World, actually, the whole front face of the building is a digital screen. And so we did a big ad campaign there. And we also did it in the airport, we also hosted three separate events there, Tim had a speaking slot. So needless to say, to run a campaign and a takeover campaign of that size and scale, there was a lot of contracts that were involved in it. And a lot of contracts, you know, that we, that we kind of had to get in a very quick manner are reviewed and signed and out and sort of budget deployed for them. And so because we have that alignment at an executive team level in terms of like, Hey, we’re doing this event, we’re doing a big spend, these are the reasons why and how they’re going to help the company meet its goals, when it comes down to doing that contract review. And working with him and his team on that. It’s a very simple process, because Tim has a ton of visibility into why we’re doing a campaign like that, the results that we see as a company, and how that should sort of be prioritized. And so when it’s like, hey, Tam, I’m going to be sending over, you know, tons of contracts for your team to look at, I’m going to need these reviewed, you know, over the next couple of days so that we can get everything sort of locked and loaded for that event. He’s like, Yep, totally know why we’re doing it, the teams on it, let me know what you need. And let’s work together on it. When it comes to things like the speaking engagement that Tim did at the event there and like hosted a panel, same kind of thing when my team’s working on him in terms of developing out that content topic, in terms of securing panelists for that event, in terms of working through some of the logistical component, Tim 100% understands, like why we’re doing that event, how speaking engagements help us build out our thought leadership, how it helps us drive business for our team and further engagement with our customers. And so that relationship is just very easy. I think when you have that alignment, and sort of like those goals and why those things are going on. I think for maybe teams that don’t have that luxury, I definitely encourage them to have those conversations, whether that’s with different leadership, you know, whether it’s like your GC and your sales team, whether it’s your GC and your marketing team or your product team, how do you build that alignment overall, in terms of those goals? And I think some of the details, in many ways work out themselves,

Marlene Gebauer 37:21
Tim, I mean, I appreciate it that you set out very clearly like this is what the expectations are for outside counsel, because oftentimes on the podcast, or if we go to conferences, you hear about how outside counsel may think, you know, they they think that they’re satisfying what you want, like they this is what they think you want, versus what you actually want. So, you know, it seems to me that that you basically have those conversations early on to basically set those expectations so that you can avoid that type of thing.

Tim Parilla 37:55
Yeah, absolutely. And oftentimes, in house attorneys are a little bashful about communicating what they need from outside attorneys. I’m not even slightly shy about it. Extremely direct and low press. And I’m not a jerk, but also at a point where I’m paying somebody associates in the $700 an hour range and partners up to $1,500 an hour, I’m expecting something in return. And if I’m not getting something that is of quality, then it’s my responsibility as a steward of the company’s funds to change that. And so I think it’s just you’ve got to be as direct as possible. And, and it’s not, I mean, lawyers deal with conflict differently than then like most like normal humans, right? Conflict is not something that raises your pulse at all. It just is what it is. It’s a way of doing something. And the only time that you find yourself raising your voice or getting outwardly emotional about something, typically you’re doing it for a reason. You’re doing it to accomplish a goal, not because you’re necessarily actually right. Maybe sometimes you are, but it always comes with what am I trying to accomplish first, so so so pushing that conflict with outside counsel, there should be absolutely no concern or and if you’re worried about how your outside counsel might react, then maybe you should change. Change attorney.

Greg Lambert 39:29
Tim, earlier, you had mentioned that you’re not just the in house counsel there. You’re also your client. You’re a customer, you’re a tester, you work with the development team. And so that got me thinking about one of the complaints that I’ve had for years and law firms is that as a law firm, we’re not a software development company yet we we tried to build a number of products internally. And so it makes it really hard. For us, as customers have an internal product to work with our development team, especially when something’s not going, right, because you almost feel like you’re walking on eggshells, you want to point make sure that you point out the five things that are going right before you mentioned the one thing that that is going wrong so that you can keep that relationship. How do you approach that as a customer? And as a essentially, as a beta tester, I would imagine, for the product, how do you work with that development team, to give them critical feedback that they need for the product,

Tim Parilla 40:37
oftentimes, I think the biggest value that that my team and I will bring to that process is being able to articulate a problem. One of the things that I think has made LinkSquares, as successful as, as LinkSquares has been is that the founders approached, building the LinkSquares platform. From a business perspective, neither of them are lawyers. And they experienced relatively painful situation associated with the sale of a company where they both worked, and they said, This is a crazy process, there must be software out there that that can help with this process. And, you know, there, there really wasn’t anything that hit the nail on the head. And so these two business people got together and they said, This is a real business problem. And let’s create a business solution for that problem. And so the platform comes at it from there, I think all of our competitors look at look at the software that they make is seeking to solve a legal problem, right? It’s not actually a legal problem in any in any way, shape, or form. It’s a business issue. And so when I’m interacting with our product team and our development team, what I’m really focused on is on is trying to figure out if they’re asking me my opinion on a particular feature or something, I you know, my feedback, and my questioning of them will be around well, what are you trying to solve for? And is that the right problem to solve for, then we kind of go back and forth. And hopefully, you know, they’ve got a more robust understanding of why the problem that they’re seeking to solve is actually a problem and what else it impacts. And I actually am really conscious to try to not propose a solution. But a lot of people will come to the legal tech area and say, I need this software that does x, right, it needs to manage this in this way. And it’s like, okay, well, what problem are you actually trying to solve? Right? Oh, it’s got to, it has to have like this automatic that and the next thing, like, Okay, well, the actual problem is you being able to meaningfully track approvals of language within your agreement. So let’s figure out how to meaningfully track language that needs approvals within your dream and approval from the CFO or the CTO or the CFO or something like that, right? I really approach it like that, and let you know, let the business people try to find a business solution to this business problem.

Marlene Gebauer 43:12
So Julian, and Tim, you know, you can either tag team on this answer or handle it individually. But we ask all of our guests our crystal ball question. And that is what change or challenge do you see in the legal market over the next three to five years?

Juliette Kopecky 43:29
I might let Tim answer this one first.

Tim Parilla 43:32
So I think there’s going to be an acceleration of adoption of legal technology, from the perspective of efficiency for the in house function. So obviously, there’s already been, you know, sort of mandated adoption of your ediscovery platforms and things like that. But I think what is missing is sort of this software that’s going to help provide quantitative data around the work that in house legal teams are performing. You think about it in the context of law firms. And law, if you’re going to a law firm, you have to learn this software, you got to learn the billing software, you got to learn how to open a matter and associated with the client, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And you got to track your time and six minute increments as part of your job, you are not doing your job if you don’t know that software, if you’re not using that software, if you’re not tracking your time, but that’s how law firms make their money. In house, legal departments don’t track their time, by and large, and they’re not held to account for the time spent on a particular project, with the exception of is the business stakeholder happy with your turnaround times. Right? At least reasonably so. Okay, so what that results in is a deep prioritization of that organizational framework that you do have in law firms, and there’s no sort of replacement. And I think what What executives are demanding of their legal function now is starting to change. It’s not enough to go in there and go into the executive room and say, I had conversations and everyone’s pretty happy with the way the legal team is operating on to the next. And then Juliet has slide after slide after slide with all of this data about the ROI on, on the initiatives that she’s put together, the content created, leads generated all this and how is just absolutely benefiting the business from propelling the business forward. And then you go to your, you know, your head, your ad product, and same thing, your your ad revenues, same thing as CFO, same thing. Everyone’s got data except for the legal function. And so executives are demanding more than that. But executives are demanding that the legal function show its value within an organization. And I think the only way to do that is not only to buy a piece of technology, you have to buy into that technology, you have to use it, right? It’s like you think about it in terms of Salesforce, for example. Let’s say you had an account executive who on the first day said you don’t want to update Salesforce at the end of the month, how long do you think that person would continue to be avoided that organization, probably about five minutes, right. But somehow on the legal function, that’s okay, you can buy legal software and not use it and still, like be considered a great contributing member of the team. That idea, I think, is changing and has to change. Because the end state of being able to quantify the work that the legal team is doing is what is being demanded by the executives of the legal team. So we’re gonna, because of that, I think we’re gonna see additional tech adoption around how are you running your HR department, and I think there’s gonna be a fundamental shift in the next, you know, three to five years of what it means to actually run and operate a high performing legal function within an organization. Juliette, what do you see?

Juliette Kopecky 47:02
Yeah, and I don’t have a ton of controversy to add to this, obviously, you know, Tim and I, there are bets that we’re making as a company with LinkSquares, you know, in this arena, and how we see the evolution of the modern legal team within an organization and things that we’re doing on the product side to support it. And also like the feedback, I think, yeah, companies that are have, let’s say, that modern legal team, we’re hearing those themes, right, that general counsel’s and chief legal officers that they very much so want that seat at the table, that they don’t want to be seen as that team of No, the team that’s hindering business, they want to be seen as those enablers, right? They want to help power the business. And then part of being able to get that seat at the table, is to come with some of that data to be able to show this is how we’re enabling the business. This is how we’re constantly improving the legal function. This is how we’re supporting other parts of the organization in terms of meeting these higher level company goals. It’s not enough these days to be reactive, right? And how do you be more proactive? Obviously, technology and software can help enable that and make that job easier, so that you’re not managing, like, tons of different Excel spreadsheets, or you’re pulling together, you know, data and spending hours and hours of time doing that. And I think it’s a really interesting shift. And I think that’s a shift that is happening now. And legal teams that are at the forefront are already doing these things and thinking about these things. But in terms of that widespread adoption, and whether that’s expectations that are being set at the executive level function for the legal team and being sort of pushed down into them, or legal teams that are coming and saying, like, Hey, let me proactively show you how legal is empowering the business. I think that is a more, let’s say, fuller shift that we’re going to see over the next three to five years. I think those modern GCS are doing that right now proactively, and others are sort of catching, catching wind of it. And I think in terms of, you know, that change and how that shift happens, you know, certainly LinkSquares being being a part of it, and being that enabler and helping legal teams being able to accomplish that.

Greg Lambert 49:12
Well, Tim Parilla, chief legal officer and Juliette Kopecky chief marketing officer, both at LinkSquares. I want to thank both of you for taking the time to come in and talk with us. I’m really enjoyed listening to your perspectives. Thank you.

Juliette Kopecky 49:27
Thank you so much for having us.

Tim Parilla 49:29
Thank you. Appreciate it, Greg.

Greg Lambert 49:34
So it was kind of interesting to have an in house person come on the show. We don’t get a lot of a lot of them. So I think we kind of hit him with a lot of questions.

Marlene Gebauer 49:44
Yeah, I love getting the in house perspective. I always feel like it’s like we’re getting inside baseball knowledge and

Greg Lambert 49:50
especially the uniqueness of this position where he’s not just the in house. It’s almost like the Men’s Wearhouse commercial right I’m not just your in house thinking, not just your in house lawyer, I’m also a customer.

Marlene Gebauer 50:07
Also customer, I was really thinking that during the podcast, it was funny. That’s hysterical. So, you know, I do think I mean, there’s there’s a definite advantage there to sort of you have your sort of built in testers built in feedback, you know, that can, these are actual users and can talk the talk if you want, and you know, want to think of it that way in terms of, of other users, because they’re going to be doing it in very similar ways. So they can really share their positive experiences about it.

Greg Lambert 50:35
Yeah, it was interesting, listening to the way that Tim and Juliette kind of played off of each other, and other goes on their senior management team. But there’s just a number of things that I think, you know, cmo can teach a clo, and vice versa on that. So it’s really kind of magical, watching the two of them interact, and just kind of kind of play off of each other and learn from each other. And I think Tim was was spot on with, you can’t just show up at these meetings as the legal officer and just go, yeah, everything’s okay. And then follow that up with these, you know, amazing data presentations, that the marketing team that the finance team that everyone else is showing up with. So I think he’s got his, his thumb on the pulse here of what it is that not just in house, but I imagine outside counsel are also going to have to do to show with data, actual results.

Marlene Gebauer 51:39
Yeah, I mean, this was a very good example of personnel and and, you know, business personnel sort of working in tandem really, really well. And again, I think that is a lesson for all of the industry, you know, to see. It’s like how how positive that is, and how well that supports the business.

Greg Lambert 52:02
I agree. So thanks again to Tim Parilla, chief legal officer and to Juliette Kopecky, Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares for joining us today.

Marlene Gebauer 52:13
And of course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter,

Greg Lambert 52:26
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter.

Marlene Gebauer 52:29
Or you can leave us a voicemail on our new geek and review Hotline at 713-487-7821. And as always, the music you hear is from the wonderful Jerry David DeCicca Thank you Jerry.

Greg Lambert 52:43
Thank you wonderful Jerry

This week we are joined by LexisNexis’ Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer and Head of Global Talent Development, Ronda Bazley Moore. Ronda and a team of LexisNexis leadership in the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network & LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship tasked 18 Fellows from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Law Schools with one very complex task: Uncover how LexisNexis products could be used to address and eliminate systemic racism in the legal system.

1. Equity for Youth in the Legal System
2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Legal Education
3. Diversity in Leadership of Legal Profession
4. Diversity and Equity in the Courts
5. Equity in the Criminal Justice System
6. Racial Equity in Wealth and Ownership

• 2022 LexisNexis Fellowship Publication.pdf
• During Symposium, Law Students Tackle Racial Inequity in Legal System – The Washington Informer

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts |  Spotify

Crystal Ball Question – Legal Value Network Conference

Amanda Norris, Senior Operations Manager at Integreon steps up this week to answer our Crystal Ball question. Amanda has a very interesting expectation on how support staff at law firms, specifically Legal Assistants and Legal Secretaries, provide support both in-person and remotely over the next few years.

Transcript 

Whether you loved it or hated it… Season One of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is in the books. And this also wraps up Season One of SuperHuman Law Division (SHLD) Podcast. We’ve enjoyed going through and spotting the legal and law firm issues and discussing them from both a lawyer’s perspective and a legal operations professional’s point of view.

We reached back out to local counsel this week and brought back Ashley Carlisle, Head of Marketing at HyperDraft to walk us through the legal topics of this specific episode, but also to put back on her marketing and business development hat and break down the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of GLK/H’s marketing strategy. Honestly, it was GLK/H’s lack of marketing strategy that really happened in this fictional MCU BigLaw firm.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to our thoughts on the show. We’ll take a break and determine what we’ll talk about in a possible Season Two of SHLD. If you have suggestions, ping us at @SuperHumanPod on Twitter.

Stay Super Everyone!!

Listen on mobile platforms: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Links:

• Ashley Carlisle (LinkedIn)
• HyperDraft (website)
• HyperDraft (LinkedIn)
• SuperHuman Law Division Website

Transcript:

Greg Lambert  0:19

Imagine running a SuperHuman Law Division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She-Hulk Attorney at Law show on Disney plus. So let’s dive into the series finale who show is this? I’m Greg Lambert. And once again, I’ve reached out to local counsel and Los Angeles, Ashley Carlisle, who is Head of Marketing at HyperDraft. Ashley once again, thanks for coming in and helping me wrap up the season.

Ashley Carlisle  0:50

Of course. Yeah, as we’ll get into this was an interesting ending.

Greg Lambert  0:54

Yeah, to say the least. Yeah, there’s lots of pluses and minuses. I think that that were going on in this. So we got a lot to cover in this. Plus, we’re going to do some bonus content at the end. So let’s jump in at the beginning of the show. So we had had kind of an interesting thing. Did you ever watch the original, The Incredible Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby?

Ashley Carlisle  1:17

I did not. And so at first when I watched this, I was really confused. And then I Googled, like, basically episode nine intro, because I was like, so confused. What is going on here? It looks very cool. And obviously looks like we’re being transported to the 70s. I then learned from Google that this show was super popular. Were you familiar with the show?

Greg Lambert  1:40

I’m old enough that I actually watched the show on PBS so but I was a kid. So no, I’m not that old. Yeah, so it’ll be XP. And Lou Ferrigno. We’re actually Dr. David Banner, because I don’t know if you know, this, but you know, he’s Bruce Banner in the comic books, and in the MCU, but some executive at CBS in the 70s thought that the name Bruce sounded too gay. And so they made Marvel they made Stan Lee changed the name of the character to David. Just sign of the times.

Ashley Carlisle  2:14

Wow, I didn’t know that. That’s such an odd story.

Greg Lambert  2:18

And it’s because of this show that she Hulk actually exists that all because CBS had planned on creating a woman Hulk at some point, as a spin off of this show. And in order to keep their intellectual property rights to the Hulk. Stan Lee went back and this was I think we’d mentioned it in early episodes of this show that he went in and created G Hulk and it was actually one of the last comic books that he actually wrote. So Wow. 1979, 1980.

Ashley Carlisle  2:56

Of course, it was a grab for IP rights even in the 70s. I’m glad that lawyers have been active in this space for decades.

Greg Lambert  3:03

I love the wide collars I love the you know the green screen computers the

Ashley Carlisle  3:09

well it looked like they did. I mean you watch the show, but from what I looked up, it looks like they completely recreated the opening credits of the TV show with Jen Walters slash She-Hulk, which is really cool. I liked the clothes. I liked how they did the style and the lens a little bit different. And you know, as we talked about last episode, I love a catchphrase. So I love that they included the catchphrase, I was kind of mad that that wasn’t you know, the title of the episode. But as we’re gonna get into the title of the episode is very apt who show is this? What’s happening? So but I do love a catchphrase. So I was very happy to have that final scene of her doing, I guess, which I didn’t know the 70s catchphrase.

Greg Lambert  3:52

Yeah, don’t don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry. Of course, you know, at the end of last episode, we had her being arrested after after intelligencia attacked her with the video at the gala. And it looks like the Department of what is that?

Ashley Carlisle  4:15

I don’t know. All I know is they have the cool Taser guns.

Greg Lambert  4:19

Yeah. And so she was arrested. And we see after this dream sequence of Jen coming in and waking up in the same cell that abomination was in earlier in the show. So she has to make a deal. She tries to talk about how she’s going to go after the people that attacked her. And Mallory Book has to kind of bring her back to reality and go, Jen, that’s not really the important thing right now. We have to worry about you because you’re under arrest. People see you as losing control. And as a superhuman that has lost control. Just like her cousin said earlier, once they see that that’s all they see.

Ashley Carlisle  5:04

Yes. And I just remembered, is it the Department of Damage Control?

Greg Lambert  5:08

There we go. Department of Damage Control. Thank you.

Ashley Carlisle  5:10

I remember the name was kind of funny, but it was memorable. So yes, I did see she’s an abomination cell, which I guess makes sense, because I’m sure those are expensive, and you don’t need many, so I guess it makes sense. She’d be in the same place. And Mallory, the actress who plays Mallory is actually a Broadway legend. So I was very excited to see her appear again and for her to be in the MCU. I don’t think there’s many Broadway legends that find themselves in the MCU. But I’m glad that she’s representing her. I thought that was a very sad conversation, but obviously needed to happen because obviously, She Hulk is so upset about what was shown at the gala. And just trying to grapple with that that’s her priority. But like you said, like the Hulk had warned her and Mexico and many other things, you really you’re held to a different standard. They do the plea deal section a little fast. That’s my only kind of question mark in that section, because like you said, Mallory’s like there’s a plea on the table, which as we know, like a plea deal, sometimes just called the deal is an agreement between, you know, the prosecution and the defendant to drop or lessen charges. So it sounds like she accepts it, they put an inhibitor honor, but nothing really else is really talked about. There’s no talk of like, if there’s any geographic restrictions, if there’s any other you know, pending court dates, nothing, which in my mind, the whole episode was kind of looming, because as she’s living her life, I’m like, Okay, is it just the inhibitor?

Greg Lambert  6:33

That was what I kind of thought was the deal was they would not press charges, as long as she were an inhibitor. So and I didn’t see anything else. And we know the rest of the show that she’s able to move it about moving about. So she she goes to blonde skis retreat later, but Blonsky also had a similar deal. And he was able to go to the retreat areas. So true. I don’t know who knows these California deals. I mean, they must be sweet.

Ashley Carlisle  7:07

They must be very lenient. I didn’t realize but yes, they must be in this Marvel Universe. Yeah, she gets out her parents are hilarious. I kind of want more of the parents because they have very few lines. But the lines are just those cringy parent lines where you can tell that they care, but they somehow say the wrong thing, which is just I think everyone relates to

Greg Lambert  7:28

Yep, well as the face of the SuperHuman Law Division, which was She Hulk, and since she can’t be She Hulk anymore, we see her go to her office and packers thing so it doesn’t say whether or not she was fired, but you get the impression that she was fired.

Ashley Carlisle  7:46

My favorite was the See you later litigator mug was one of the first things she puts into her box.

Greg Lambert  7:52

Well, she did not have a lot of personality in that office. So other than her law degree, a few files net, a plant in the coffee cup. That was all she really hold out.

Ashley Carlisle  8:06

Do many lawyers have that much personality in their office? I feel that partners do if you have like a nice swanky corner office. But I don’t know, I feel like the average lawyer just has the diplomas up. Maybe a family photo, maybe one little tchotchke that’s it.

Greg Lambert  8:23

Yeah, I’ve walked the halls here. And and maybe my firm’s a little different, but I see some personality, especially after someone has been here a couple of years. I think the first couple of years. They they don’t necessarily want to expand the personal stuff that’s in the office. But once a case

Ashley Carlisle  8:41

you have to leave like she hooked it. I mean, she wasn’t there that law. Yeah. In the series, she had less than five cases that we saw.

Greg Lambert  8:44

But there was a comment that Nikki said that I think is pretty common, especially in large law firms. And that was, as Jen was packing up, pug and Nikki were there supporting her and, and helping her haul boxes out. But Nikki says, I’m going to continue working for GLK/H because they pay nicely. And that happens a lot that people that may want to leave because of the salary, they end up with what’s called golden handcuffs. So they can’t leave because they can’t necessarily find a job like this that pays the same amount somewhere else. And so for lawyers for staff, a lot of times it makes it really hard to do things that may be actually better for you mentally and physically and psychologically. But, you know, also monetarily and supporting your family and you have a certain lifestyle makes it really hard to to pack up and leave a bad situation.

Ashley Carlisle  9:55

Definitely I do appreciate that. She put all the snacks and drinks in her car. That was funny. That’s a real friend and

Greg Lambert  10:02

it looked like she took some some really nice looking marble.

Ashley Carlisle  10:07

Oh the coasters Yeah, yes.

Greg Lambert  10:09

Looks like she’s took coasters as well, good for her it for her.

Ashley Carlisle  10:12

And then, you know I talked about in the last episode how I just didn’t like how Holloway made her be She-Hulk at work and you know, you could try to unemployment claim with that. Who knows how strong that would be? I guess here if she was fired because she is no longer She Hulk and being She-Hulk was a condition to her employment, she probably could try to sue them. I mean, you can always sue someone even if you’re wrong. But I don’t know if it would be the straightest line of a case. Definitely she could include this in whatever damages she tries to get against intelligence. Yeah. And you know, as we find out who’s kind of the king of this whole backlash against her because she’s lost her job which is going to tarnish her reputation is definitely adds up in the damages category for whoever is the big bad and whoever she’s going to try to see in court.

Greg Lambert  11:00

Yeah, well, we see some TV shots. I liked the TV shots that caused her and alleged superhero. And, and all of the pictures are of the angry She Hulk post. Then she’s got media camped out on her lawn, but I really think it’s funny when she goes to her parents house and the media is camped out there and her dad is spraying them with a water hose to get them off the lawn. Is that okay to do?

Ashley Carlisle  11:30

It’s his property. Unclear. It is funny like living in LA you do see paparazzi occasionally if you are like in a high celeb area, which I do live in one next one, I guess I would say. And anytime I see it depicted on TV, I’m like, that’s kind of how it looks. It just looks more chaotic in real life. Yeah, so I can’t imagine that being outside my house. I would be just as frustrated. I’m sure my dad would also try to spray them with a hose. But yeah, alleged superhero was a bit of a dig.

Greg Lambert  12:04

Yeah, wasn’t nice. Not nice. She hasn’t gotten along very well with the media.

Ashley Carlisle  12:09

And I think she was not media trained and does not have a publicist. These are my guesses unclear from the show. But

Greg Lambert  12:16

So Jen loses her job, she loses eventually, management has to move back in to her parents house. Or in a room that you like,

Ashley Carlisle  12:25

Oh, of course, the early 2000s Legally Blonde poster, Erin Brockovich poster, I think her eye was similar, decided that she was gonna go to law school at a young age to her room, which is populated with all of these images, these female lawyer icons, female divas of law, I guess, as we’ll see later, that term being used. One thing I have had asked recently to me, which was funny was, I guess it’s because these young kids didn’t, you know, they weren’t around what Legally Blonde came out. I’ve had some people ask me why Legally Blonde was so important to like millennial attorneys, especially if they’re women. And I had to think about it. And it’s funny that it was in the bedroom and some of the lines she said, Because I think like She Hulk, the main thing that people liked about it was, she was underestimated. But she still was able to persevere and succeed and be herself. So there’s some commonalities between that and She-Hulk. But I did love the Easter eggs everywhere. And her being in her bedroom trying to like piece together what had happened on some type of True Crime Murder board situation.

Greg Lambert  13:31

Yeah, those are always funny.

Ashley Carlisle  13:32

Who does that in real life?

Greg Lambert  13:35

Crazy people?

Ashley Carlisle  13:38

Really true crime like evangelist? I’m not sure I see it, you know, and these other TV shows, but I wonder like, there’s a lot of arts and crafts required for even the bare minimum of a murder board.

Greg Lambert  13:48

Yeah, I’m thinking more people like us would do it in PowerPoint than on a wall.

Ashley Carlisle  13:52

Oh, definitely. Or just a nice list of very organized color coded list, a checklist.

Greg Lambert  13:58

So she’s putting everything together on that crime board. I think Nikki comes by and talks to her as well. And it’s one of the things that kind of it, it runs through the whole show. And that is Jen’s reaction to everything is that the legal system is going to prevail in this that NAT is her way of approaching all issues. We saw it at the end, it was probably you know, she could have fought the Department of damage control people and maybe that would have been fun escaped here would make for great TV. But I think it goes through that whole thing where as a lawyer, she still has faith that the legal system will help her will make things right.

Ashley Carlisle  14:51

Yeah, and she even says that when she’s talking to Mallory in the cell of they must be persecuted which, considering she has superhuman strength I guess that show some restraint. Because once you just want to go hurt them with the powers that you have, you know if this traumatic thing that happened to you, I think it shows a lot of restraint and like you said, just an adoration and a belief in the system that everything is gonna work out.

Greg Lambert  15:15

Yeah, you’re talking about her parents. Her mom shows a video to Nicki Oh, my goodness. Yes, tip, typical mom things but I don’t know if you know, but apparently there’s a lot of people are kind of comparing this to the Alexandria

Ashley Carlisle  15:32

AOC. Yeah, I had not made that comparison. But now it’s like popping in front of my eyes when you say this. That makes a lot of sense.

Greg Lambert  15:40

Yeah, cuz there was a video when she was at I think Boston University when she was an undergrad. Yeah, that where she was dancing. And people have used that online to try to discredit her for things she’s doing now. So it’s, you know, of course,

Ashley Carlisle  15:57

because if you have a brain you cannot dance cannot lose time. So you cannot. Yeah, of course that totally logic follows.

Greg Lambert  16:06

And then Nikki shows her video apparently of a live news feed and of our friend from her prosecution days going on and doing media.

Ashley Carlisle  16:18

The awful guy was named Greg, I was trying to remember his name because I just didn’t like him when I saw him the first time so I didn’t bank

Greg Lambert  16:24

it. Now his name

Ashley Carlisle  16:27

while you’re looking at the name of this very lackluster gentleman, there are a couple of things. So it’s interesting that the AOC connections been talked about because not having looked it up I just assumed they were talking about you know, when Meghan the stallion did the scene and she holds a lot of people trolled it. So I assumed it was some sort of connection to kind of the writers making fun of people having such an opinion on that Meghan the stallion scene. But that’s interesting that it could be this other, you know, probably more apt comparison of if you’re an intelligent female, doing something sometimes people go to really weird lengths to try to discredit you. I guess you can’t dance. The other thing I thought was interesting, which, obviously this is getting into semantics. But I did have a question just popped in my mind as I was watching this. John Doe pleading does exist in California. So she was she was saying that she had to know who these people were to go after them. And that is the best course obviously for like discovery service process all this stuff. It’s a lot cleaner, if you know exactly who harmed you what to put in the complaint, what have you. But John Doe pleading where you just kind of put placeholders for who caused you harm is allowed in some states, it is allowed in California. So technically, she could just go ahead and do that if there was a statute of limitations problem. It just happened to her. So obviously, that’s not going to happen. But I thought that was very interesting. Obviously, they didn’t have they don’t get my gold star for that section. They didn’t have a lawyer put in a line being like I couldn’t do John Doe pleading. But I want to know who did this to me. So let’s search for them on this murder board. They can hire me though I’m available.

Greg Lambert  18:07

I am having a hard time finding who they who that character is. So we’ll we’ll I know. It’s not Greg. I would know if it was Greg,

Ashley Carlisle  18:14

You would know if it was your namesake? That makes sense. But he is awful. And I thought originally, I was like, oh, defamation. And then I realized she’s a public figure in California. So you have to prove malice, which is nearly it’s not impossible, but it’s very hard. So unfortunately, bozos like him can go out in the press and say whatever.

Greg Lambert  18:35

So Jen goes back to her room. And if you notice, all of the posters have been removed. And it’s like a very clean looking room. It’s kind of sad, very sad. She’s given up. She’s Yeah, she starts scrolling through her phone. And there’s kind of an Easter egg as she’s scrolling through the phone, because the lyrics from Never Gonna Give You Up actually shove some of those show up with with the guys named Rick. So there’s a Rick Roll. It goes on in the middle of the scrolling. But, or she tries to reach back out to Emil Blonsky, or the abomination, because she’s in need of a mental break?

Ashley Carlisle  19:13

Yes. Which makes sense, because he also had the inhibitor. He was also in the same cell. He also runs this wellness retreat, will we call it? I don’t know if he’s certified, but he’s running some sort of retreat in California. So that all makes sense. Have they communicated since she left the firm? Is she still representing him? That was my only question. But that’s a very lawyer, persnickety question. So in reality, they’re probably just friends. And she was like, hey, I want to chat. We have this in common.

Greg Lambert  19:41

Yes. Well, one of the things that I think, is she scrolling through the phone is if you’re asking if they communicated earlier, the way that the message was was set up was it was like on a Saturday and so it looked like it was there’s been some communication still going on. With between her and Blonsky, so I think she felt very comfortable taking him up on his offer to go back out. And as she says she’s not running away from her problem. She’s taking a mental health break.

Ashley Carlisle  20:14

To go hang out with the cast of characters, my favorite is Saracen, the weird vampire. Yeah, that’s at the retreat. Yeah,

Greg Lambert  20:21

I hope he hope we see lots more of him and other shows. So there’s a quick scene between the time that she texts and goes out to blonde skis retreat. And that is, her good friend Nikki takes her college video and uploads it to the intelligencia site. Now, it turns out that there’s a reason that she’s doing it. But I’m not sure Jim would be very happy that now this video is out on the you know, this horrible, horrible website, but she uses it in order to gather information and then she ends up getting invited to the what ends up being the same retreat as loskis retreat. And she ends up having to take pug with her because she needs a burrow, to go out and meet with with these people to figure out more information.

Ashley Carlisle  21:19

I thought that was all hilarious. She basically took what the intelligencia did to She-Hulk was like, Oh, this they used bait, so I’m going to use bait, but I’m sure you’re right, that She-Hulk slash John Walters is not happy that this twerking UCLA hoodie video is now somehow on the internet. But she’ll deal with that another day, that problem for another day. However it works. I find it funny that pug is just used as like, he’s not he’s used as typically a woman character would be in like a superhero movie. Like he’s very close, but disposable. We don’t know much about him. We only know that he likes clothes. He’s mildly attractive and that him and Nikki have a relationship. I kind of really enjoy it. But it is very interesting. He’s kind of a throwaway character. Maybe there’s more background that I’m not aware of. But

Greg Lambert  22:07

he’s definitely a major character in the She-Hulk. Congress especially think it’s the Dan Slott run, where they’re at GLK/H. And so he’s a he is attracted to Jen in the comics. But that’s never reciprocated. And I think you kind of get a little bit of this later in the episode when Jen chose attraction for Matt Murdock when he shows back up. But he’s probably the best comic book character that was completely underused in the TV show. But again, yeah, and I think you’re probably right, they probably are using him kind of as a throwaway like a foil. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it’s it’s a shame there’s a lot of a lot of people that I’ve read that would love to have seen more of pug getting more time because he did kind of come off as almost kind of a goof

Ashley Carlisle  23:08

Definitely a goof who loves sneakers. A very, to be honest, a very LA goof, a sneaker head because I trip merchant or whatever he was saying, Yeah, that was hilarious drip broker.

Greg Lambert  23:19

There we go.

Ashley Carlisle  23:21

But yes, he’s the gateway into this awful meeting of HulkKings.

Greg Lambert  23:27

So goes in there. Sure enough, Todd is the person that’s running the show? Turns out, Todd is the Hulk King, which I guess it wasn’t a big surprise to to anyone. It was just kind of too obvious. So obvious. Yeah. And and he admits well, before it goes in, when the one thing I did find interesting was, again, Nikki telling pug when he goes in, whenever he’s referring to women, make sure you call them females. So here’s that again,

Ashley Carlisle  24:03

And how he’s to evolve. So she makes him keep the air pot in so she can help him say awful things because he’s deprogrammed himself. That was hilarious. Also, no one asked about the air pod that just looked funny on screen. I enjoyed it. Yeah. One thing that this the Todd Phelps, gosh, you know, I don’t like him, and I did. He was in my running for being the bad guy. So I was happy but anticlimactic that that was correct. One thing that She-Hulk said when she was going through her, you know, murder board sequence of what had happened to her was that the entity that owned I guess the this platform that led all these guys to meet each other where they’re meeting now at the retreat was owned by a couple of foreign subsidiaries. Right. And that just made me laugh, because you know, he’s a long term client, maybe Holloway had a part of that, who structured that just the whole thing I was like, how is this going to somehow unravel and show other characters are a part of the

Greg Lambert  25:00

Yes, yeah, yeah. And the running things through foreign subsidiaries is is kind of a shortcut in television it to say, Oh, we can never figure out who did who owns this, it’s you know, it’s a, it’s a complete mystery,

Ashley Carlisle  25:14

Like the Rules of Civil Procedure don’t exist exactly.

Greg Lambert  25:19

Then everything just kind of comes off the rails.

Ashley Carlisle  25:24

Now it goes into the, if you’re not a Marvel fan, you slowly get very, very confused and have to pause it at Google, at least, that’s what I felt maybe others have more background knowledge. But this is where it turns from a lawyer show into an MCU love fest slash commentary slash thought piece, in my opinion, which made me not really a huge fan of this episode.

Greg Lambert  25:47

I think you’re right, I think for people that kind of have a an advanced knowledge of the MCU and some of the things that they’ve done across the different phases and some of the things that they have planned for the upcoming phases. I think, if you were inside of that knowledge, it was very exciting to see this because there’s there was so much information that was kind of released. And there was also a fun kind of making fun of some of the commonalities that the MCU fell into, as well. So if you noticed, when we had the big fight scene abomination comes in Jen, you know, immediately goes back into lawyer mode. And it’s like, you’ve broken here you toe I lied for you. Yeah.

Ashley Carlisle  26:40

Which is the worst. Clients do lie. And it is the worst. I can’t imagine being a litigator and having clients lie as a transact transactional attorney when they lie It’s just a headache. But when I can’t imagine they really should teach a class on that and law school

Greg Lambert  26:54

if you ever watched the show House. And so that’s one of the things he always says is all patients lie. And so I think with lawyers all you know, you guys was just come with the assumption that your clients probably hiding something, it may be relevant, it may be stupid, but most people are very uncomfortable coming out and telling you the complete truth.

Ashley Carlisle  27:19

But yes, it was a lot at once because it was like the Abomination Oh, he’s the abomination and then taught admits to everything unprovoked. No questions. hook line and sinker. Oh, yeah. I hacked in. I stole her blood is just divulging Yep.

Greg Lambert  27:35

And then he injects himself with the blood and turns into I was kind of like with you. I thought maybe he was gonna turn into the Red Hulk. But it was

Ashley Carlisle  27:45

Bro Hulk.

Greg Lambert  27:47

If it was definitely bro hook,

Ashley Carlisle  27:50

Definitely Bro Hulk. They needed a new character, a new line of march.

Greg Lambert  27:54

Yeah. And then Titania breaks in for what reason the Hulk breaks in. I mean, it was just it was crazy. Just the amount of action that is going on. And then we have the big fourth wall break. And this is where I think everyone kind of split in. It’s like, oh, wait, what what are we doing here? I think Jen looks at the camera and says, Is this really what you want talking to the audience? And then you see it go to the Disney plus Marvel screen on the television? You know, I think right there. You either bought in order. This was too much for many.

Ashley Carlisle  28:39

Jumping the shark, right? It’s so far fetched that you’re like, wait, what’s happening? Can anything salvageable come out of this. It’s it was so meta as well, which I’m sure as a Marvel fan you’re just used to but as someone who came for a lawyer show the attention to detail, it’s almost startling, because she breaks out of She-Hulk. And then she swings on the what’s the Chi I’m going to say it wrong. The rings that Shang-Chi whatever she she swings on that which at the end we realize why into the Marvel behind the scenes, the attention to detail is so startling. It’s wild. And then the marketing of just the Disney plus screen. They got free promo for the entirety of their universe for a solid 30 seconds and that frame. Yep. Every other IP they have coming out which is there.

Greg Lambert  29:30

So she jumps into the I think it’s the Marvel assembled TV show which are always the behind the scenes. At typically after a movie or after a show as completed. They do this assembled show which kind of talks through the process of it. And she ends up going to the main office. And if you caught the QR code, there’s yeah Did you did you look at it?

Ashley Carlisle  30:01

I followed the QR code and I’m getting a free comic book my first comic book, did you get a free She-Hulk comic book?

Greg Lambert  30:08

Did you understand why it pointed to that specific comic book?

Ashley Carlisle  30:12

No, not at all. I just wanted the Free Comic Book.

Greg Lambert  30:14

So that was the Savage She-Hulk number 50. What happened and that is, Jen Walters, She Hulk in the comic book sold her rights to Marvel Comics. And she is going to the headquarters of Marvel Comics, and is complaining about the way that they are telling her story. So that’s how that comic book relates back to what’s going on in this scene. So it’s, again, that is

Ashley Carlisle  30:46

so wild, the meta.

Greg Lambert  30:50

Meta within meta.

Ashley Carlisle  30:52

I mean, I guess now that I know that it makes me appreciate this more, because there’s some, you know, historical backing for the writers having this very weird plot point. But until you told me that this just all I thought was some sort of weird, I don’t know, Marvel. Plot cleanup, which I was mad that that had to be in a nine episode show about a female lawyer like why why this show?

Greg Lambert  31:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now? Well, and I think the reason is, is because of those of the history with the comic books of her, literally, like ripping the comic book open to go from one scene to another, talking directly to the writer, John Byrne, during his run. So this was not anything, if you were familiar with that series, this was not a surprise, and how it kind of ran parallel to some of the storylines, that that had happened in the comic books itself. But there’s not a lot of you know, I’m a 54 year old man who read these comic books, when you know, when I was a preteen and teenager, that’s a pretty narrow market of people to understand that. And so I think, yeah, it’s, there was a lot going on that, again, the meta within the meta, the fourth wall, they’re going in and actually talking to the real writers of the show and trying to define how how that was going on, you had to really take a step back and just suspend belief for a bit and talk to them. But, you know, I thought it was a good look at the whole process. I think that for Marvel, as they’re going from Phase four to five, that I think this is kind of closing some holes on it. You know, she meets Kevin, which is, of course, a direct reference to Kevin Feige, who’s been in control of everything this whole time. There’s all kinds of theories on that.

Ashley Carlisle  33:02

Also, the Marvel NDA, I’ve loved the jokes about the Marvel NDA, I love I tried to look up who the receptionist was, because they gave him airtime. So I thought maybe he was someone in the Marvel universe that I should have known, but I couldn’t figure that out. But I love how he makes her sign the NDA, she makes the joke of going through it how long it is, just because even in LA, it’s known, they have a insanely long, detailed NDA, they do not negotiate. It’s the strictest in the business. And basically, you sign it, you give up your phone, even if you just go visit there, get an email from them, get a link from them anything. And I love that they made a joke of it. Yeah. Well, actually in a lawyer show. Yeah. I was like, yes.

Greg Lambert  33:45

And there was an I can’t remember who the actor was. But during an interview, said that, you know, he can’t say anything, because they could literally take his house, if he said something. So it was like, Yeah, and I’m not going to disclose anything. Everyone signs an NDA Marvel’s The MCU Disney, they take it extremely seriously. And And apparently, they really, really let the actors and people that work on the set know this. And if you saw there were a bunch of Captain America signs that were up. And if you read that it was the I want you to put your cell phone up, you know, and

Ashley Carlisle  34:27

Oh, I didn’t see that. That’s hilarious. And apparently, it was a real Oh, I guarantee if that NDA is that long. I bet every screen is confiscated or covered or encrypted or something or there’s some sort of damages it listed in the NDA, my favorite what she signed the NDA just to be, I guess, caught by security. Like that was the only purpose for the NDA. Also, just thinking about this legally, which doesn’t really matter. It was just a joke, a throwaway joke, but all of this is on camera. So anything that the public see Is is no longer in the NDA, it’s publicly disclosed by Marvel itself. So I thought that was funny as well. I chuckled.

Greg Lambert  35:08

So she goes in and she was first she meets with the writers. I think these were the actual writers.

Ashley Carlisle  35:16

I think they’re the actual writers. I follow Jessica Gao on Twitter. And I recognize her. So I would assume that the actual writers Yep.

Greg Lambert  35:23

And she gets to go in and she meets Kevin, the robot, again, the kind of a creation of Kevin Feige, who’s been over the whole storytelling. And the one thing that that she gets, well, she puts out the argument that look, this is a legal comedy show. Right? And she

Ashley Carlisle  35:44

makes it in her closing argument. Yes. Since it is a legal show, they give her a closing argument, which I guess means Kevin’s the judge, and were the other side or the writers or the other side. I thought that was hilarious.

Greg Lambert  35:54

Yeah, yeah. So it’s interesting, because I think she only argues, you know, how are we going to change this? We’re changing it from night. Today, we’re going to change, you know that the Todd doesn’t become the Hulk. Titania still there. I think she said, Bruce, that the the Hulk should not be there. So he disappeared should be cleaning up her message should be cleaning up her messes. And so

Ashley Carlisle  36:21

And she wanted Daredevil back. Well, she wanted more love interest.

Greg Lambert  36:25

Yes. She she’s got to learn to negotiate better on things. She does she but she’s very attached to her friends. And you know, relationships. And so you know, that she’s argued for Nikki to be your paralegal and for Daredevil to come back. And so she’s she was in a much stronger position, I think, then than that. But the one thing then in I don’t know if you noticed this, but Kevin says that you won’t be able to come back and talk to me because she’s talking about the second season. And he goes, You can’t come back to me, I fixed that glitch. And if you noticed, she never breaks the fourth wall again, the rest of the episode.

Ashley Carlisle  37:06

So that was going to be a question I have for you, because I did hear that. But I wasn’t sure if it was the fourth wall or if you know, I fixed the glitch of you being able to break in and wreak havoc on the Marvel Studios. Yeah, I wasn’t sure which one he was referring to.

Greg Lambert  37:20

Yeah. So the other thing to think about is does this means that when Deadpool comes in, he won’t be able to break the fourth wall anymore, either.

Ashley Carlisle  37:31

Oh, wow. So that’s a lot of Deadpool is comedy. So hopefully, for Ryan Reynolds and CO that is not the case.

Greg Lambert  37:38

All right, so we get back into the show, and well,

Ashley Carlisle  37:44

so just so I can make sure I have this right. The only thing that Kevin really changed was that Todd has not bro Hulk yet.

Greg Lambert  37:55

Right? And right, and Hulk did not come in to save the day.

Ashley Carlisle  38:00

So Todd is still his measly awful glasses Todd Phelps.

Greg Lambert  38:05

Exactly. No, I think because while he’s still the leader of the intelligencia so and still Hulk King, he’s still Stoller blood, unfortunately, he still took over, you know, all of our personal information, he still displayed that in public. So yeah, there’s still still pretty slimy he’s just not a Hulk

Ashley Carlisle  38:26

As your as your Los Angeles local council in California with counsel, I looked up to see if it was a if there was a cause of action for stealing someone else’s blood or genetic material from person to person. Unclear, which was terrifying to find out, apparently, like, you know, ancestry.com, whatever California passed a series of regulations they have to abide by. Police need a warrant, but person to person, there’s not a lot of laws out there. Which was really terrifying. So let’s kind of this could have been done totally fine.

Greg Lambert  38:58

All right. So yeah, we get back and we it ends up I think the next scene is Todd is in handcuffs. And again, he’s expecting her to beat him up. And instead she’s like, I’m gonna see you in court. And once again, we see Jen Walter She-Hulk. It’s not about the strength, it’s about the rule of law. And that’s what she’s going to rely on to to fix the situation. So, you know, comes back to turns out this is a lawyer show.

Ashley Carlisle  39:31

So perhaps she’s putting back up the Legally Blonde poster.

Greg Lambert  39:34

What one can hope one can hope. See, so where do we go from here? Oh, we do get Daredevil literally dropping in out of the sky. So that that was interesting. And Titania

Ashley Carlisle  39:47

is a fan of Daredevil. Yeah. So hopefully that won’t be a power struggle. If there is a season two.

Greg Lambert  39:53

Well, that and it was nice because I think he appreciated the fact that she didn’t know who he was. Because if you remember In the last episode, and didn’t know who Daredevil was, right?

Ashley Carlisle  40:05

We combination seems to be a good die. We think other than breaking the inhibitor and going into the form of abomination. He seems to help Jen try to get out of the situation to like fights the Hulk. He doesn’t seem to fight the pro violation and whatever conditions she’s negotiated. So I guess he’s a good guy, which was surprising to me.

Greg Lambert  40:24

Yeah, we’ll see. I think there’s, there’s some more shows coming up where he may or may not be involved. So time will tell. And then the the final scene in the show is we see Jen on her while she Hulk on her way to court to, I think, to go after Todd Phelps, and is questioned by a reporter. And we kind of still see the same ol same ol going on. You want to cover with the reporters?

Ashley Carlisle  40:58

Well, the reporter said many things at the top, he helped us by saying that her charges were cleared, I guess her inhibitor is gone, which is why she can be in the She-Hulk for which that’s the only helpful thing he said. Then he proceeds to ask her, you know, if she’s excited for the case, blada blada, blada. If people should fear her in and out of the courtroom, to which she says basically, yes, meaning she’s going to pull a daredevil potentially and do the vigilante stuff as well, on the side, which, you know, because she is a public figure that could create all sorts of issues for her. And then at the end, after, you know, we got some good information, he decides to ask what she is wearing, which is the Hollywood inside joke for women are always just we’re level down to our appearance of being judged for that. And then when she refuses to answer he calls her the difficult diva of law, which I want merch to be made of fist, I want to wear this shirt everywhere. Difficult Diva of Law, it’s very long, but it’s my new catchphrase.

Greg Lambert  41:59

Let’s see if we can get your shirt like that says in the in credits. I think there was only one thing that I saw. And I think you saw it too, with how abomination was able to become abomination without triggering the inhibitor signal. And that was he attached it to one of the chickens.

Ashley Carlisle  42:21

So hilarious. How did that I guess he did have the one hiccup the one time that they were like, Oh, he took off his inhibitor. But I guess he perfected his science.

Greg Lambert  42:30

Yeah, well, maybe maybe. Princess silk feather? Is that the name of the ridiculous. He said he had an incident with an electric fence. Maybe maybe the chicken ran into the electric fence and cause the inhibitor to short out.

Ashley Carlisle  42:47

And so he didn’t totally lie to Jen Walter. She just didn’t ask great questions once again. ,

Greg Lambert  42:52

And then the last thing we do get a post credit scene and we see one come in and take Emil Blonsky, away to Kamar Taj. And so we know that abomination is not in prison that he is with Wong and so you know, fingers crossed, we will see him in other shows down the road.

Ashley Carlisle  43:20

So definitely another parole violation.

Greg Lambert  43:24

Definitely. So

Ashley Carlisle  43:25

Jen will be busy the next business day dealing with this?

Greg Lambert  43:29

Yes, she will. So that wraps up the show. But I specifically wanted to talk to you about what you thought about the marketing department at GLK/H. For this show that, you know, here we have essentially a large law firm, I would assume it’s like an am law 100 style law firm. And you’re the CMO of GLK/H. Now I’m giving you that role. How would you fix this?

Ashley Carlisle  44:04

Well, I don’t think they had a marketing department or if they did they were asleep or busy doing other things. People may be hopefully they’re not surprised. But I think people would be surprised how many marketing professionals there are. And these big law firms out there paid a considerable amount of money because although they’re not doing the most cutting edge, innovative, you know, marketing campaigns, what have you. It’s really important to keep law firms being talked about in the press clients, you know, spotlighted, the wind, spotlighted, making thought leaders out of the partners and the various associates there and just being professional and kind of always up to date. That’s a very large job when you have hundreds of attorneys working in one organization. Obviously here, they just didn’t include the marketing people. They have probably the best marketing cache you could have, which is a superhero, who was also a lawyer gonna read a division. And if I was the CMO, obviously I would have her everywhere there would be a She-Hulk podcast, we’d be interviewing all of these superheroes that I guess they were doing pro bono work for hoping that Felicity would help out which publicity is great, that’s kind of separate from marketing, but can be used together. But also the media training, as we talked about, she obviously hated the media wasn’t confident, wasn’t sure what her kind of story points were on how her image was within the firm, that should have been straightened out on day one. When Holloway met her in the hallway, the marketing person should have been with him saying, hey, so here’s your media training, do you need help with your budget? Do you need help with your office? Do you need help with all these things? Here’s the story of how you’re the head of this group here. That just didn’t happen. So I don’t know if it was part of the story of Holloway, just not giving her a chance to succeed, like giving her kind of the bare minimum and like not supporting her along the way. But she really had no marketing support in any of this, which is kind of seeing when you see the Titania, marketing genius, a couple of episodes later, because this lady has probably, I’m guessing an awful makeup line of products. They make fun of how everything’s basically the same thing just repurposed into different vials. Yet her marketing was amazing. There was storytelling. You know, she had social media marketing, she was obsessed with her target, which was Jen, so much so that everywhere Jen turned, there were some sort of marketing asset for her to see that was all streamlined. So I kind of think marketing was used in the show, or the lack thereof, to kind of show that Holloway just didn’t support her, and that she was very awkward. And she didn’t really have the support. She needed to kind of grow into herself and take ownership. But also, if there was a marketing person, we wouldn’t have had the whole gin finds her footing storyline.

Greg Lambert  46:49

Mm hmm, true, true. But that’s why our getting’s there’s so

Ashley Carlisle  46:53

Storytelling is everything. Yeah. But no, I think people would be shocked the real life marketing of a big law firm like this, versus what we showed in the show, because as you know, like the huge law firms, I mean, a CMO at one of these might be making almost a million dollars, like, it’s a very important job. And they’re working around the clock, and they’re constantly producing content to make the firm look like they are winning all day and night. So they would have gin out there all the time, just a content machine as she Hulk, that would have been a huge part of her job.

Greg Lambert  47:24

I know one of the things that we do, especially when you have a lateral hire, like Jen was coming in, that, you know, she was on an associate coming in, she was working somewhere else is coming in, especially if you’re going to label her as the face of this SuperHuman Law Division, which essentially is a practice group and industry group, I guess, that, you know, the marketing team would be in full force, that they would have a press release ready to go. There would be time set up on how how do we want to get you exposure? Who do we want you to interview with? How do we want to tell your story? And so yeah, there’s a there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes because especially with a practice group like this, that, you know, there were certain things that were big moneymakers, Megan, Megan, the stallion, Todd, chain with leaping frog where they you know, people that had money, but she also handled a couple of pro bono cases. And so, you know, it’s just one of those things where, you know, if you’re going to be the face, everything you do has to help facilitate the success of that group.

Ashley Carlisle  48:44

Yeah, the bottom line and revenue, especially if a lot of the cases in that group are just pure publicity, that revenue has to happen somewhere else, whether like he was saying, Oh, they’re so excited to have a HELOC on the case or other clients think it’s a power grab that needs to be publicized all day, every day. So yes, I think there was a severe lack of marketing for She-Hulk. But like I said, I think it was kind of on purpose. And I think that’s how the Titania was a foil. And that’s part of why they showed the product launch in her pop up in LA with the experiential marketing. I think Titania is someone who knows who she is, even if she’s not doing the right thing all the time. And I think Jen takes too much thought and mindfulness and to what she’s doing and what her path is going to be. And so it was a longer burn into having confidence in being the duel Jen Walters She Hulk?

Greg Lambert  49:33

Yeah. Well, I think that puts a bow on the show for us.

Ashley Carlisle  49:39

Well, but I want to hear your final thoughts on the whole season. Now that you have recounted all of these.

Greg Lambert  49:45

Well, I think it fit exactly what I was expecting. And that was it was going to be and again I come at this with some previous knowledge of the She-Hulk in the comic series, whether It was the original Stan Lee, or the John Byrne version or the Dan slot version. And it fit exactly what I had imagined. I think it also predicted how people would respond to it. And played on that. So that, you know, a lot of the trolls that are in the show, I mean, are almost run parallel to the trolls that are in the real world that were, you know, slamming the show itself. So I thought they were they were really good about kind of predicting how people were going to react to certain things, you know, as a legal show, as with all television legal shows, you can’t go into a show like this and expect it to be very realistic, you have to suspend belief on on a number of things. I think there were a few things they could have tightened up on it and wouldn’t have taken a lot of effort to find out what would a real law firm do in the situation? What would a real attorney do? What would a real judge do? And this, you know, and still been able to have done it in, you know, 25 minutes? If and when there’s a season two, I really hope that Marvel reaches out and talks and has a has a legal consultant.

Ashley Carlisle  51:21

We are available Marvel! Yeah, yeah. So Greg and I are available.

Greg Lambert  51:25

And some of us are local. Not me. But you.  It’s done in Georgia. So we’ll have to

Ashley Carlisle  51:32

The Marvel office is in Burbank. That’s true. And I will sign the NDA.

Greg Lambert  51:38

I would sign an NDA as well. But I love the show. From from beginning to end, it was exactly what I wanted. It fit the character that I that I grew up with and knew very well, I think it again, I myself really love shows that have strong female characters in them. I have also started hesitating, using the word female.

Ashley Carlisle  52:06

I know I was second guess myself now because of all the jokes which are very spot on. Yeah.

Greg Lambert  52:10

And and so, you know, I was very satisfied with this. And I’m going to love the fact that, you know, I think the prediction is that She Hulk will show back up in The Avengers, there may be a role for her and the Fantastic Four as well. So Tatiana, the actress is a great actress wonderful. Just I you know, I’d loved her I didn’t watch a lot of Orphan Black, but the way she was able to handle so many different roles and Orphan Black I think you saw her acting chops here that she felt like Jen Walters and you know, watching some of the behind the scenes with the CGI where she was actually doing and moving as the She Hulk as well. I thought she did a great job. The whole Daredevil introduction and and the the romance of the potential Walters and Murdock are Murdock and Walters law firm. Love, love that concept. And so yeah, I’m I’m I was quite happy with the show. So let me ask you what was your overall opinion of the show?

Ashley Carlisle  53:18

So as someone who’s not a Marvel superfan, or even really a strong Marvel fan, I just occasionally watch movies as my husband does. So I really didn’t have much of the backstory here. I was coming for a legal comedy. I think it definitely had moments where that resonated by the eighth episode I was with Daredevil I was really enjoying the swing of things. I think how they ended it is a little severe if you’re not a Marvel fan. But overall, I enjoyed the series. I think the last episode just ended on kind of a late what’s going on for me just because I really had to do research to figure out what all of these little details added up to which when you do the research, it’s incredible to see the like I said the attention to detail the meta on meta jumping the shark. I mean, it is phenomenal the amount of work that’s put into it. But as a casual viewer who came for a legal show, it ended in a very odd way. So I’m excited. Hopefully there’s a season two, I hope there’s more Daredevil. I think that love story could be very fun, especially as she decides to kind of lead his lifestyle of justice in and out of the courtroom, which will probably create a whole lot of issues. I’m excited for it. I liked it. Overall, it was a slow burn for me and it ended kind of weird, but I think she is an exceptional actress. I think this would be very hard for anyone and she made it believable. I also believe that she took a lot of stock in the fact that she was being an attorney too, even though some of it wasn’t 100%. It was done very well.

Greg Lambert  54:48

Yep. And my favorite non lead character is Nikki, the paralegal she just knocked every scene she was in. She just knocked it out of the park. I absolutely love Have that character and the actress that played her did such a great job. And you want more justice for pug, and I want more justice for pug. pug is a you know, a real strong character in the comics and I would like to see that. But again, we’re talking, you know, 25 minute long F TV episodes, there’s only so much you can pack in there without it turning into season three of heroes, which may be super meta reference. were things that the storylines just got too complicated. So, all right, any final thoughts?

Ashley Carlisle  55:35

I hope there’s a season two Me too.

Greg Lambert  55:37

Me too. Well, Ashley Carlisle, thank you very much for coming in and help helping us wrap up the series for now. Or at least the season finale, hopefully not the series finale. And hopefully not yet. So thank you once again.

Ashley Carlisle  55:50

Yes, thank you so much.

Greg Lambert  55:52

It’s been a lot of fun. All right. And as Joshua would say stay super everybody.

I’m not really into the whole brevity thing. I already wrote a brief post (only 800 words) that concludes with concise advice to law departments on discounts, AFAs, panels, outside counsel guidelines, RFPs, and, in particular, a humbling recommendation they not ask law firms about the use of technology unless the answers will inform structured dialogue to improve business outcomes at scale and pace (because I’d previously written a book on this subject).

At the conclusion of this off-brand concision, I promised my tiny corps of hard core readers an extended universe of nerd content. Fair warning, this is not for everyone.

I’m a massive disappointment. For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. In pursuit of being less wrong, I refuse to promote simple answers to complex problems no matter how keen my audience is to learn ‘the one quick trick.’

My primary deck for presenting to law departments includes a slide acknowledging that what follows is “Easier said than done!” My voiceover explains my fundamental interest in hard problems and the fundamental truth that addressing hard problems requires hard work, where consistency trumps intensity—i.e., hard work for sustained periods.

Recently, I’ve even gone so far as to up my meme game and add a reminder slide near the end. My hope was Gotham’s favorite son could reinforce my poverty of easy answers.

But hard ≠ impossible. I therefore conclude the talk—aptly titled “Winter is Coming”—with a nod towards reframing our approach to driving better outcomes at scale and pace: embedded advisory, compliance by design, integrated law, legal marketplaces, industry standards, service delivery maturity models, value storytelling, etc.

My caveats prove ineffectual. The shiny new vocabulary supported by an avalanche of data suggest to people (a) I have no hobbies, and (b) I have devoted real time to interrogating these questions (true enough) and therefore may possess the secret to unlocking all their law department’s latent potential (decidedly false). While I can advance strategic thinking and offer tactical guidance (tech, matter management, CLM, ediscovery, ADR, managed services), I don’t do magic.

When it becomes apparent I can’t provide the answer and many of my interconnected ‘answers’ are truly easier said than done, I find myself subject to all manner of special pleading about the obstacles my in-house compatriots face. Cost-cutting. Hiring freezes. Bandwidth constraints. Organizational politics. Legacy systems. Inertia. Etc.

In short, people tell me their jobs are hard. I believe them.

It is hard out there, and getting harder. Economics is the study of how humans make choices under conditions of scarcity. Recent headlines reflecting the scarcity of resources available to law departments, relative to escalating demand, should activate our empathy:

• Chaos, Complexities Overwhelming In-House Lawyers
• Legal Departments Report Swelling Workloads—but Without Budget Increases
• Legal Departments Are Eager to Do More with Less But Are Fuzzy on the Path
• 70% of Legal Departments Don’t Invest in Digital Transformation
• Weak Earnings Reports Add to Legal Departments 2023 Anxieties
• In-House Lawyers Are Stressed and Want to Walk Out

Almost 80% of in-house counsel are burned out and almost 70% are looking to move jobs in the next year. This is very unhealthy. And yet we may be only at the front end of some extraordinary “more with less” contortionism as we cope with deteriorating economic conditions.

Solving complex problems under adverse conditions is not obvious, simple, nor easy. We should empathize with how truly challenged in-house teams are, and will be.

The Gordian Knot of in-house existence is relentless pressure to cut costs (ratcheting up now) while servicing ever greater demands from the business as the complexity of the external operating environment explodes. Unyielding pressure to meet immediate, escalating business needs shortens time horizons on which in-house teams operate and saps patience for projects that not only distract from but affirmatively disrupt work getting done.

Solving for now. Tunnel vision is a completely comprehensible response from committed professionals who are legitimately busy, and becoming busier by the day. They feel they must tread water simply to avoid drowning. In fact, they must run ever faster to merely fall behind more slowly. They are involuntary entrants in a Red Queen’s Race—up a hill with a parabolic slope. No wonder they are burning out.

Near-term, failure is not an option (zero-risk bias). Long-term, failure is the only option, one way or the other. Disruptive projects, including experiments, ambitious enough that failure is a distinct possibility are the only viable path to achieving adequate leverage—i.e., narrowing the ever-widening gap between business needs and legal resources. But disruptive projects, by definition, distract from work, and there is much important work that needs be done now (with the backlog lengthening by the day). Disruptive projects demand time from people who have no time to spare and no time to wait.

The low-level time-savings arithmetic is simple and compelling, in the abstract. In reality, explain to a busy person you need five hours of their time to shave five minutes off their day, they will look at you like you have lost your mind. Five real hours ‘lost’ is valued far more than the net sixteen theoretical hours saved in year one and the twenty one hours saved every year thereafter. This preferencing of the present over the future is known as hyperbolic discounting. And these micro-level dynamics become materially more fraught at the macro level due to collective-action problems and path dependence. 

Compounding complexity. In the foregoing, I repeatedly reference the intensifying demands on legal. I’ve previously covered the compounding complexity of the business operating environment. In brief, now more than ever, expert legal guidance affects business outcomes. In theory, this guidance need not come from traditional lawyer-delivered services but, in practice, still largely does.

Regalytics estimates “there are over twenty five thousand regulators in the US, and more than five million globally.” Regulators regulate. Regulations don’t merely accrete. Regulations overlap, intersect, and, often, as you cross borders, conflict.

Professor Dan Katz and his collaborators have empirically established the resulting increase in legal complexity—see here, here, here, here. The charts below track the unbroken upward trajectory and intersecting nature of statutes and regulations, as well as the increase in references thereto in 10-K’s (the public documents where corporations identify that which is material to their business).

The evolving regulatory environment, exacerbated by the attendant surge in investigations and litigation, is a primary source of intensifying demands on legal (there are others, like the Cambrian explosion in data volumes, which, of course, is also an active driver of net new regulation). From the perspective of the business, this unintended acceleration in complexity is real, organic, and exogenous (i.e., externally imposed), regardless of convenience, conduciveness to making money, or conformity to resource-allocation preferences. Of particular moment, newly enacted regulations and newly filed litigations do not exempt companies in cost-cutting mode.

The imitable Jae Um summed up her own stellar work on the “silent explosion of demand” thusly, “It’s up. Like, a lot.” (see here, here, here)

Cascading complicatedness. Complexity breeds complicatedness. Complicatedness is “the increase in organizational structures, processes, procedures, decision rights, metrics, scorecards, and committees that companies impose to manage the escalating complexity of their external business environment.” Critically, “complicatedness hampers growth by slowing innovation…And it cuts margins by injecting inefficiency and cost into operations.”

Counterintuitively, organization size does not appear to be an influential driver of complicatedness. Completely intuitively, greater levels of regulation strongly correlate with higher levels of complicatedness. As the Boston Consulting Group characterizes it, organizations that “face daunting levels of external complexity…seem to have mimicked that complexity within their own organizations.”

BCG is responsible for the landmark analysis of complicatedness, the fabulous Six Simple Rules (h/t Jae). When the book released in 2014, BCG calculated that while environmental complexity had increased 6x, organizational complicatedness had increased 35x—i.e., unchecked, internal complicatedness tends to increase at a multiple of external complexity.

Additional studies have documented the time lost to low-value management processes, from budgeting to performance reviews, leading the co-founders of the Management Lab, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, to conclude in 2017, “it’s reasonable to assume that as much as 50% of all internal compliance activity is of questionable value…there’s compelling evidence that bureaucracy creates a significant drag on productivity and organizational resilience and innovation. By our reckoning, the cost of excess bureaucracy in the U.S. economy amounts to more than $3 trillion in lost economic output.”

The resulting demotivating labyrinth is among the reasons, as I once observed far less eruditely, “Every institution, no matter how venerable, looks like a goat rodeo from the inside.”

In-house lawyers are not immune from the suffering nor the allure of complicatedness.

• In-house lawyers, of course, must navigate increasingly complicated organizations both (i) to do their increasingly complex jobs and, at the department level, (ii) to acquire sufficient resources to do their jobs. With respect to the latter, finance, IT, HR, procurement, et al. are often more hindrances than helps in enabling the law department to meet the growing legal needs of the enterprise.
• Most other functions, however, would list legal among these internal blockers. The Department of Slow. The Department of No. 73% of enterprise employees perceive legal as a bad business partner and 65% admit to intentionally bypassing legal to get their work done. Legal is seen as introducing all manner of complicatedness—bureaucracy, restraints, chokepoints—that reduces business velocity.
• This friction is also externalized. Via the law department, each corporate client becomes like an independent regulatory body imposing complexity on their external providers through various mechanisms, especially outside counsel guidelines. I’m on record as loathing outside counsel guidelines, but I commend two epic Jae Twitter threads on how OCGs inject complicatedness into the B2B relationship (here and here).

Wicked problems and the limits of satisficing. As Jae observes, billing at scale is a wicked problem. Legal is beset by all manner of wicked problems where there is no single solution “and ‘wicked’ denotes resistance to resolution, rather than evil…Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. Due to their complexity, wicked problems are often characterized by organized irresponsibility.”

Unfortunately, wicked problems do not lend themselves to satisficing solutions. A portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, satisficing is a decision-making strategy to deliver ‘good enough’ outcomes—i.e., a solution that while suboptimal meets an acceptability threshold. Herbert Simon won the Noble Prize in Economics for the articulating the concept, “decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world.” Satisficing is central to Simon’s work on bounded rationality and heuristics—i.e., mental shortcuts to reduce cognitive load and reach practical decisions within limitations (e.g., non-infinite time, knowledge).

Like adding another process, procedure, or layer to an organization, most outside counsel guidelines present as good enough. Most aren’t. The same is true of most discounts, AFAs, panel programs, and RFPs. But that’s an exploration for next post.

This post, I am interested in why law departments might solve for the local optimum at the expense of the global optimum. Why pursue the path of least resistance? Or, as our library and information science friends (like Greg and Sarah, who I am scared will yell at me for this) might frame it, the principle of least effort, which speaks to our propensity to use the most convenient methods and familiar tools to achieve minimally acceptable results—paired with our apparently hard-wired tendency to overrate the adequacy of low-hanging fruit. Say what you will about the problematic mechanics of modern legal buy, the standard kludges are ostensibly convenient for, and familiar to, law departments while achieving superficially acceptable results—i.e., they fuel the activity illusion without actually requiring real changes in consumption behavior.

This is no one’s fault. Blame-based narratives are unhelpful, and there is nothing particular to lawyers in this regard. Mastery, autonomy, and purpose are universal incentives—i.e., that lawyers are fundamentally focused on lawyering is entirely natural and consistent with the beneficial impacts of the division of labor. Everyone is susceptible to déformation professionnelle—defaulting to the point of view of one’s own area of expertise. The law of the instrument (to the hammer, everything looks like a nail) is termed a law for good reason.

Lawyers’ instrument is lawyer time—abiding by what I’ve labeled the “lawyer theory of value.” It is completely unsurprising, especially when workloads already exceed capacity and the time horizon is yesterday, that the most appealing pressure release valve to increase current capacity to handle more legal work is more lawyering by more lawyers.

Go with what you know. For now, people remain the closest approximation to plug-and-play resources. Ask an overwhelmed human what would provide the most immediate assistance for a crushing workload, and their answer might well be cloning. That is, a carbon copy of themselves, needing no onboarding. The next best option is another person like them—in our case, a similarly trained, similarly smart legal professional who can ramp-up quickly.

In meeting the legal needs of business, lawyer time persists as the key resource and key constraint. Insourcing is the mechanism by which businesses purchase large blocks of lawyer time for low, flat fees—i.e., lower fees relative to market price for what is considered comparable external legal services. Insourcing is labor arbitrage. In theory, insourcing also gives companies direct control over how legal services are delivered and therefore the ability to transform them. In reality, examples of transformation are few and far between.

Law departments start as less expensive, more accessible alternatives to law firms, and continue to be characterized as such. Lawyer-centric insourcing services the law departments’ dubious savings mandate while appealing to the instinct to throw bodies at the problem (resulting in a bad case of Baumol’s cost disease). Insourcing delivers what law departments ‘feel’ they need (more bodies to handle more work) while enabling them to satisfy their mandate (more with less).

Insourcing has been the biggest story in legal, for decades. Since the middle of the 1990s, law departments have expanded at 7x the rate of law firms. There are now more in-house lawyers in the United States than in the domestic offices of the AmLaw 200—in-house is bigger than BigLaw:

Insourcing works. At the average corporation, legal costs steadily decline as a percentage of revenue, and many corporations experience brief periods of reduction in raw legal spend. Insourcing works—until it doesn’t.

While demands on the law department accelerate, the willingness of the enterprise to invest resources in the law department declines. Money is but one resource. Headcount also hits upper bounds, and not solely for fiscal reasons. There are hard and soft constraints on corporations’ general willingness to hire, as well as their specific eagerness to allocate finite FTEs to the law department. This headcount cap frustrates both the department’s bias for more bodies and the company’s savings expectations.

Even without a headcount cap, insourcing is insufficient and subject to diminishing returns. At best, growing headcount is a linear solution to a nonlinear problem. To return to a favorite Barnwellism, “If capacity must increase by 10x, our current approaches break, as the option of a 10x increase in hiring is simply off the table.” Rather, as Jason rightly observes, “we will need more capacity and new capabilities that mere conservation of resources cannot deliver. Our evolutionary path needs improvements on how we do work today that range from whole-multiples to orders-of-magnitude. This is transformation. Transformation is system-level change.”

System-level change, of course, is not what lawyers were trained to do.

The solution to our wicked problems. Long post. I thank you for making it this far. But you were warned. You should have abandoned hope at the outset.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. These truly hard problems do not lend themselves to simple solutions. My objective in this post was to activate empathy. We should seek to understand why smart, committed professionals might feel they have no choice but to pursue suboptimal quick fixes. My overall objective for this series, however, is to highlight that these are in fact choices, and we can choose to stop doing that which is unhelpful. We may be poorly positioned to resolve all our wicked problems. But we need not make circumstances worse. Doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing even when something must be done.

This week we reached out to local Los Angeles counsel, lawyer Ashley Carlisle, who is the Head of Marketing at HyperDraft to help break down Ep. 8 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, “Ribbit and Rip It.” And there is a lot to talk about in the penultimate episode of season one.

We’d really like it if Jennifer/She-Hulk would take a little more time interviewing her clients before representing them in court. Specifically, ask more detailed questions of anyone who runs around in a superpowered Frog suit and calls themselves LeapFrog. Even if, or maybe especially if, your client’s father is a big client at GLK/H.

We finally get to see Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, in action, both in the court and fighting goons in dark hallways. Not to mention the chemistry between Jen and Matt. For two people who can fight and discuss legal defense strategy at the same time, we need to see them team-up much more often. (Maybe there is a future Murdock and Walters law firm in the making??? Please, MCU, say yes!!)

Just how much property damage can She-Hulk cause, and still feel like she needs to leave a note confessing to it?

And finally, the Gala Awards for “Female Lawyer of the Year” starts off bad, and immediately gets worse.

Huge thanks to Ashley Carlislie for lending a hand this week in discussing all the legal and other issues. To find out more about Ashley and HyperDraft, check out the links below.

Listen on mobile platforms: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Links:

• Ashley Carlislie (LinkedIn)

• HyperDraft (website)

• HyperDraft (LinkedIn)

• Gail Simone’s Women in Refrigerators (Being Fridged)

• SuperHuman Law Division Website

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:19
Imagine running a SuperHuman Law Division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She-Hulk Attorney at Law on Disney plus. So let’s dive into Episode Eight, rebut and rebut. I’m Greg Lambert and this week I reached out to local Los Angeles Council lawyer Ashley Carlisle, who is the Head of Marketing at HyperDraft. Ashley, Thanks for stepping in for Joshua, who couldn’t make it in this week. Very happy to have you here. So before we get into this episode, what do you think of the series so far?

Ashley Carlisle 0:55
I’m really excited to chat with you today. Because, you know, this episode really led me to start liking the series more if I’m being honest, I think Daredevil helped a lot of things. And it helped me kind of appreciate a lot of the easter eggs that have been throughout the series. I’m not gonna lie. At the beginning, I was kinda like, where’s this going? I’m not quite sure if I’ve into it, especially with the origin story. At the beginning. I was like, Is this necessary? What is her character? Are we going to like her? Is this going to be all about being like a girl and, you know, a lot of random comments about how hard it is to be a woman, which are all true, but you know, this, I came for a lawyer show that has a lot of, you know, Action Comics. So I’m very happy that kind of in this episode, there’s the law, there’s action, there’s Daredevil, it kind of has it all. I would say that also in this episode, I kind of started noticing some of the little details that I had missed earlier. And so I went back and I didn’t realize how many cool easter eggs there are throughout this series. Like there’s the Ally McBeal references in the Legal Ease Bar, which is just a great name. I think there’s some Ruth Bader Ginsburg references as well, just with the set pieces. So I’m definitely excited for the next episode to see how they’re going to end us off, because I just think the details are coming together.

Greg Lambert 2:11
Yep. And I don’t know if you notice, but actually, I think it may have been in episode one or two, when they first introduced legalese Ally McBeal The show is actually playing on the TV behind them as they’re as they’re talking. So

Ashley Carlisle 2:27
yes, and I am a big fan of Ally McBeal. I know people are gonna say various things about it is absolutely an insane romantic comedy. You know, like, you have the Wookiee chuck a little guy, that’s like Lizzie McGuire style on the TV screen. It’s crazy, but it really was like a young cool attorney. So it makes sense that there’s parallels because you know, she is a younger attorney, she is living her life she is dating so I definitely like and you know, there’s a romantic comedy to this too, which Marvel rarely does. So I do like the commonalities between the two and I’m glad they’re kind of embracing that.

Greg Lambert 3:00
Yeah, yeah, me too. I do like the fact that this is a as they say lawyer show and we get a you know this the combination of action but also the the legal part as well. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have this podcast. So

Ashley Carlisle 3:15
yeah, gotta judge their legal realism you got an issue spot.

Greg Lambert 3:20
So we’re going to cover the penultimate episode here in season one and really kind of breaks down into I think about four different scenes that we see so we have leapfrogs case first and then we have a short scene with the with the slimy Todd Phelps client of GLK/H we get a little bit more leap frog action with a with a really cool cameo. And then we get the gala at the end so let’s start off with the leap frog case. Just to set kind of the the facts here we have the scene open with Leap Frog as calling himself the guard frog as he is I guess has taken it upon himself to protect this electronic store that it’s being robbed. He gets into a fight with a couple of the guys and then he says his magic catchphrase of rebut and rip it which I

Ashley Carlisle 4:25
think is the best yeah, like I love how they’re using it throughout the episode i Even though he’s horrible. I want to adopt it for myself as well. It’s like a pumpup jam. I feel like it could be a rap song.

Greg Lambert 4:35
I love the fact that that even Holloway was was was using it as well. So he goes to launch and use a suit. His suit comes crashing down when his apparently jet pack around his feet fails and he crashes and has third degree burns around his legs and of course is wanting to to sue for damages. So what were your thoughts about the interaction with with She-Hulk? Jennifer Walters?

Ashley Carlisle 5:09
Yeah, I think it was interesting. They just jumped right into the law on this episode. Because you know, in others, sometimes it’s been in the end, or it’s just like a blip. First and foremost, I will point out, it’s very obvious that she does not like this client. And I think that happens a lot. And I think lawyers, you know, most of the time, we don’t have to meet our clients in person, especially, you know, on the age of COVID, and post COVID. But sometimes it is hard when you really don’t like the person to have to be professional and turn it on. I don’t know if she was really trying not hard. But I thought it was a funny kind of commentary of things that happen in real life, there are a couple of things that very Hollywood about kind of this consultation. I don’t know if you noticed, but like her screen was pointed towards the camera, and you could see like a pleading she was working on. And I was just so confused, because I was like, I guess you would be reviewing your document with your client. But like, I don’t see you asking him questions. And as we find out in the hearing later, like she really didn’t ask him questions about his claim. So it’s like, why is the screen out? Like 101, like, confidential documents you like, lock your screen, you put them away? It’s just like a thing you’re taught to do. Also, you know, just the lack of asking questions, I think she wanted to get them out as quickly as possible. But as we find out, when she goes to court, later on, she didn’t really have even the basics covered of like the claim. You know, with products liability, it’s pretty simple in regards to the fact that it has to be reasonable use, and you have to follow instructions. And obviously, there were some issues there. But I think the main thing, and I’m not very familiar with LeapFrog, but I did a little bit of research, and it seems like him and his dad, who is also a client at the firm in the comics are kind of this larger than life character who like think they’re a superhero, and they kind of just are horrible, which you know, is showcased here, you try to be Tony Stark, but money can’t buy you everything. So I also think it’s an interesting thing with, you know, her being stuck with this big clients kid, which I’ve never had to personally deal with. But you always hear the stories. And you know, I think client service at the end of the day, you have to have a book of business, you have to keep people happy, especially when you’re doing work for bigger clients. And so kind of having that dynamic I thought was very interesting, too, because she was kind of just dealt to deal with this person.

Greg Lambert 7:25
Yeah, I think one of the things that I know, at least most of the firms that I know of, while some of some of us will will meet with clients in our office, most of the time, we will take them into a conference room and talk to them just because there’s less distractions there. You don’t have your screen and your email popping up. I guess you still have your, your cell phone. So but I think it’s been consistent throughout the whole show. Jen’s not a very good interviewer of clients, getting information out of them. And there’s so much information that pops up at trial, which again, we’ve we’ve kind of said in the Marvel 616 universe, you have to have the trial start and end within 23 minutes, or however long you’ve got in the episode. And so I think again, yeah, there was a lot of kind of rushing this through and not getting a good information from from her client. We also run into the famous conflicts process, again, at law firms, which happens a lot. I know I’m I’m over the conflicts team at my firm. And so you know, we have a complete staff dedicated to it. Plus, all the attorneys have to clear conflict. So it’s one of those things that happens, but seems to happen a lot with with Jen really does every case. Yeah. And this one’s a little unique in the fact that it’s not a conflict with another client. It’s actually a ethical conflict that she has because Luke Jacobson, who is her tailor is also the tailor for leap frog, and has designed a suit so she understands immediately that this case is going to go against someone with whom she has a personal relationship with, as you know, and as a customer of his and immediately and I think this is right on her part. Yeah, definitely raises this issue goes to Holloway, and says, Hey, I understand that this may not be a conflict that we can’t overcome. But ethically I feel like I can’t represent this client because how did she say with her unique physique? That Did you know that she would really hate to lose her Taylor over this? And Holloway? Again, I guess this is the one thing that the writers on the show learned about with with legal. And that was the the issue of conflict waivers and that a client, as long as they are well aware of what is going on and what what the potential conflict is that they can actually sign a waiver and say, I understand this conflict issue, I am going to go ahead and allow my attorney to represent me, even though there may be this conflict. And of course, the attorney has to do everything they can to reduce anything with that conflict.

Ashley Carlisle 10:42
Yeah, she does have a conflict issue. Well, I said, I agree with you that she did handle it in the moment, which I guess, cut shorter interview, which did not help her interviewing skills, but she did directly go to the managing partner, she followed the California Rules. One thing I will say is, I haven’t had to do many waivers, I think maybe two, they were not as quick as these. These seem to just happen magically. You know, he’s like, Oh, they have already agreed. They somehow already know this is an issue, even though you’re bringing it to me in this moment. Typically, in the real world, in my experience that takes a week or two even just to get the person like, Hey, knock, knock, like please even give me the time of day to explain this. Send your E signature back. So that’s a little fanciful in this.

Greg Lambert 11:23
Yeah. I think the conflict here though, would be the client would have to sign off on it, not the opposing party.

Ashley Carlisle 11:31
Right, what that brings? No, but typically, I don’t know, my clients in the past. You know, sometimes they’re on yachts. Sometimes they’re at conferences. I had one in Pakistani airspace, sometimes getting signatures can be harder than you can think. But yeah, so I think she did handle it correctly. I think she followed the California rule, which is you obviously have to disclose it written consent, what have you. I think it is interesting in the fact that we are seeing that the superhero world is super insular. And so she is She kind of knows a lot of the major players just because it’s kind of a small little club. So you know, the typical conflicts check is just current clients, former clients, what have you, it sounds like maybe they may need to widen it for her just make a list of everyone that’s kind of superhero adjacent, that she has some type of personal relationship with in the future, because it seems like this is gonna keep happening. Another thing that I just and I don’t know if you guys have talked about this, but I was bothered a few episodes ago with like, the you have to be She-Hulk at work thing. Oh, yeah. Just because that just seems like an employment issue to me, like you have that’s basically being like, Okay, I’m gonna treat every other attorney this way. But we expect you to act this way. And then her identity has been revealed to the firm doesn’t even have a good argument, like Jennifer Walters, and She-Hulk are publicly known to be the same person. So you can’t even make the argument that she has to be in a different form for it to be known that she’s a superhero. So that has bothered me throughout that, like, I’m not a big fan of Holloway, he’s one of my I think might be bad guys like in my head, that I’m like, this might be him in the end. But this also, when she had this conversation of like, because of my unique physique, I need to be on good terms with the designer. It also just made me mad for her of like, well, if they didn’t make up She Hulk everywhere. You wouldn’t have to have this problem. Like if they just let you be Jennifer Walters at work. You wouldn’t have to like, find these outfits that are expandable for you and still look fashionable will really her personal assistant wouldn’t have to go and get all these outfits for her. Sorry,

Greg Lambert 13:29
personal assistant, paralegal, secretary, stylist

Ashley Carlisle 13:37
Publicist.

Greg Lambert 13:37
Yeah, Nikki, the the paralegal does everything. So it’s she she is a dream employee, I guess. But yeah, you’re right. The fact and in fact, it’s it’s kind of brought up. But again, here because Holloway again, says, Eugene, who’s leapfrog is very excited to have a She-Hulk on the on the case. And so you know, it’s this. And again, I want to bring you back next week to talk more about the marketing thing. But really, the only reason that Jennifer Walters is the head of the SuperHuman Law Division, is because she’s the She-Hulk. And so and I think that’s made clear, right up front. I think she she kind of found herself in again, even with this. She could not take the case, but I think it was implied that she doesn’t take the case. She’s not going to be working at GE okay. And ah,

Ashley Carlisle 14:37
she didn’t really negotiate herself a good deal at the secret accepting immediately at the bar. So yeah, not a lot of leverage here.

Greg Lambert 14:43
Yeah, there’s not a lot of good contracts that are made at the bar. So

Ashley Carlisle 14:51
that sounds right. I don’t have any evidence to that. But yeah,

Greg Lambert 14:53
So Holloway actually gives her a suggestion, which I think is legit because most cases you not go to court. Most cases are settled out of court. And so his idea is, Jen, go talk to Luke and see if you can make this thing go away. And and she does. And, man, it doesn’t go well.

Ashley Carlisle 15:16
It doesn’t go well. And this is me being persnickety. I know, in the real world, you know, things happen, and also a case technically hasn’t been filed yet. But like, Where was the line where she’s like, Oh, by the way, you probably should get a lawyer and you should let me know if you already have one who I should contact like, I was just waiting. It was like they knew what a conflicts waiver was like, someone please put that line in there somewhere. So people don’t think it’s normal for like the opposing side’s lawyer just come up to you and start talking. Because that’s, that’s not good. Not kosher. In most cases.

Greg Lambert 15:47
That’s happened quite a bit over quite a bit, you know, over the eight episodes that we that we’ve had, it’s probably happened at least eight times where they’ve talked with the opposing party without cowardy without counsel. So

Ashley Carlisle 16:02
Not great.

Greg Lambert 16:03
No, no

Ashley Carlisle 16:04
Should always ask or encourage. make clear that you are not their attorney, that you are opposing all the good things

Greg Lambert 16:12
will especially since she had ongoing work with him with the the dress for the gala that he’s making, which he assumes that’s why she’s there in the first place. Yeah. And so yeah, good.

Ashley Carlisle 16:25
He hasn’t been served yet. He doesn’t know what’s going on. Yes. The whole thing. I cringed the whole time. I was like, Please someone say it someone. Yeah. Or even just a subtitle to something.

Greg Lambert 16:38
Yeah. And I don’t think Jin had any legal recourse when he decided that he was not going to make her a gala dress after she came in and kind of blindsided him with the with talk of a lawsuit. And then and then that’s exactly what she says, Well, in that case, I’ll see you in court. Yeah, not good. Not good.

Ashley Carlisle 17:01
I find that most people who aren’t lawyers, even lawyers, you mentioned lawsuit, you’re immediately losing a friend. Like that doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t go over? Well. I think she learned that lesson. Never joke about it. When you talk about it, that’s gonna happen.

Greg Lambert 17:15
Exactly, exactly. So as what happens in the in at least in this universe, we immediately go to court somehow or the other. We the court seemed to be wide open, and you get the same judge every time

Ashley Carlisle 17:31
Same judge which in LA, it’s random assignment and wasn’t the first wasn’t the first I could be wrong. The first matter was criminal. Right. So criminal and civil all being in front of the same key seems like a nice judge seems great. Seems like it’s out of order the rules a bit with how the you know, the talking goes, but like, what are the chances of that? Also, that looks way nicer than the LA courtrooms that I have seen? I’m not a litigator, I have had to go for jury duty and some things. This is way this is an upgrade compared to Stanley mosque or anything other courtrooms in the LA area from what I’ve seen.

Greg Lambert 18:04
I don’t think they wanted that kind of realism in the courts. But because we do get to go to court, we get the the CAMEO that we’ve all been waiting for. And that is well, in fact, let me back up before I’ll let that cliffhanger hang out there a little bit longer. The judge sees Jacobson sitting at the table without counsel with him, and immediately says, you know, are you representing yourself? Where’s your counsel? Jen, unfortunately, kind of puts their foot in their mouth and saying, Oh, great, he’s not represented, get ready to, you know, get ready to count your money, which does not go well. And then we get to Matt Murdock walks in so what, what did you think of Matt coming in?

Ashley Carlisle 18:51
One, before even Matt walked in, I was very relieved that we were not going to have a weird pro se scene because even in real life, those are a train wreck. So I was worried that we were going to have some type of fanciful, weird battle in the courtroom. So happy that didn’t happen. He walks in. I don’t think any of us are surprised because we’ve seen the tease, but I was very excited. And I feel like just from my knowledge of the character, he has a lot of swagger, always. He’s always kind of with that debonair voice and that does not disappoint. My favorite thing is he comes in and without, you know, and you know, different courts have different rules, but there’s, you know, civil procedure and structure. The judge does not call anything to order. For some reason he talks first, he just starts questioning everyone really, the whole thing was, I mean, it was super entertaining. But looking back on it, I’m like, wait, what’s happening? Like, you just go ahead and reject discovery, which that whole conversation there are some legal realism some not like confidentiality is a valid objection in California. Typically, it’s balanced by a judge. They did do some research there. So you know They get a gold star for that. But the out of order the client talking and the attorney not saying, hey, please don’t do that, or the judge saying, Hey, I could hold you in contempt, like, don’t talk out of turn. And then somehow by the end of it, and sorry to jump ahead, but this was just incredulous to me. Matt Murdock somehow questions. The plaintiff being like, just asking questions. He’s not on the stand. He’s not a witness. You’re not in a deposition. And he answers the plaintiff just answers willingly. And there’s no like, objection. There’s no stopping. I wish it was wild. It was entertaining. But I’m just like, This doesn’t happen. If people think this happens in real life, they’re gonna be very disappointed.

Greg Lambert 20:41
but it is. This this show itself. There’s so much crosstalk you know, from not from the witness stand, but actually, at, you know, at the council’s table. And it’s just yeah, it’s insane. Again, it kind of speeds things along, but not very realistic. There was one thing that was mentioned in passing, when Matt Murdock was talking about why he wanted the dismissal of discovery was that the Sokovia chords had been repealed. And apparently, this is the first time that there’s been mention of the Sokovia chords being repealed. And for those that didn’t know, this was an international un agreement signed by 119 countries, including the United States, that regulated all super powered individuals. And it moved the Avengers away from being a private organization run basically, by Tony Stark, to being run by the US government and its nefarious agencies in there. And then that was also the reason for the split in the Civil War movies, from Iron Man and taking one side to back the Sokovia Accords. And Captain America backing the side to fight the Sokovia chords and protect the super human powered individuals from being regulated by governments. And so it’s really, really interesting in that, and I think that that you’re probably going to see that being talked about more as we get into to other shows. But you know, so now, the super humans are no longer regulated by the Sokovia Accords. Interesting.

Ashley Carlisle 22:29
Yeah, I would love your take on it, because you’re more in the MCU. And you just have a deep knowledge of, you know, comics, generally. But I saw it and I was like, okay, MCU plot device, this came out of nowhere. And I also had to, like, remind myself that this show happens, like slightly in the future, to where we are now. Like, I think it’s 2024 2025. Because I was like, the whole thing was very confusing. There’s so many Marvel movies that sometimes it’s hard to line up the timelines. But I definitely had to Google and be like, wait, what year are we in? And also, you’re just gonna rarely like just weirdly throw out like, oh, it’s been repealed, like, okay, it was tangentially related to the confidentiality concerns. But I will say like, also, if we’re being real here, which I don’t even, I don’t know, if I want to open this can of worms, but I’ll slightly get into it. There’s no way ever that that document would have been constitutional, or binding in the US anyways, the whole thing, the whole premise of it, even in other movies was so confusing to me. Because I was like, one, I mean, just going back to call him like, have you missing something, but like, it’s not a formal treaty. treaties have to be like, what is it two thirds of the Senate have to agree that’s it. Like that never happened to my knowledge and the movies. Also, even with this, like running these people to be punished in regards to this accord? Like, you still have to have right to counsel, there’s still things even war criminals have, we’re just like, Wait, this isn’t represented? And then would equal protection? Like, does that apply here at all? There’s so many things that I was like, okay, so you’re gonna bring up this random MCU plot device in a courtroom, which is going to lead all these other legal questions about this in the first place. But we’re not going to dive into that, because that is just like, not helping the storyline. We’re just gonna throw it out there. Move on to the next thing, it’ll probably be a thing in Captain America or what conda or whatever the whatever films are happening in the next year in the MCU. Universe, right. I thought it was hilarious. And at first, I was like, how is this related? And then I was like, I guess it’s tangentially related. And I liked Daredevil. So I’ll just let him have it. But definitely going out there on a limb.

Greg Lambert 24:25
In your right, that would be a whole separate, we could do a multi episode podcast on just the Sokovia Accords and the legality of that. So but it does lead to that part where you were talking about the the crosstalk across the council’s tables. And with LeapFrog, pulling out a suit and Matt Murdock apparently not caring if people might notice that. He used a sniffer to determine the HIV use jet fuel.

Ashley Carlisle 24:57
Also preservation of evidence. Yeah. I just saw many things just happens to have it.

Greg Lambert 25:03
Yeah, just here just show up to with your suit here at you know, basically I think, you know, the pre trial hearing. Yeah. So again, you get that crosstalk Eugene admits that he had put in jet fuel which was against the, the,

Ashley Carlisle 25:20
the instructions Yeah, manufacturer’s instructions.

Greg Lambert 25:23
Yeah. And in true MCU She-Hulk universe legal thing, the case immediately gets dismissed right on the spend.

Ashley Carlisle 25:34
The judge decides without motion like ticket typically right? At least Daredevil would be like, you know, motion for summary judgment. This is ridiculous. Like, they just throw away their case, the judge just decides to have his moment and just like interject like this is dismissed, like what? He seems like a nice guy once again, but like, I was just like, what is happening here?

Greg Lambert 25:55
Well, maybe maybe the shapeshifter is still pretending to be the judge. So that’s,

Ashley Carlisle 26:00
perhaps that character went and came so soon, she could have wreaked a lot more havoc. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed that one.

Greg Lambert 26:07
Yeah, I don’t know that we’re done with her in she hope. So case is tossed, who will just let that lie where it is, and just kind of grin and bear it. And then Jen and Matt meet up at will coincidentally meet back up at the legal ease bar, where Matt comes over and talks about his law practice. But I do have to notice that it’s very vague, other than the fact that he has a law practice in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s no mention of Foggy Nelson, there’s no mention of Karen Page, there’s no mention of any of the of the characters that we grew to, like in love in in the Netflix version of Daredevil. So not sure where that’s going to go. But he does talk about this interesting thing about doing one for them, so that he can do one for us. And so he talks about his practice being mostly pro bono practice, which, unless you’re independently wealthy, or have a benefactor, that’s not not really a good practice to have. Right. Unless, you know, maybe the the one the cases that he does for rich clients pays really well so that he can do these other things. And I know you hear that a lot with with acting.

Ashley Carlisle 27:34
For people do one for that one for me, the movies, yeah,

Greg Lambert 27:38
does a big blockbuster. So they can do an art film, that sort of thing. So, but he does have a, you know, kind of a really interesting suggestion. I don’t know if it’s good or bad or whatnot. But interesting, where he applies that to how Jennifer Walters, practices and lives. And he says that, you know, the Jennifer Walters can help society or people when society fails them. And the She-Hulk can help when the law fails them. And so we get into, I mean, it’s kind of a hint, I guess you could do it without being a vigilante. But the way he does it is vigilante ism.

Ashley Carlisle 28:16
Right? So trying to get someone else to take his approach. I thought that was a really cool line, one for them. One for me, I wish that was how it was in legal practice. Maybe some people have that approach. But that’s typically not how it goes.

Greg Lambert 28:31
Usually 100 For them, you know, one for me,

Ashley Carlisle 28:34
or I try to hit my 20 to depending on the firm’s policy, 20 to 50 hours a year of pro bono, which is still good, and we should be doing more. But yeah, I thought it was interesting. He didn’t mention the other named attorneys of his practice. I wasn’t sure because I’m not as much of an expert as you if maybe it was a timeline thing. Like we’re ahead of where Daredevil left off, and some stuff had happened or something like that. But I did think that was interesting. And then also, I think this is just obviously leading up to I don’t know if it’s going to be building guilt and She-Hulk. But something of her wondering, like, why am I working for Holloway and all of these people that I don’t necessarily like when you know, this cute guy who’s very suave, like gets to live this lifestyle. And you know, so I think it’s an interesting progression right before the finale.

Greg Lambert 29:21
Yeah, yeah. So Matt Murdock gets a phone call. Jen gets a text. And so you know, they, even though you could kind of tell there’s some chemistry there. Life as a lawyer in superhuman, apparently pulls them apart at this time. And Jen gets a text from slimy Todd Phelps.

Ashley Carlisle 29:43
He’s the worst he is the worst, creepiest client.

Greg Lambert 29:47
Yeah. And so it’s a text that says, hey, I’ve got a legal issue. I want you to meet me for dinner. Kind of weird in when

Ashley Carlisle 29:57
she doesn’t reply immediately the double tax being I was told that this is a 24/7. Practice. I’ll tell your boss if it’s not. Thank goodness, I’ve never encountered that in real life. But also, and I know people have varying opinions on this texting clients just sounds like huge boundary breach for me. You know, I know some people do it in their practice, or they do it through like an independent have another number just for texting clients updates or whatever. But especially with a creepy client like this guy. I would not advise anyone have any text messaging going on unless it was absolutely necessary.

Greg Lambert 30:31
Yeah. And Todd tells her that he has bought the Wakandan warspear. With my God gives him possession of Vibranium, which was his kind of, you know, kind of creepy thing a mass made you wonder about, is he trying to create a needle to take the blood from general she’s in She-Hulk form. So yeah. And then of course, it’s not just that issue, because he’s telling us to look the you know, there’s an issue because apparently, the nation of Wakanda wants wants this back, because apparently it was stolen by some colonialist or something like that, and not, but I’ve got the receipts, I own this. And then of course, as probably happens more than we want to admit, you’re at dinner, the client all of a sudden then turns it and starts hitting on gin. So of which she, you know, robots and gets out of there. And I laugh because she turns to him and says, By the way, I’m billing you for the whole hour. Yes, I clean up blame her. And so I thought that was a good retort for that. But again, don’t put yourself in bad positions. So

Ashley Carlisle 31:43
also, don’t be a creep. I also think Todd is I have three people in the running for the big bad. I also think he’s up there with me, Holloway, Todd, and we’ll get to my last one as we go on. But yeah, he’s problematic. More. So with every breath he takes, like, even just trying to do the hand symbol and saying he studied abroad, they’re like, not like, they must have had so much fun writing that character and all the garbage that comes out of his mouth, because every single word, I was like, this kid just wants to be punched in the face. Like, who is this person? This is awful. I do think it was a fun, you know, for looking at from a legal issue. antiquities theft, kind of looting how that’s become more of an issue in the last decade. I mean,

Greg Lambert 32:23
even even last few weeks. Yeah, I

Ashley Carlisle 32:26
mean, it just continues, because who knows how much of this has happened, it’s hard to actually prove when and where someone looted these artifacts that could be that could have been like years ago, centuries ago. I mean, so much has happened. It’s really hard to get the evidentiary support for that. But you know, from like museums, like here in Los Angeles, like the Getty Villa, and some of the Geddes artifacts, like a significant amount of them had to be returned. You know, I think Kim Kardashian somehow was caught up in that antique thing as well, where she had to return like five or so Italian artifacts that were looted, just. But I think at the end of the day, what she didn’t get into because she wanted to get out of dodge and not deal with him hitting on her and whatnot. As long as he didn’t know that it was stolen. Obviously, he’ll have to return it. And he could probably sue them for some restitution, or whatever damages were caused. But I just thought it was so random. Did you get the Black Panther connection in that? I just thought it was like, why is it because they have a new movie coming out? Is it because it’s going to be tied into another? I thought it was such a random? I think it’d be artifact from anywhere.

Greg Lambert 33:31
I think it was to show that Todd had Vibranium because She Hulk injection. Yeah. Cuz if you remember on their on their blind date, or on their date with the dating app, he asked Is she you know, is their skin impenetrable? Right. And then he specifically says, even with Vibranium. And so So I think this is to show that he has Vibranium in his possession. Whether it’s legally or illegal, I think that’s the only reason that that we had the scene was to also make you wonder, Is he the big bad or somebody else? The Big Bad? Is he just a goof? Or is he evil? Or both? So how they both? Probably both. But we find out why Daredevil left Jen at the bar, because as soon as Jen gets back, she gets a call from LeapFrog. And we get some more leap frog action. And he calls her saying that he’s being basically chased and assaulted, doesn’t say by whom, but somehow or another. I don’t know why Jen was able to look at her phone and know exactly where he was.

Ashley Carlisle 34:46
Well, I think the joke was he had made it like a public place to look up the neon sign. That’s what I thought is like he had geo tagged it like he was that big of an idiot that he was like, come find me at the lilypad Yeah, like this died was huge.

Greg Lambert 35:01
Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. And we do get to see the supersuit, which I thought was great. So she She suits up goes out, finds Eugene being basically going up to the parking garage of his. I think his secret not so secret lair. And then we see Daredevil is the one who’s attacking him. And of course Jen goes into action to protect your client, little again a little iffy, but if you’re superhuman, you want you want to protect your client. And this is the part where I mean we’ve she’s always been a little destructive.

Ashley Carlisle 35:44
And what is property damage? Yeah.

Greg Lambert 35:46
Man, she goes way over the top and damaging cars. The parking garage, she punches a hole

Ashley Carlisle 35:58
through the roof tops of warehouses. Yeah, it’s

Greg Lambert 36:01
so but I do think it’s funny because they get into a battle between her and Daredevil, leapfrog leaves and goes to his lair. But again, she she destroys the roof of the parking garage. She destroys multiple cars. She throws what I think was probably about an $80,000 car. Yes, across and then when they’re done when they kind of figured this figure this thing out. She goes, Oh, let me leave a note. I don’t know that I would leave a note.

Ashley Carlisle 36:33
I thought that was cute. I you see the Jin Walters in there. But yeah, that’s just nonsensical. I mean, I think it’s just making fun of the fact that like they haven’t explained why she’s just okay with like, destroy, I mean, how many episodes in a row? Like if you were to I’m sure some insurance blog somewhere is totaling the property damage. And kind of what claims could be asserted, but there’s a lot of damage, also physically injuring. And who knows what else your clients security, whether they be goons or not, that was interesting as well. I was like, okay, just gonna go for

Greg Lambert 37:08
it. Well, let’s, let’s get into that. Because it turns out that the reason that Daredevil is attacking leap frog is because he has kidnapped Luke Jacobson, the Taylor. And here’s another thing that almost never happens. She quickly unmasked Daredevil. Yeah. So I was like, do put up a fight, you know, as like, that just never happens to where they get unmasked that quickly. So she finds out it’s her opposing counsel, crush and new crush, which I think everyone had a crush on on Matt, as he showed up here. So they work out the situation understand that. Jacobson has been kidnapped and being held at the secret not so secret lily pad, and they decide to team up and go rescue Luke Jacobson, do you want to take us through that little part and what issues you?

Ashley Carlisle 38:03
Yeah, thing. I will say leapfrog seems so annoying, but his lair is pretty cool, whether it be public or not. And there are a couple of things in there. Like, did you notice he had basically his equivalent of a bat signal? That was like a leapfrog signal that made me chuckle. And then he had the frogger machines. He had like, wired lily pads in there. I mean, he really invested a lot of time and effort into this image. He might have defective, you know, wears in regards to the suits and have no ability but he really invested into this image of himself. There’s

Greg Lambert 38:35
there’s lots of daddy’s money in there.

Ashley Carlisle 38:37
Oh, definitely. The thing that I found interesting, okay, so her client just says I’m in trouble. She gets this other intel from Daredevil, she just follows him causes a lot of damage gets in there. Before she talks to her client, she sees that the designer is tied up and just immediately goes and unties him and tells him to contact the authorities. While this is a good idea, you know, ethically do the right thing. In reality, you’d probably be like, Hey, what’s going on here client also like I assume I’m representing you here to like I do your other work, but I’m sure this is here. We’re gonna figure it out later. Okay, can you please untie this gentleman come to some sort of resolution see if we need to pay him off. And let’s like move on with our day. The fact that she was having him call the cops I was very confused. I was like, Yeah, that’s the superhero She-Hulk thing to do. But like, this is your quiet. I’m so confused. She she

Greg Lambert 39:34
did give him some advice on you know, stopping making it worse. I did. I did find it funny that Daredevil also threw in his suggestion on on how he would approach the the legal issues there.

Ashley Carlisle 39:49
I think earlier at the bar Daredevil showed how you should approach attorney client privilege. He took his phone call. He went to the side he disappeared versus she did it publicly waiving privilege we would put probably say, and then somehow opposing counsel was giving their two cents being like, Hey, yo, I heard you say that, like you realize Yeah.

Greg Lambert 40:09
Yeah, that’s it’s a mess all the way around. Yeah, Jen could use a little mentorship on how to handle these types of situations. So hopefully, Matt will show back up and can advise her. Maybe they can start their own law firm. It’s

Ashley Carlisle 40:24
Oh, I would love that. I will say I did enjoy that in a Ribbit and rapid fashion. It ends with leap frog jumping out of the window. Remember, the case was dismissed. So there was no resolution to the defective suit. So he just goes without anything. And like, I guess presumably breaks both legs. That’s what I figured out from the stretcher. Just want to say it was hilarious. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 40:47
yeah, he leapfrog is is not the sharpest tool in the shed, to say the least. Which

Ashley Carlisle 40:54
is hard. Because I will say the smarter the client, the easier the job unless they’re hiding things from you. So I feel for her. If you have a client who’s rude or hits on you, or who’s maybe not the quickest, and makes your job so much harder. You’re hurting cats on top of doing

Greg Lambert 41:13
that. So luckily, at the end of the day, everything turns out okay, I guess

Ashley Carlisle 41:20
she make amends with the designer and makes

Greg Lambert 41:22
amends for the gala. Yep. And somehow or another. I don’t know how he did it unless he had already designed the dress and had it ready. It was ready the next morning.

Ashley Carlisle 41:34
And it was a collab with one of the biggest fashion houses in the world, which the fashion nerd in me was one very shocked at the designer they picked and to like, Okay, I see you She-Hulk Like very fashionable choice. So they picked and I don’t know if anyone cares. But basically, it’s a very famous, I believe Lebanese designer who has done red carpet looks for every celebrity for I think the past like 10 to 15 years, I think he starred he became famous in 1999. I mean, the Met Gala. Every year, he has a table like, this is a really big fashion house randomly appearing and She-Hulk very random. And then I also thought, you know, the lawyer and me especially living in LA, what’s the product placement deal here. And I kind of did some research more on the fashion side, because I rarely see like these fashion product placements. Normally you see, like, a beverage or random Dell computer or something. And what I found was most of the time, you know, it’s a license for them to be able to say the name of the product, what have you. However, some of these aren’t even done for money. Some of these are just to reduce the production budget. So I don’t know if in the finale, she’s going to have another fabulous dress that somehow was like, given to them for free so that his name could be mentioned, or if we’re going to if other fashion was used in kind of the production of this. But I would love to see if this was a paid product placement or if this was just a quid pro quo. Because these dresses are expensive. His gowns typically are like 3k to 10k a pop.

Greg Lambert 43:04
It’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they just print money, except apparently when it comes to CGI budget. So yeah,

Ashley Carlisle 43:11
sometimes they go a little bit rogue on that. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 43:15
So when the fights over, we get the thing we want to see, which is Jen and Matt hooking up. Right? Everybody’s like, yes. And we go back in and my my all time this is my favorite little scene in the whole show so far. And that’s the walk of shame that Daredevil has to do as he’s leaving in his suit, holding his shoes walking away. I thought that was just I thought that was just funny and and hilarious. So I love

Ashley Carlisle 43:51
that they have a guy doing the walk of shame, especially in the suit. That’s gonna be great for memes. And going forward.

Greg Lambert 43:57
I guess it could be one of her shirts.

Ashley Carlisle 44:00
As someone who lives in Los Angeles, my question was, my friends that come visit from New York have no idea where they are at any given time. Like where is he walking to also like, how is he getting back to his hotel? It was hilarious. But there are some logistics there was like walking in LA without shoes, just like rolling around.

Greg Lambert 44:18
I was thinking maybe there was an Uber around the corner that he that he was going to go get.

Ashley Carlisle 44:22
So where do they fit their phones in the suit?

Greg Lambert 44:27
One of the one of the places like first sale

Ashley Carlisle 44:30
was very WW II style like how is that have any pockets? And then, you know, great question. Maybe we get some product placement and additional episodes with like an iPhone or something showing where the phone fits.

Greg Lambert 44:43
Yep, exactly. That would be great. All right, so we get an additional scene, which is the gala scene. So first, we go back to Jen’s apartment after Matt has made his walk of shame.

Ashley Carlisle 44:56
She breaks the fourth wall again.

Greg Lambert 44:58
And there’s something in there that it’s not a legal issue. But I do want to I do want to bring it up, because it’s an issue that happens. And comic books a lot. So you hear her go, you know, hey, what’s going on? Oh, is this where we’ve got this additional scene where there’s another Hulk, but this time, it’s red, or am I being frigid. And I had to actually look up what it meant to be frigid. And apparently it happens a lot in comic books. And in fact, Gail Simone, who’s a famous comic book writer, actually had an entire website dedicated to the topic of being fridge, where she pointed out this is just a signal of extremely lazy writing on behalf of comic book writers. And so being fridge is a reference to where one character is killed or attacked as a motivator for the main character to come to their rescue. Typically, it’s a woman, I think the the biggest example that was used and why the term being frigid came out, was it was a, I think, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Green Lantern, Green Lantern, and where literally, his girlfriend was killed and put in a refrigerator. And the, you know, this is this whole thing that they needed to kind of take the focus off of the woman, put it back on the hero and move things forward so that he had a motivation to therefore go after the bad guy. And so I thought it was really interesting that they you know that they use that one because there’s been a lot of talk of introducing Red Hulk into the series. So they kind of played on that. And then also the, you know, is it going to be lazy writing are we going to you know, fridge someone Nikki or someone in order to motivate She-Hulk into attacking the big bad, so I thought was interesting. We also had our third Wolverine reference in this where Nikki shows up with the somehow, again, the dresses made, shows up holds the, the makeup brushes, like Wolverine claws. So, you know, everyone’s really excited to have Wolverine into the MCU.

Ashley Carlisle 47:29
That was iconic, and Nikki just always slays every scene that she’s in. Yeah, I thought the fridge thing was pretty spot on for how this show has gone. So far. They’re just been very unabashed about the writing. And the fact that this is a female, written, starred, directed show. And they’re going to just say the things that they probably don’t have the opportunity to say in other shows that are just like truths that women know, but sometimes just need to be kind of reminded to everyone else. And I did check out Gil’s website, which you shared with me. And I think everyone should I mean, I just didn’t realize how pervasive I guess the instances of this fridging are and then also, she had many comic book authors and writers respond about kind of if they wrote that storyline, like what they thought about it, their reflections on it years past. And I read through some of them. And I found it was very interesting, because as you said, I think the main takeaway was just a lazy writing technique. But another one is just, there are not a lot of women in this space. So it’s just something that even if it’s unintentional, it happens because there’s no one questioning it or saying, Hey, why did we do that? Or can we switch it up? It just happens to be, you know, a lack of female representation perhaps like issue that’s perpetuated? I thought it was hilarious. And then yes, the red hook thing. I think your Tod theory might be right. I don’t know they’re teasing it. So I’m very curious. But yeah, that whole fourth they really break the fourth wall a lot. I hated it at first. I don’t know if it’s growing on me, but it does help the plot progression. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 49:02
I agree. So let’s, let’s wrap this up and go to the gala. Oh, my God, I cringed through the whole thing. Any anything up until the MC starts taking over as she walks in? I know we had again the product placement. Yeah, that was there. What What’s the designer? I I’m not a fashion guy. So

Ashley Carlisle 49:24
I might completely mispronounce the name, but it’s Zuhair Murad, I believe. Yeah, Lebanese designer. He’s like a big deal. And I thought the whole collab thing was interesting. There’s obviously some deal that happened there for that to be there. But you’re right, it somehow magically appeared in a day with a collab with another designer. So that that’s very interesting. And then after the dresses showed, which was a great dress, taught us somehow they’re talking to Holloway, which I was like, why is taught everywhere?

Greg Lambert 49:56
I think they’re definitely hinting that he’s the big bad He’s a part of it. Yeah. are a part of it there. So you know, he’s definitely not a good guy. I think we’ll probably we’ll we’ll have to learn on the on the next episode because that’s it.

Ashley Carlisle 50:10
Hopefully all we got for this. Yeah, so

Greg Lambert 50:11
we got for this. Alright, so I want to talk about the female lawyer of the Year Award, and one that and everyone I saw it a couple of episodes ago where Nikki holds the phone up and said, Oh, Jen, you’re being you’ve been nominated as female lawyer of the year. Just that phrase did not sound right to me. Yeah, that’s the joke. And yeah, and so, again, I think this is this is the writers of the show, pointing toward the, you know, just the terrible misogynistic public that that’s out there. I looked in every time that I’ve seen an award that is specifically given to a woman, it is woman, you know, the the phrase is woman lawyer the year now a woman in law. We are women in law, a woman in law, it’s not the phrase female is, in of itself just kind of used? You know, I think more more as a derogatory term in that context. I mean, I tried to see, is there any award where it says female? I couldn’t find one?

Ashley Carlisle 51:24
No, I would hope that I would hope not to. Hopefully, it’s just lawyer awards. But yeah, I’ve seen women in law, the like, like you said, one thing. The internet told me this, I don’t actually know this, I would love for someone to confirm. I believe the other lawyers on stage other than She-Hulk and Mallory are actual female attorneys. And that’s why they named them by name. Oh, really? Yes. Which I thought was very fun. If only they had consulted on the show previously, so things could be slightly more realistic. But still, once again, another gold star gold star for potentially including real attorneys on the stage. And for them being in on the joke of just how ridiculous the whole ridiculous

Greg Lambert 52:06
the whole thing. Of course, the you know, the initial weird, awful terrible thing was that Jen gets announced as the winner, but then everyone else who was nominated also gets announced as a winner, the man of course, who is hosting the award ceremony. That mean just the the insults just keep coming. So he he the introductions are that these are women who do everything a regular lawyer does only backwards and in high heels, which of course is the the take off from Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire saying that, you know, everyone talks about Fred Astaire being a great dancer with Ginger Rogers has to do everything he does only backwards and in heels. But, you know, for that, that’s, that was her kind of raising her profile. This is not and. And then and then of course, the first question is, what’s it like being a female lawyer? And and I thought Mallory book gave a very good answer to that, which was, it’s twice the work is half the recognition and you’re constantly being asked things like, what’s it like being a female lawyer? So, you know, again,

Ashley Carlisle 53:26
we’re already the court reporter. Are you a paralegal? My personal favorites? And my legal career?

Greg Lambert 53:34
Yeah, I imagined or, or you’re not allowed in here. And you know, unless you’re with your attorney, because obviously you can’t be the attorney. You hear these stories all the time. Jen actually kind of, you know, I think she’s just in the moment, happy, happy to be there. And wants to take the time to think her friends and family and starts and then of course, you know, the whole thing goes to hell.

Ashley Carlisle 53:59
The whole thing just gets worse for her very quickly.

Greg Lambert 54:03
It’s so awful. So turns out that too good to be true. Josh downloaded and all the information off of her phone intelligencia starts displaying it up on the big screen behind her. And then too good to be true. Josh really becomes awful, awful, awful, Josh, because apparently he had filmed their romantic trips together their trust together. And so we had talked earlier in episodes about if this is going to be about revenge porn, when there was definitely cameras around Jen that were being shown. Right. And, you know, as a real, real issue out there. And you know, with this being publicly displayed in front of the audience in front of her boss in front of her friends in front of her face Amelie, an illegal community and being told, you know, on the loudspeaker that, you know, she doesn’t deserve to be the Hulk, you know, she’s an awful person. And then you know, she’s a slut here. Let me show you. And then they show the that scene. And so I don’t know is what were your thoughts on what? What was going on there?

Ashley Carlisle 55:22
So I’ll go into the kind of the awfulness of kind of what the intelligencia put up on the big screen. But my first thought was, it was so interesting that she mentioned in the fourth wall that, you know, am I going to be fringed? And yes, she wasn’t traditionally fringed. But in a way, she was kind of like, I don’t know, her soul was killed publicly, as a motivator for her to fight back. So it was kind of a weird juxtaposition of like them turning it on its head, and kind of bringing in this kind of modern issue that’s facing a lot of women today. She is in LA. So just legally, it is a criminal offense in LA, I think it’s a misdemeanor. So it doesn’t like criminally doesn’t carry a ton of weight. But I think the elements as long as she can prove that it wasn’t consensual, which I’m pretty sure we can tell Josh did not tell her from what we saw, you know, in any way, shape, or form, that she definitely could pursue that because the standard is causes serious emotional distress. So it’s not the Iied, it’s like something she definitely can prove. In this case, it’s very public awful. Also, right after this, they cut to her boss. So I think that shows we’re going to have some type of professional repercussions. So she can definitely seek civil damages. If I mean, she’s detained, we’ll get to that. So I don’t know if she’ll have the opportunity. And then also, like, typically, you can file like harassment claims or unauthorized use of someone else’s device, depending on how he got it. Because if I recall, he also downloaded a lot of things from her phone. So it’s unclear if her phone was used if another device was used, kind of where that content lives would go into any like copyright claims or unauthorized use of someone’s property, things like that. California is one of the few states where you can prosecute someone criminally but still, like I said, it’s a misdemeanor. So it’s not even that crazy. You know, it’s like a fine, and you could technically have jail time the sentencing is multiplied if it’s like really egregious, or you’ve done it multiple times. But like, really, it’s a slap on the wrist. So it’s awful. And then to me the most like gut wrenching part of this was like, yes, she fought back. Yes, she’s she Hawks. She causes a lot of property damage. But she’s annihilated publicly. And then she’s the one being detained outside. Yeah. Yeah. I was like this poor girl.

Greg Lambert 57:34
Yeah. The let me let me ask you this. The Do you think that there’s any defense that she has, with tearing down the video screen to stop people from seeing it? I mean, the the damage that she does? I mean, it seems like if I you know, if anyone had the power to do it, they would do it. That’s just,

Ashley Carlisle 57:55
we I think it would reasonably fall out. I don’t know because it wouldn’t I don’t know who would sue her. It gets complicated with like, it would be filing claims and

Greg Lambert 58:03
yes, the Wiltshire event place that there whatever ballroom they were in well, and they definitely could sue her for the whole she blasts in the in the Oh, yeah. Yes. And like us. I know. It’s I know, that has good effect. But that’s okay. I’m event insurance. Yeah, Jen, Jen, go, go use go use the door. So she goes outside and is really, really interesting, because the Department of damage control is already already mobilized. Yeah. And so it’s almost as if they knew this was going to go down. And then they let the guy from the intelligencia just walked by, and they detain her. And so that’s kind of where we end up. I know she kind of I couldn’t tell if this was a breaking the fourth wall or if she was looking at something else. But right at the very end, she kind of moves to her right. And she looks and it looks to me like she’s not looking at the camera, but past the camera, but it could just be bad CGI. You never know. So I don’t know what she was looking at. Maybe we’ll we’ll find out in in the last episode. So any final thoughts? I mean, we’re kind of ready for the finale. Now. I’m

Ashley Carlisle 59:20
really very ready. I guess my final question is, I don’t know if you want to give it away. But just to tease like, who is your number one contender for the big bad guy?

Greg Lambert 59:31
Well, you know, we we are. I mean, it’s it everything points to Todd. But then the one you know, I’m also not really sure about the about abomination. I know and so here at this episode, yeah. And so I mean, is he doing something on on the back end? I hope not. Because I really liked this new character. You know, the Tim Roth character

Ashley Carlisle 1:00:00
It’s very entertaining. Yeah. Wellness retreat thing. Exactly. But

Greg Lambert 1:00:03
he did you know, we didn’t see the, the the seven soulmates. So you know he is he has already kind of, you know, screwed seven women over, apparently. So we’ll see what it is but I don’t know it’s too It seems too obvious that it’s that it’s Todd. Right. And so I don’t know what what is your guess?

Ashley Carlisle 1:00:29
I’ve thought Todd throughout now that we’re at the end, I feel like somehow Holloway is in cahoots or pulling the strings of a lot of things, because now looking back, like, I know, you guys talked about this, but it’s not every day that a law partner offers you the head of a division in a bar, you know, going back, like, that’s a bit of a stretch. Yeah, like Jen Walters is great gal, but like, that’s a bit of a stretch. So what was this master plan that we’re gonna see finally unfolds? I feel like he’s somehow a part of it. Or if he’s not a part of it, he’s kind of leading us to who is and then the intelligencia thing is so hard, because in the comics, you know that they’re such a vibrant force. But I don’t know if they’re going to completely follow the comics Exactly. Or if they’re going to kind of branch off slightly and make a modern interpretation. So it’s hard to kind of know, also what they’re going to cover in one episode. It’s not another season, there’s a lot of source material to know exactly where they’re going to jump in. And these

Greg Lambert 1:01:24
are not long episodes. So no, one of the things with with Holloway in the comics is much more. I mean, he’s a much nicer character in the comics than he is. And the he’s much more of a mentor in the comics, and then he is here. But yeah, he’s kind of a, you know, I don’t know, two, very two dimensional character. Seems like in this show, we will see, we will see. Well, Ashley Carlisle, I appreciate you taking the time stepping in this week and talking with me. I want you back next week, because I still want to hit you with the the awful marketing question that is going on? Oh, yeah. GLK/H. If you were the CMO of GLK/H. What would you do differently? It might be? Well, I want to hire Nikki full time because she’s great. Or you know, I want to make sure Nikki never ever gives marketing advice. ever again. But the raise? Yeah, exactly. So I know from my aspect that we did not see enough of the Law Library. Maybe maybe next week, we can see more.

Ashley Carlisle 1:02:37
Or even the use of legal research. Yeah. I think we’ve only seen a random to do lists and some case management software and then the pleading on the screen. We haven’t seen any of the real life stuff. It’s been

Greg Lambert 1:02:47
mostly Microsoft Office, which which is very, yeah, that’s true. So. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening. In till next week. Everyone stay super. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley Carlisle 1:03:00
Thanks.

For the first time, Law360 and Major, Lindsey, and Africa team up to survey BigLaw partners in their 2022 Partner Compensation Survey. We are joined by Craig Savitzky, Senior Data Analyst at Law360 and Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the Law Firm Practice at Major Lindsey and Africa. With this being the first survey of law firm partners since most firms have made some effort to return to the office, there were some surprises on how much remote work partners want to take versus how much their firms are offering. It may not be what you think.

Women and minority partners made some strong gains according to this survey in narrowing the pay gap. While the gap is still significant between women/minority partners and their white male colleagues, this was the smallest percentage in the history of the survey which began in 2010.

For the first time, the difference between average equity partner pay was more than $1 Million over average non-equity partner pay.

Savitzky and Lowe unpack a lot of data from the survey for us.

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts |  Spotify

Links:

• MLA’s – 2022 Partner Compensation Survey
• Law360 Pulse’s – The 2022 Partner Compensation Survey Articles 

Crystal Ball Answers from LVNx

This week we talk with Properoware founder Keith Lipman, who recently merged into Litera, about the role that ALSP’s and others will play in filling the gap left by law firms when the economy begins its expected downturn.

Contact Us:

Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821 (note the NEW NUMBER!)
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:08
Welcome to The Geek in Review. Podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:15
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well Marlene this weekend I get to go to my law firms retreat and even get to play guitar. I wasn’t 100% ready but that’s never stopped me in the past.

Marlene Gebauer 0:27
So that sounds a lot more exciting than my weekend my weekend was filled with baseball and volleyball practice.

Greg Lambert 0:36
The joy is a parent’s of a teenager.

Marlene Gebauer 0:38
Exactly. So this week, we have Craig Savitzky, Senior Data Analyst at law 360 And Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the law firm practice at major Lindsey and Africa. Talking about the just released 2022 partner compensation survey, there’s a lot to unpack, ranging from how many partners are wanting to work from home versus back to office to a shrinking of the salary gap between women and minority partners and their white male counterparts?

Greg Lambert 1:06
Well, first up, we have another crystal ball answer from my time at the Legal Value Network Experience conference.

Marlene Gebauer 1:12
Thank God for that!

Greg Lambert 1:16
This time we hear from the legal tech vendor side of things with Keith Lipman, who’s Prosperowear his company was recently purchased by Litera. So Keith looks at how the ALSPs in the industry are going to step in and fill a void when there’s a slowdown in the market. So let’s take a listen to Keith first and then we’ll jump right into our conversation with Craig Savitzky and Jeffrey Lowe.

Keith Lipman 1:43
Hi, it’s Keith Lipman from Litera. I used to be the CEO of Prosperowear. So I’ve been in this industry a long time. So here’s my kind of thing. You know, if we’re about to enter a recessionary time, the classic cycle we’ve seen, where the corporate legal departments staff up is, we see the staffing and the headcount start coming out. Traditionally, all that headcount would go back to the law firms and law firms would just see improved profit during your discretionary periods. But the question is, now that we have alternative legal providers, where’s the people going to go? And does this mean is going to actually cause a change in the business model for law firms, as all that work now goes away into the alternative? World?

Greg Lambert 2:20
I know, we’ve got some areas outside of the typical alternative legal service providers that we’ve had, looking at Arizona, looking at Utah and some of the things do you see expansion of that? If we have a downturn?

Keith Lipman 2:34
Oh, I think we can actually see people demanding that expansion as people want to put these business models somewhere else, right, it’s going to be a huge need, we need to get those people working, that headcount is just going to turn into some form of hourly work. But it’s gonna be at a low cost model, not at a traditional law firm model, which has got a much higher overhead.

Greg Lambert 2:54
All right, thank you very much. We’d like to welcome Craig Savitzky, Senior Data Analyst at law 360, and Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the law firm practice at major Lindsey and Africa, Greg, and Jeff, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Jeffrey Lowe 3:13
Thanks for having us. Hi.

Craig Savitzky 3:14
Yeah, thank you.

Marlene Gebauer 3:15
We brought you on to talk about the brand new survey collaboration between La 360 and major Lindsey and Africa on partner compensation, and some of the significant findings uncovered this year.

Greg Lambert 3:25
So before we jump into the survey results, let’s talk a little bit about the collaboration between La 360 and MLA. So Jeff, you know, major, Lindsey, and Africa has produced this survey multiple times since 2010. So what’s the reason this year of teaming up with law 360, on this particular survey?

Jeffrey Lowe 3:49
Sure, it’s always been very important to us to have a research partner go into the field, and actually administer the survey aren’t on our behalf. When you’re asking people how much money they make and how much business they have, they tend to get a little sensitive about it. And we’ve got since the surveys Inception 2010, that would be great to pair with a research partner in law. 360 is one of the leaders in the legal industry and thought leadership, and we thought they’d be a great partner this year, and they prove to be just that.

Craig Savitzky 4:21
Yeah, that’s right. And we’ve also we’ve had three successful prior collaborations. Earlier in the year we work together on a law firm culture survey, another one called law life 2.0 How the pandemic redefine the way we work and a return to Office survey. So a lot of sort of COVID related projects. So on the heels of those seemed like a good idea to team up and you know, they have MLA has a decade’s worth of of longitudinal data that we could leverage. So it seems like A an ideal match and a way that we could sort of pair our respective networks.

Marlene Gebauer 5:05
This is essentially the first set of survey results pulse COVID. And with the common use of remote work for law firms, firms were forced into being more flexible with how their partners works during COVID. And, you know, this conversation, just this this, you know, remote work conversation just seems to keep, you know, on and on and on and on. So, Jeff, what results are you finding on work flexibility in this survey?

Jeffrey Lowe 5:30
Sure, you know, not surprisingly, we found it’s incredibly important to people of ours, over two thirds of the respondents placed importance on being able to work remotely. And 10% of the partners that we surveyed said they would change firms because of it. And when you look at it, by age cohorts, it was the more junior partners who were twice as likely to say, look, if I don’t get to work remotely, I’m probably going to change firms. So we saw inside of two years, really 10 years of change, because I think we can all we all know that working from home was something that was coming, it was just forced to happen almost overnight.

Greg Lambert 6:11
Yeah, yeah. Nothing like an emergency to get a firm to actually do something that they should have been doing for years. There were some thoughts floating around really early during COVID, where some partners were saying, you know, well, we I just may decide just to go and live on my ranch in Colorado or Montana. There was an other talks where people would just go live somewhere where the overall cost of living might be lower, say then, in the, you know, the New York or San Francisco metropolitan areas. Craig, did any of that actually come to fruition? Did we have people moving away?

Craig Savitzky 6:50
Yeah. So according to the results, people definitely did the can during COVID, but maybe not to the extent a one might think. So we broke down by age demographics. Somewhat surprisingly, the 20 plus year, tenure partner grouping had a slightly higher percentage of partners reporting that they changed their geographic location, that number was 9%. Then each of the other tenure groupings, which were all at 6% equity partners, at a slightly higher percentage of partners reporting, they change their geographic location 8% as opposed to their non equity partner cohort, which was at 5%. Though, on the other hand, the more junior the tenure group, the less likely the respondents were to report that they were planning to move back when the firm’s fully opened. So those in the one to five year range, were at 21%. In six to 10 years, were at 22% 11 to 20 years were 32%. And then 20 plus we had 37%. But conversely, a slightly higher percentage of equity partners reported that they were planning to move back 31% than non Equity Partners, which was a 27%.

Greg Lambert 8:23
Yeah, no. Did the survey ask how close they were to a major golf course?

Craig Savitzky 8:31
That’s something to consider for the next the next edition.

Marlene Gebauer 8:36
In response to COVID, law firms were beginning to establish wellness programs and looking at focusing more on the mental and physical health of their lawyers and allied professionals at their firms. So what’s happening on that front as we’re moving past the COVID emergency status?

Jeffrey Lowe 8:53
Sure. So you know, not surprisingly, 58% of the respondents said that their firm’s either implemented or enhance some sort of technology program. In response to COVID. Another 53% said that their firm, either implemented or enhanced mental health and wellness programs. 27% talked about physical health and wellness. What I thought was interesting is 24% said their firms did nothing. They did nothing about technology, they did nothing about wellness. So I was I was just a little surprised by that result. I mean, I just would have thought that would have been, you know, many fewer numbers. I think another interesting finding was if you dig a little deeper into the report, you’ll see there was definitely a geographical component to that. Certainly, you know, firms out on the West Coast partners on the West Coast had a much higher response rate of talking about, you know, programs being implemented or enhanced than we saw, perhaps in the South and the Southeast.

Greg Lambert 10:00
I don’t think that’s really surprising though I was going to

Marlene Gebauer 10:03
ask how to Texas do

Jeffrey Lowe 10:06
I want to take a look at those results?

Marlene Gebauer 10:09
I don’t think I need to.

Greg Lambert 10:11
I also wondered if the firm’s where you said 25% responded that their firms did nothing. I would like to see the Venn diagram of firms that laid off or did furloughs and the ones that did nothing if that if those overlap quite a bit.

Jeffrey Lowe 10:30
Yeah, that would definitely be interesting. And, you know, that was something that we saw, really, at the front end of the pandemic, we know when everybody was expecting the worst. And really, the industry miracle of all time, is the fact that, you know, sometime between June and September of 2020, things just turned around and law firms didn’t look back and have their best years ever and 2020. Even better in 2021.

Greg Lambert 10:54
Yeah, yeah. Well, back to kind of partners changing behaviors. Was there any significant change in partners wanting to move away from full time work and taking on some type of reduction in hours or even going part time? Yeah. So

Craig Savitzky 11:11
what we learned was that the more junior the tenure grouping, the more likely the respondents work schedule was impacted by the pandemic 15% of partners in the one to five grouping reported being impacted, versus 14% 9% 5%, respectively, for partners in the six to 10, 11 to 20, and 20 plus age groupings. Partners in the six to 10 year grouping reported the greatest percentage impact 20%, and the most seasoned partners 20 Plus reported the lowest impact 18%. And similarly, with the partners were twice as likely to report being impacted as equity partners 60 versus 8%, although their respective reductions in hours were much closer, 24 and 20, respectively.

Marlene Gebauer 12:12
So I want to move on to more compensation and financial questions that the survey addresses. So like equity, non equity partner ranges, now many listeners see law firms profits for partner amounts and see those seven figure numbers. But equity partners actually make about three times what a non equity partner makes. Is that consistent with your surveys,

Jeffrey Lowe 12:36
it absolutely is. And it’s been that way for as long as I’ve been doing that since 2010. This year, Equity Partners averaged $1.73 million, and non Equity Partners, average $460,000. And this is the first year that the difference is more than a million dollars on average. Now, interestingly, they both saw, I think, roughly similar increases in the comp, but when you’re starting from such a higher number 15% on a higher number just means that much more money, and that much greater differentiation in terms of absolute dollars, what practice

Greg Lambert 13:11
areas during between the previous two surveys, which ones have thrived over the last couple of years, and which ones may have been flattered or down during COVID.

Craig Savitzky 13:23
Sure, yeah. So what we discovered was that tax in ERISA, which partners which we bundled together, reported, the only decline in average total comp from our 2020 edition to the current and that was down 9%. And interestingly, those same partners had had the highest portion who expressed that they were very satisfied with sedation, and that was a 33%. Corporate partners reported the highest average total compensation, I guess, not entirely, surprisingly, and the highest percentage increase, and it’s at 1,488,000. So it’s up 26%, while Labor and Employment partners reported the lowest average total comp, and that was 653,000. But also up 6%.

Marlene Gebauer 14:25
In the survey, what did you find in terms of partners being able to pass along billable rate increases?

Jeffrey Lowe 14:32
You know, we don’t ask them that question. But we do ask them, you know, whether their rates have gone up, they went up, again, 5% over 2020. But I think they were basically able to do whatever they wanted during the last two years because the demand was so strong. And in fact, you know, we had cases where we we’d hear firms telling us what, you know, we can’t possibly even get all the work done. We’re not going to focus on work. that clients don’t want to pay premium rates for So, law firms were definitely in the driver’s seat when it came to being able to raise and collect from law firms during this period. Now, it’ll be interesting to see what happens again, you know, we might see a situation similar to what we saw in 2008 2009, where things pivoted very quickly, and clients were very, very aggressive in seeking out discounts from their law firms.

Greg Lambert 15:27
So Jeff, why do you think partner’s average on the non billable hours dropped significantly, and I think it was around 16% Drop, even though their average billable hours only increased a modest 2%. During the last survey, what’s the discrepancy there?

Jeffrey Lowe 15:45
Sure, a little bit is just, you know, fun with percentages. Bill, you want to call it that lawyers aren’t terribly fond of math. So you know, part of it is that their billable hours are usually three times three or four times what their non billable hours are. So when things go up a little bit, it’ll be reflected as a smaller percentage than when something happens with the non billable hours, which is a smaller percentage of their overall total hours. But what we found is, as you said, billable hours went up about 41 hours since the last survey. And what’s most important about that is, for the prior 10 years, the prior five, five surveys, the number of billable hours fell within a seven hour range every single time between 16 180 and 16 187. So that 41 hours is actually a huge spike. And when you think about it, 41 hours is a whole week, right? Everybody build a whole extra week

Greg Lambert 16:47
that lasts because they didn’t take vacation.

Jeffrey Lowe 16:52
It’s because non billable hours fell 91 hours. And so not only did they not do that non billable and you know, unfortunately, a lot of that was pro bono work. That wasn’t done. But they also didn’t do another 50 hours on top of that. So I think that’s what explains. Okay,

Marlene Gebauer 17:11
so we’ve discussed in earlier episodes on the podcast that women and minorities really left the workforce during during COVID and didn’t come back. How are the salaries for women and minority partners?

Jeffrey Lowe 17:28
Sure. So you know, this year, we saw that male partners average just over $1.2 million and female partners average $905,000 $300,000 difference, it’s actually the smallest gap that we’ve seen since our 2010 survey. And so the gap narrowed from 53% in our 2018 survey, down to 44%, in 2020, down to 34%. This year. So we’re encouraged by those results. Again, you know, that’s what our respondents reported. And it’s a small number, right of the entire population. But it definitely seems to be trending in the right direction. We hope it reflects that, you know, firms are getting it and firms are making sure that female partners are being compensated fairly.

Marlene Gebauer 18:21
Yeah, I suppose I should be happy about that.

Greg Lambert 18:27
Well, what about minorities,

Jeffrey Lowe 18:29
so it’s a little bit harder to say what’s happening for the following reason. There are very few diverse partners in big law. And when you’re doing a survey like this, you typically get a response rate of maybe somewhere between two and 5%. So when you take a small number of potential people out there, and then you send them a survey, and you get two to 5%, you have a very small number of people reporting. So for the non white categories of respondents, we do see the effects we think of sampling variation, which means you can see very large swings year over year in the results this year, we saw that white partners reported average compensation of $1.13 million, reflecting a healthy increase, whereas black partners reported a decrease from 830,000, down to 752,000. But then, if you look at Hispanic and Asian Pacific partners, both groups had huge increases in compensation. And we think that’s great, but we just want to make sure people know you know, when you look at the number of respondents in the black category that might only be 40 or 50 people, Asian Pacific or Hispanic, it might be 70 people and so we report the numbers because there are so few numbers out there, right? There’s just so little information on the topic, but we always want to be sure to talk about the sampling variation so people don’t read it. too much into it

Greg Lambert 20:01
makes sense. Now the one one thing I worry about, and I guess we’ll have to wait two years for or whenever the next survey comes out, it seems like there was a lot of capacity issues when it came when it came to work. And therefore, I think a lot of partners that would normally have some capacity to take on work didn’t have that in it funneled out to others who normally don’t. And then if work dries up a little bit, are they going to continue to take the large load of that and take it away from the the women and minorities? So be interesting to see how that pans out as demand goes down? A little bit?

Jeffrey Lowe 20:43
Yeah, that’s a great point, Greg. And it is something that we see time and time again, I mean, I’m old enough to have gone through five recessions at this point, and it’s certainly something that you hear when when things dip, you know, partners are thought of as hoarding the work. And, you know, either the service partners or the senior associates, you know, they’re they get worried because they don’t have as much work to do. And that makes them vulnerable.

Greg Lambert 21:10
Oh, Craig, that kind of leads nicely into the next question, which is, what did you find was the overall satisfaction for salaries among the different groups of partners?

Craig Savitzky 21:21
So? Well, one of the more prominent findings was the gap between Equity Partners and non Equity Partners compensation satisfaction, remains wide and is growing, with 40%. Partners very satisfied compared to 10%. Equity Partners. And that’s up from 32 and 12, respectively, in 2020.

Marlene Gebauer 21:48
Jeff, partners in many of the highest compensation geographies, New York, the Bay Area, are among the least satisfied with their compensation. Why is that?

Jeffrey Lowe 21:58
You know, it’s a really great question, Marlene, and I hadn’t really focused on it before. But I took a look at the data. And you know, you’re absolutely right. And the interesting thing is, satisfaction generally tracks compensation, and the partners in those geographies are highly compensated. And the only thing I can think of is, the cost of living in those areas is typically much higher than in the other parts of the country. And so even though they’re making more money than their peers elsewhere across the country, they don’t get to save as much of it, or they have to spend much more of it simply to live. And I think that might account for it.

Marlene Gebauer 22:39
Yeah, that’s interesting, given that, you know, many people, probably their costs were reduced having, you know, with with COVID, and not having to commute and, you know, not going out and things like that. So that that is a that is an interesting finding.

Jeffrey Lowe 22:55
Yeah, and when you look at the cost of real estate, both buying and renting, I mean, that’s been skyrocketing during the pandemic. So, you know, perhaps that’s what accounts for it.

Greg Lambert 23:07
Correct? Why do you think that the the lateral partners who who came over are slightly more satisfied with their compensation than the homegrown partners? And it’s not just in the latest one, but it was also in the 2020. survey as well.

Craig Savitzky 23:24
That’s right. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I think the number is somewhat negligible. The disparity I think, was only in the four to 5% range. But I think really, what it comes down to is money, I think, you know, partners, that jump to different firms are more likely to be compensated better than those that were promoted from within. And that’s somewhat speculative on my part, but I think the data reflects that, too. To a degree.

Jeffrey Lowe 23:59
Yeah, absolutely. Craig. And, you know, as a former partner at Washington’s largest law firm, I mean, the joke is always, you know, when you see lateral partners coming in what they’re being paid, you know, well, the current partners look at each other and say, I gotta move. I mean, if they’re paying that person, that I’m going to go somewhere else, where they’re going to pay me that for that much business. So, I mean, it’s something that we’ve heard for forever at law firms that lateral partners get treated better than homegrown partners when it comes to compensation.

Marlene Gebauer 24:28
So we’re coming up on on Halloween season, and I’m wondering, were there any strange or unexpected results that the survey revealed? Were there any tricks or treats? Yeah,

Jeffrey Lowe 24:39
you know, there’s one thing that I wanted to talk about that was very surprising to me. In fact, it was so surprising that I called Craig up and I said, Craig, can you please check this data? Because it’s not at all what I expected. And it’s when we asked partners, how many days would they prefer to work remotely. They came back and the average was two point Five one days now, obviously they didn’t get to choose, you know, decimal places in their days. But when you crunch the data among 1800 people, that’s what the average was whether they selected two, three or four. And then our next question was, well, how many days will Europe was? Will your firm allow you to work remotely? Or did they allow you to work remotely? And the answer was 3.39 days, which, when you include those decimal points, which could have gotten lost, if we had rounded both numbers, right, both would have been three. But you’re actually looking at discrepancy of nearly a day. And so I think from the law firm side, they might be able to take comfort in knowing you know, what, what we’ve been offering people is actually more than what they’re telling us at least what they’re telling major Lindsey and Africa in this survey, right? What they’re looking for now, what we’re seeing in practices, the firm’s are having a tough time, getting their partners to show up, they’re all trying to get partners back to the office, you know, at least several days a week and every single firm I talk with, say, you know, and there might be a geographic component to this as well, right is, it’s really tough. The partners are coming in maybe one day, a week or two days a week. And I mean, I think many firms have just forgotten about the concept of ever having those people in five days a week, so. But to me, that was the most surprising thing. It really, really actually made me literally question the results. So in print confirmed it to me,

Greg Lambert 26:35
since this was your first go round together on this survey? Would there be any changes or additions that you’ll want to want to make when it comes time to do the survey again, in 2020? For

Jeffrey Lowe 26:49
sure, I mean, I think this work from home question is one that’s going to be staying with us for a long, long time. One of the important reasons we went forward with the survey in 2020, during the height of the pandemic was because we thought, the 2019 salary data, which is what we collect, you know, it’s always a year behind, because that’s the last full year, we thought that was gonna represent the high point for partner compensation, because at the time we launched, things were looking pretty bleak. And, you know, to our surprise, before we even rolled out that 2020 report, we already had to go back to the partners and say, Well, now, now, what do you think and the number was just dropping. And then you’d see from the results of the 2022 survey, only 13% said that they were impacted and 2021 and 5%, think it might have some impact on their 2022? Calm? So I think that question will likely go away. But I think some of these other questions related to quality of life now and how law firms are addressing it, because it’s probably such an important component of happiness and retention are questions that we’re likely to keep for some time.

Craig Savitzky 27:57
And I would just add is someone that, you know, conduct surveys for a living if I never have to ask another COVID-19? Question? 2024 I think it’ll, it’ll be too soon. So hopefully, hopefully, by then it’s somewhat of an afterthought.

Greg Lambert 28:14
I hope COVID and inflation are both an

Marlene Gebauer 28:17
afterthought. Yes, absolutely. Jeff and Craig, we ask all of our guests, our crystal ball questions. You can tag team on this one if you want, or you can answer individually. But what do you see as a challenge or change happening with partner compensation or the business of law in the next two to five years?

Jeffrey Lowe 28:38
Sure. I’ll, I’ll start on that. I mean, I think with people coming back to the office, with m&a activity slowing down, the financial markets generally are slowing down. Costs are increasing, I think being able to maintain the level of profitability that they saw under the 2022 survey is going to be difficult. And so if things remain on the current path, it wouldn’t surprise me if the 2024 survey showed numbers that were flat, or, you know, possibly even the decline. We’ve never seen that since rolling out the survey in 2010, you know, which was after the Great Recession. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years.

Craig Savitzky 29:20
And I guess I’ll just add from just a little bit more of like a macro business business of law standpoint. I’m very interested in web three adoption at law firms and to what extent firms will start embracing things like, like self executing smart contracts, and you know, having, you know, practice is dedicated to you know, litigating in the metaverse and sort of thing things like that. So

Greg Lambert 29:56
well, the new survey just dropped this week. So it’s out, I’ll make sure that we have links on the show notes so that people can go check. Check it out. Craig Savitzky, a senior Data Analyst at law 360. And Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the law firm practice there at major Lindsey Africa. I want to thank you both for coming in and talking about the 2022 partner compensation survey. Thanks, guys.

Jeffrey Lowe 30:23
Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Greg Lambert 30:28
But there was definitely a lot to unpack in in that conversation there. I don’t think I don’t know. I didn’t find anything too terribly surprising.

Marlene Gebauer 30:38
Well, that that whole go, but going back to how many days we want to come into the office, I thought was pretty surprising, given the fact that, you know, everything I hear from everybody is that it’s very hard to convince people to come back to the office. So that was a little surprising.

Greg Lambert 30:56
I can tell you, my thoughts on that is I don’t think that they were 100% truthful to the survey.

Marlene Gebauer 31:07
Well, you heard it here, folks.

Greg Lambert 31:12
Well, and then, you know, and I think it’s also hard to count that because I don’t think it was unusual for some partners to take months away from the office, where they would go, you know, they would still be working. And they may have a home office, but that home office was, you know, on the golf course in, you know, in Southern California or, or at the ranch in Colorado or New Mexico. So, you know, I think it would be really hard to count that because I know a lot of partners, I’ve talked to people across the country didn’t really even come back into the office until after Labor Day.

Marlene Gebauer 31:52
Absolutely. That’s That’s why I was like, Huh, that’s interesting. You know, and I also hope that they do a deeper dive into some of those, those financial questions, because it would be interesting to know, like, what is the dissatisfaction all about? There might be some factors that we’re not aware of there, that would be good to uncover?

Greg Lambert 32:14
Yeah. And the legal industry isn’t all that different from the rest of the the industries out there, and that typically women and minorities are the last to benefit from a good economy, but the first to

Marlene Gebauer 32:30
the first to be impacted to

Greg Lambert 32:32
Yeah, to be impacted when things start to come down. So I’m, I’m more interested in seeing what that 2024 surveys going to look like. Yes,

Marlene Gebauer 32:41
I agree. I agree. Hopefully, we continue to improve.

Greg Lambert 32:47
Yes. Well, and I think that’s the thing is that in order for law firms to improve, I think you people have to keep their eye on the ball and see what these law firms do as the market starts to turn the other direction. You know, I think if they, hopefully if law firms feel like eyes are on them, and expectations are for them to hit certain benchmarks. You know, I think, you know, Mansfield rules all that. Hopefully, the pressure is there to continue rising up with the with the women and minority partners. So

Marlene Gebauer 33:26
well, hopefully, we have some laws passed that basically require range of salaries to be published, I think that will actually solve the problem.

Greg Lambert 33:37
Well, we’ll see. I don’t have great faith in that either. All right. Well, thanks again to Craig and Jeff, for coming on and giving us a snapshot of the 2022 partner compensation survey, which is out now.

Marlene Gebauer 33:53
And of course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on

Greg Lambert 34:05
Twitter, And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter, or you can leave

Marlene Gebauer 34:09
us a voicemail on the new geek and review Hotline at 713-487-7821. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 34:20
Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later. Okay,

Marlene Gebauer 34:23
bye bye.

In a recent ALM Pacesetter survey, the report found “that innovators among professional services providers are grappling less with technology installation and more with process and culture reengineering.” We sit down with one of the people behind that report, Tomek Jankowski,  Director, ALM Intelligence Pacesetter Research, and dive into the ways law firms and in-house legal departments are working to change the cultural roadblocks to advance innovation and improve overall client experiences. We discuss some specific examples of firms going to great lengths to improve their interactions with clients, but that Jankowski reminds us that it doesn’t take a Moon Shot project to improve overall satisfaction with your clients. Sometimes, it is as simple as talking with your clients.

• Executive Summaries of Pacesetter Reports Available Here

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:05
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:12
And I’m Greg Lambert. Marlene. I’m licking my wounds from this weekend because luckily, I didn’t have any money on it. But I have a big university of texas contingent to hit my firm and they were playing, playing University of Oklahoma. It did not go well for me your

Marlene Gebauer 0:33
alma mater. Yes, yeah. Yep. So

Greg Lambert 0:36
I’ve had to endure some of the treatment in the office this week with the with the blanking I think it was 47 and nothing shellacking that you took but luckily, I you know, I’m, I take it all in stride.

Marlene Gebauer 0:55
Well, I don’t know something else. Something was in the air because University of Houston actually won this week. Which is a change in pace from from how they’ve been doing lately. So, don’t know what that’s about. But this week, we bring in Tomek Jankowski, Director of ALM, intelligence PE Center Research, he brings in an experience perspective of the legal market and one that we may be seeing again soon, with all the economic and global conflicts that are happening. We also cover the news from EY consulting, that may have made more of an impact on the legal market than many firms are thinking.

Greg Lambert 1:31
Yeah, that’s something I think many firms have fear that’s not on your radar. Radar. Yeah. Well, first up, we have our friend Damien RIehl, from Fastcase on and he answered our crystal ball question from the recent legal value network experience conference in Chicago. So let’s go ahead and hear what Damien sees for the legal markets future. And then we’ll jump right into our conversation with Tomek Jankowski.

Damien Riehl 2:00
I will say that I with my two roles, I’m Damien Riehl. I work in Fastcase. And Dr. Lyon, where I provide analytics and raw data to companies. And then my other role is to Sally, where I’m helping lead the legal data standard to be able to have all the everyone in the industry have a uniform ontology. So that’s my context for my answer of my crystal ball question, which is, I think I see more law firms being data driven. And I think I see more law firms asking for raw data for them to be able to run analytics on their own side. So it’s not good enough to have a website to be able to say, Okay, you have beautiful analytics there, even though that is important. They also want to run things in Tableau. And they also want to cross correlate the data with their internal data. So one thing that I can see as crystal ball is a cross correlation of private internal data, say pricing data, let’s say timekeeping data with external data and be able to meld those and see correlations. That’s the number one. Thing number two is being able to have the entire industry say, Okay, for the data points for motion to dismiss, in the Southern District of New York for breach of contract claims for them to coalesce everyone in the industry to coalesce around common ontology. And it turns out that Sally is that common ontology that’s being adopted by Thomson Reuters. It’s being adopted by intapp. It’s being adopted by iManage. It’s being adopted by NetDocuments. It’s being adopted by really everyone in the industry. So I see in the next two years, firmly vendors adopting the ontology and then law firms essentially saying, Okay, we’re getting on board to to be able to say, I want to be able to talk with all the vendors, I want to talk to all the clients, I want to talk to Intel, I want to talk to Microsoft, both of whom are doing it. I think that’s probably the thing I see most happening in the next few

Greg Lambert 3:33
years. Damien, thank you very much.

We’d like to welcome Tomek Jankowski, Director, alm intelligence pacesetter research. Tomek Welcome to The Geek in Review.

Tomek Jankowski 3:45
Great. Thank you for having me.

Marlene Gebauer 3:46
Tomek. Not everyone may be familiar with ALM intelligence pacesetter research work. Can you give us an overview of the mission there at Pace Setter research and your most recent publication?

Tomek Jankowski 3:57
Absolutely. So it grew out of traditional market research that we used to do, particularly in the management consulting space. But after 2008, we began to hear more and more as we have conversations on the client side in particular, but on the provider side as well, for with the consulting firms, we would hear the clients would say we don’t buy consulting services. Now, what we need, we have a business problem and we need help getting across a certain finish line. We need an outcome. Consulting can be a part of that. But technology may be legal may be tax may be so we need somebody who looks at those solutions and how they’re how they’re bringing it together to help us get what we need. And that’s where the pacesetter research concept came from. It’s looking at innovation, in professional services across legal across consulting across investment banking, insurance, and young quite frankly, in part because all of these and other other professional services segments are kind of stepping on each other’s toes. So we’re looking at the innovation and how that innovation is changing both the competitive lens Pay for each of them. But also from the buyers perspective from in house legal procurement CFOs. What does it mean for them when they can get a very different type of engagement from a consulting firm? Or an insurance company, you know, for compliance? client facing compliance tools, for instance? What does it all mean for them in terms of cost in terms of how they use inter the engagement. So that’s what pacesetters is about innovation and how it’s changing professional services.

Greg Lambert 5:25
And what’s one of the latest surveys that’s that’s out there.

Tomek Jankowski 5:29
We are just on the verge this week, hot off the presses, we’re going to have a report on digital transformation and digital services. So how digital technology is changing, obviously, big topic, everyone’s looking at it, but how it’s changing what clients can do, but also how professional services firms deliver their services, how we engage clients.

Greg Lambert 5:52
So tell me, one of the things that may have flown under the radar of some of the law firms recently was the announcement, I think within the last couple of weeks of EY consulting, discussing getting rid of its audit business, and that it may focus more on consulting that will probably compete directly with with law firms. Now you have an upcoming presentation on that topic. So what are you hearing and should big law firms be worried about more of the Big Four competing with their clients work?

Tomek Jankowski 6:27
So the first thing I mentioned is that EY has been thinking about this for a long time, they’ve been talking to people like me, analysts like me for almost 10 years. So this has been definitely topical for them. And that means this is well thought out. It’s not a shoot from the hip type of thing. There’s been a lot of thinking in the background that has led to where we are today with this. There are a lot of ways to think about this. But I think from the legal perspective, the first thing is that the Big Four in particular, but they’re what we call a multi service firm, meaning they’re an auditing heritage firm that they they go to market with an integrated sort of Fallon’s of different services. It’s not one service at Leeds. But them and the more traditional multi management consulting world, they are focused on relationships, penetrating client firms, learning about how the client organization works at all levels, no matter where they’re if they’re hired by Treasury, they still want to understand the adjacent areas, including in house legal more recently. So that’s one part of the important part, that relationship element is a key part of their strategy. And in house legal is a big area of focus for them for the last five years especially. The second is that if they do separate out some of the plans we’ve heard, are really ambitious. They really see big growth coming from this. From the non auditing services. You mentioned the consulting. But it’s really that integrated element of consulting, tax legal technology. They’re bringing those all together and addressing problems like financial restructuring, m&a, cross border issues, supply chain, those types of things, they bring all of these to bear. And they are putting some really aggressive plans down that means that they probably want to be much more involved with legal departments in house legal departments. Other point is that this is a threat. This is something they should be concerned about, I think legal law firms, because they EY is thinking particularly among the Big Four, they are looking at much more of the operational elements of law before law firms, but also they did announce a legal element. So they are holding a service there that is looking at being a much greater part of what the rest of the organization is doing. And then finally, I just say, first of all, this is a threat. But it’s also opportunity, we tend to think about especially in the legal world, I noticed, they tend to think about things very starkly in terms of do we focus on our internal core practice of law? Or do we do something else, we add a technology group or an advisory group, there’s a third option, and it’s relationships. And that’s what both consulting and multi service firms do? Well, they develop third party external relationships, alliances, and they are very open to working with law firms. That is an opportunity for firms to help extend your relationships with your clients. And I’ll just finally mentioned that we’re talking about EY in particular, and of course, the extension is the big four. But the truth is, is I spent a lot of time speaking with a lot of other multiservice firms think CRO Grant Thornton BDO. RSM BDO by the way, in terms of m&a, they’re one of the biggest players in legal in m&a in Germany. So this is something that spans that spans the multi service side, and the consulting side FTI consulting stouts, which is an advisory or an investment bank firm, whether that be that sort of morphed into a strategy consulting firm, they have a big, Legal Operations focused offering develop. So it isn’t just a big four it isn’t just EY law firms need to be thinking about how they engage their clients. Because there are all sorts of other opportunities, alternative opportunities for clients out there.

Marlene Gebauer 10:09
So Tom, I know you’re talking about how you know, ey consulting and you know, potentially others are being very thoughtful in their approach about how to engage clients differently. But you’ve also talked about maybe the flip side in the past. So I wanted to talk to you about, you know, what you’ve seen in this industry regarding law firms and legal departments falling victim to trends, and I get the the image of dog from it, where it’s like squirrel, you know, what you call shiny object syndrome? What are some examples of what you’ve seen?

Tomek Jankowski 10:43
Probably, there are two ones that come to mind. Particularly one is around. So it’s confusing looking at something like digital technology, which is amazing. We all know, we can do amazing things. But the technology itself is just a tool. And that gets forgotten a lot. So we see that the we see all too often that law firms, others as well, this is not exclusive to law, but others, they see and think I need to get an AI tool, or I need to get machine learning in here. It’ll really impress the clients, they’ll see that we’re advanced, we’re forward thinking. The tool is not the point, you need to be addressing a client, very specific client need a client problem, what are the problems where it’s tripping up, and we have the opportunity to speak to a lot of in house legal departments, GCS and legal ops people in particular, for for our research on the digital report, we have a huge number, those people almost universally told us one of the biggest problems for them is when a law firm comes to them and said, says we have digital capabilities, don’t you worry, that for them means terror, because what it means is something like e billing, for instance, that is an area where there’s huge frustration, and to be sure, it goes both ways. But you develop a new billing system where you buy any billing platform, you bring it in house. But then what happens is, you need to have the capabilities to quickly plug that E billing system into your clients, data system data environment, quickly, and you need to be able to make make that work in a way easily for the client. So that becomes that it becomes seamless. That’s not what happens, what happens is they show up, we have this platform use it, you know, here’s where you put your inputs. And then things break down. rules aren’t followed, your data doesn’t match with their data, it doesn’t map to their data. So it becomes a problem where they end up spending a lot of time and a lot of extra money fixing making the E building platform work. When it just becomes an added element of frustration. We simply hear that in the data side, law firms that will have some data analytics capabilities, but they’re not really able to quickly assess and plug into the client data, environmental, they don’t really use external data sources very well. And it again, it becomes a cost sock and a time suck for the client. So I think the focus for law firms going back to your shiny object syndrome point is they need to not think about the technology, they need to think about what are ways that we can improve our client experience? And how can we make it better, cheaper, quicker, more effective for the clients. And digital technology can definitely be a part of that. But I’ve heard many examples of digital projects with clients that actually had an impact, just looking at process, even before anybody applied any technology to that. Just rejiggering processes, standardizing processes, developing them to be easier to integrate quickly with the client. That alone has a big impact. So that’s, that’s, I think, the major problem with with digital technologies, we’re all wowed by what it can do. But we’re not focusing on really what it can do.

Marlene Gebauer 14:11
Why do you think that happens? You know, that you you kind of have this disconnect. And what do you think can be done about that?

Tomek Jankowski 14:19
So why does it happen? I think it’s again, it’s a very common problem. And if you look at I think one of the big four thinking was KPMG, maybe one but one of the big four, in this on leadership says that north of 70% of digital transformation projects fail. And it’s because people focus on the technology, not on the process. And on the people. That’s the important element. There’s a human capital element, a lawyer element to making things work well. So I think that’s the, the real area to look at is again, what is the client problem? And what how do we solve that internally? And that’s how do we get our people on board to do things differently? How do we redevelop the process? And the technology can be built around all that, you need to do that thinking first. And then the goal needs to be better outcomes, whether it’s internal clients or external clients, it needs to be here’s a very specific problem we have, how do we fix this, and technology may be a part of that

Marlene Gebauer 15:16
solution. Good technology in a bad process is still bad process.

Tomek Jankowski 15:22
That’s often, as I say,

Greg Lambert 15:25
Well, that leads really well into the next question, which is the most expensive and the most valuable resource that the legal industry has is isn’t the technology that we’re using the rather the people that we have? What are some of the tips that you have on how to leverage that the legal tech that’s available along with the human capital within a legal organization?

Tomek Jankowski 15:54
Oh, just get rid of the people not.

Marlene Gebauer 15:58
work would be so nice if we didn’t have to.

Tomek Jankowski 16:02
If only Okay, so I’m gonna go back to an old colleague of mine who’s no longer with ALM, Nathan Simon wrote a brilliant series of articles in LinkedIn about what was called the trusted advisor idea in consulting. And it was the notion that you have these really sweat, you hire these people, because you have a problem, a consulting firm, some really smart people show up, they look at your problem, study it, ask questions, poke around, then write a report and leave. And then you get a really big bill in the mail later. His is the gist of his articles is that that world is going away that the fact that a person who has industry experience, and has been through these problems before Yes, that is valuable, but that the technology is taking away a lot of that trust, a lot of that need for instinct, and intuition that we’ve relied on, quite frankly, for centuries. He, he goes into a lot of depth on the technology investments that the Big Four are making. So I really recommend those those articles, naked with a smart guy. But I think in the end, he was onto something while he’s kind of being a little hyperbolic, he was onto something and that the consultant of the future, and I think this applies in law as well is going to be a cyborg, in the sense that no doesn’t mean you’re gonna hack off your right arm and get a bionic arm. But it means that you are going to need to be able to work seamlessly, you need going to need to understand digital technology and digital capabilities. And you’re going to be able to need to work with them seamlessly and integrate them where appropriate, into your job when it when it will help the client outcome. And if you look at the big four today, if you look at the marketing, they use this word trust again, but what they’re saying now is you don’t have to rely on our really smart people anymore, alone exclusively, that’s still an important element. But we back with their thinking we back their their thoughts and their experience up with data, both internal data, your data we’re going to use and other external data properties, data and analytics, and then that applied with technology, we can do scenario planning Wargaming, we can help you really understand your problem now and how that may, you know, different potential scenarios of how to resolve that. So I think as we look at people, you know, my joking at the beginning of the side, the truth is, this is all human. You know, human endeavors, human civilization, and humans are the point we are the point, lawyers are never going away. And lawyers are key, they’re important, their training is important. The experience they bring from industries etc is important, and their ability to interact with people that’s important. But they need to be able to integrate technology more closely. So it’s not that there’s going to be down the hall a, you know, an IT department, you go there, when you need some help with data, you need to understand data, you need to understand Analytics, you need to understand the implications of AI of AR, AR and VR of IoT, all of that stuff, you need to understand that, and sometimes you’re gonna have to be able to use that. And you’re gonna have to be able to do that with your teams. So again, the focus is on the client outcomes. And you’re looking at doing things faster, cheaper, and more effectively. Like I said, we’ve talked about are not we’ve, there’s talk out there about T shaped lawyers and oshri, IP lawyers, we can have all those discussions, those are all important things to be debating. But they are right about the fact that the lawyer of the future of lawyer now and 2022 needs to have a better understanding of these technologies, both to use them, and the impact and the implications they’re having on the client environment and the problem as well as the solution. And I know there’s a challenge, you know, that I just spent. I was at a conference in Boston Legal conference and One of the big topics was getting lawyers and non lawyers to play well, nice together, you know, in house legal departments struggling with having hiring operations and financial people, and having them work effectively with a GC, both in terms of how they communicate, but how they work, how they see problems, and, and recognizing the value in each other. That’s a struggle. And it’s something we’ve got to, we’ve got to figure out, I don’t think a lot of organizations have really cracked that nut very well. Again, it’s not exclusively a legal problem. But that’s just an example of some of the challenges to human challenge where a problem that’s thought of as a technology problem, but yeah, at the end of the day, the lawyer of the future needs to be able to use technology seamlessly. Think back to 1985, when the first desktop computers were becoming available, you were a star if you knew how to use a desktop computer. And then later in the early 90s, you were proud to put that you could use the Office Suite, you know, you knew how to use Word and you knew how to use Excel and you’re a rock star than today, if you put that on your resume, you know, I think you’re gonna get bounced. So

Marlene Gebauer 21:00
how is it that well functioning and profitable firms are integrating technologies so that it doesn’t just speed up the delivery of legal services, but it’s also contributing to the bottom line of the organization? You know, I think about the billable hour. And, you know, if you’re integrating technologies that make things more efficient, you know, isn’t that counterintuitive? I mean, how are firms? You know, how are firms adjusting to this?

Tomek Jankowski 21:27
First of all, my boss, Patrick fuller is gonna be very happy to hear this question.

Greg Lambert 21:32
We’d like to keep Patrick happy we do.

Tomek Jankowski 21:35
He’s a nice guy. Yeah, we get to talk about billable hours. So there are a, that’s a wonderful way to look at it. And that’s one of the complaints that we also heard about from GCS. Talking about digital technology, they said that, okay, these law firms develop these digital capabilities, they tell us about them, whether it’s around eDiscovery, or contract management or something, they’re going to bring these things to bear, but they charge separately for them, they take the health care approach, and you get separate bills, because you’re using technology. Now, instead of here, we are solving this problem. And oh, by the way, we’re using technology to solve it as well, it’s, no, you’re using our lawyers, that’s the practice of law stuff, you’re using our support staff for the legal services that separate and you’re using this technology unit that we’ve developed, you’re gonna get another build separate bill for that. And it may be even at billable hours still. So that’s a complaint that this isn’t an integrated approach, it’s seen as a separate side tool. And it’s a G wiz tool, kind of like when you first got air conditioning in your car in 1975. So that’s, that’s one of the problems that firms need to be willing to think about the client experience. And again, they’ve got to focus on solving the client problem. I don’t mean to keep comparing them. But when you when a technology firm comes in, or I’m sorry, a consulting firm, they’re bringing technology, they’re bringing an integrated approach across many different domains, X domains of expertise industries, you’re getting a raft package, and you may not even be aware of the people in front of you what specifically, they’re there to do, but they are going to bring that all together, and you’re gonna get a single bill at the end of it that will be negotiated, there may be what we call value based in a legal consulting world has a slightly different meaning than the legal world. I know the starting to talk about value billing. But it basically means the consulting firm the provider, put some skin in the game, and guarantees we’re going to get you to this outcome. And we you know, in our building is based on us delivering that outcome with you partnering with you. That’s an important part of it. But it means I know AFA is becoming a bigger thing spoke to some really interesting people over the past week about them. And I think that’s an important step forward. But it means integrating your offering better and and recognizing that the billing isn’t just about cheaper, it’s not just lower the cost because you’re saving internally, when you use our technology, why shouldn’t I get some of that savings? Actually, the bigger thing that I’ve heard is, yes, we’d like to, we like to lower costs, we’d definitely like to, but we’d like to predictability as well, if we’re going to be using you over the long term, we want to have a more predictable cost element that we can go to our bosses with when we know we use you That’s something that’s more important, rather than the traditional billable hours that can as you know, can accordion in and out depending on all sorts of factors.

Marlene Gebauer 24:29
So I have a follow up question on that, because I thought it was interesting when you’re talking about the consolidation that some of the the accounting firms are doing and you get one bill, and you use ediscovery as as an example. And, you know, a lot of the extra cost associated with those platforms is the storage cost. And that’s something that the firm itself is billed for. Do you have any sort of understanding or experience in terms of like, you know, how do you sort of consolidate this? How do you predict this Mmm. And is it just sort of the size of some of the accounting firms that sort of allows that? Or maybe they can negotiate something better with with some of these providers?

Tomek Jankowski 25:10
The answer that so size does have something to do with it, but not as much as a lot of let me believe. So, the answer is that they’re not, when they’re competing with you, you are a law firm. We in a client legal in house legal department, they didn’t most of the time, the vast majority of the time, it didn’t begin for them as a problem with the legal department. For them, it began with something else something operational something. Usually a restructuring events, like an m&a event or something like that. The legal is just one more one part of their service delivery pie. And for them, they are looking at it as just building relationship and legal, they can act often add a lot of capabilities for in house legal, often they competent, because they’re doing something similar adjacent in finance, or in, in compliance or in procurement. But the answer really, is that the way they build that is not specifically, here, we’re providing you with this legal capability around ediscovery. We’re helping you with this service, think of Deloitte to de ice, for instance, that tool I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, sort of contract review and sort of pre ediscovery tool. They’re not thinking about in terms of you’re using this tool, so we’re gonna bill you for this tool, X number of hours or something they’re thinking is we’re using you for or you’re using us rather, for all of these different elements, we’re helping you with this much larger problem, that’s just a part of it. This, the eDiscovery phase is just a part of it. Or it may be a foot in the door for other further downstream services, including managed services. It’s a big area and legal that they’re getting into now. So for them, it’s not a single standalone element. They’re not thinking in terms of here’s what it costs us to run this tool, how do we pass that cost on to and make sure that it’s profitable for us to call, pass it on to the client, it’s, we are engaging them among all these different service lines. That’s just one of them. It’s absorb that cost is totally absorbed and not a problem

Greg Lambert 27:19
coming. I know you’ve done a number of surveys and analyzed a number of firms. And I kind of want to go back to the technology human interaction. And see Do you have any examples of firms that are actually doing things right when it comes to both their technological assets, as well as their their human assets of being able to truly merge? Those in haven’t haven’t worked together?

Tomek Jankowski 27:46
Sure, there are firms are doing a lot of interesting things. And I’ll say that, as far as pacesetter research is concerned, and we’re about two years old, with this research, we tend to find more in the UK and Australia for some reason. Well, not for some reason. There’s the market has been liberalized there in those markets. So there’s just simply a lot more competition for the for law firms in those markets. But it is happening here in the US as well. And we’ve seen some definite interesting things happening. So I think one I’ll call out is Nishimoto, and Asahi. And if you’re Japanese, I apologize, I probably just loaded that. But this is a Japanese firm that was kind of bog standard, obviously one of the big names in Japan and law firms. But when the Japanese government mandated that all corporations have to begin some sort of digital journey, they basically forced all firms into some sort of digital technology environment. What Nishimoto and OSI did is they opened a digital transformation practice, they brought in lawyers, so it’s not a separate off to the side practice, there are lawyers involved. But there are also technology, people involved data center across all the different technologies. They focus on specific issues like using drones, for instance, or IoT, or those types of things. It’s got a few hot button issues, but they also bring in scientists or behavioral scientists, they and also strategy consultants, quite frankly. And so this unit is tying all these different elements together, and helping these clients who basically look like you know, the standard deer in the headlights in the middle in the middle of the road. We were being told you need to be digital companies. Now you’re going to be digital organizations to figure out not just the, you know, the technical compliance elements that a law firm would normally deal with, but also tie that into technology, tie that into operations, tie that into a larger strategy around something like data, you know, data governance and data compliance, obviously a big issue. How do you develop that sort of strategy when you’ve got retail firms and you know, all over Southeast Asia etc, so on It’s an area where they’ve got these elements to play together really well. Another example will be Thompson Heinz, in a slightly different area of the developed the supply chain focus that brings together so it’s, you know, on the surface, it looks like well, they’re helping you develop contracts. Well, yeah, that’s a that’s definitely an important issue with supply chain chains. Third party risk is big nowadays. And supply chains are going crazy, obviously. But they’ve developed a sort of accordion doubt or telescoped out this practice that looks at helps clients develop transparency and sort of a growth agenda. We’ll also having these sort of living contract management elements that helps you actively be aware of of all of the relationships both with your you know, your supply chain partners, and all their partners that they’re dealing with, obviously, all that extension, fourth degree as it were. And so there’s a strategy and management element that goes into just the the compliance side of it, the contract side of it, that brings in risk management as well, that’s a key part of it, it helps clients get a sort of a dashboard, overview of, you know, daily snapshot of what their supply chain is looking like, where the threats are, how they need to be thinking about these relationships. And the final one, I think, that I mentioned is ropes and gray. They are, they’ve developed the insights lab recently, within the last couple of years. But it’s really expanded, I looked at it, particularly for m&a where they’re applying it, but they’re using it much further afield, bringing together behavioral scientists, data scientists, and compliance specialists to look at compliance not just from the perspective of here’s where you need to dot i’s and cross T’s. But also looking at the behavioral component. When you look at something like cybersecurity, for instance, you know that the majority, more than half of all cyber events are not outside bad players hacking into your environment, it’s your employee screwing up. And so it’s how to develop that the human and the operational side of whatever compliance element you’re trying to address, to really ensure that you are building a as bulletproof, a compliance environment as you can and help you manage it going forward. So again, bringing in lawyers and non lawyers, getting them to work together effectively focusing on client problems, these firms are what we call faces. They’re knocking out of the park.

Greg Lambert 32:29
Well, I know this was happenstance, but we actually had Dr. Caitlin handwritten from ropes and gray on last year talking about that. So if anyone wants to learn more about that, I’ll put a link in the in the show notes for that episode, as well.

Tomek Jankowski 32:43
But I’ll just mentioned that these are these are really dramatic examples. But again, it can go down to, you know, basic client engagement, you know, looking at FAS, and looking at ways of just engaging with your client in a way that’s, that’s effective from a technology and an operational standpoint, and get them to the goal as quickly as cheaply and as effectively as possible. It doesn’t have to be building out an entire technology division or, you know, so again, these are really dramatic and successful examples. But simpler ways of just ensuring your clients get what they need. That moves the needle.

Greg Lambert 33:19
Yeah, so the I mean, the the key there is communication with your with your client.

Tomek Jankowski 33:25
Oh, you got to talk to him now.

Greg Lambert 33:26
Oh, I know. The thing we don’t like to do, but we should this shouldn’t be, shouldn’t we do?

Marlene Gebauer 33:34
So Tomic? We ask all our guests to take out their crystal ball and look into the future for us? What do you see as a change or a challenge facing the legal industry over the next two to five years?

Tomek Jankowski 33:47
I think very broadly speaking. And unfortunate. Fortunately, I have to put my old foggy head on as somebody who lived through the Cold War and the end of the Cold War. And I actually was I was living in Poland in Hungary at that time, when, when the communist regime so I was able to see in detail what the impact was for those societies. One of the interesting things is we went through a period after 1991, sort of a post Cold War period, where and in the beginning of the 1990s, there was one country that just everything, it dominated the planet, its economy, its culture, its society. And that faded after about 2000 When other places like China, India, Brazil, began to rise. But we’re in a period now there was this amazing level of stability across most world systems in the post cold war era. That’s done. That’s gone. We’re done. And that, I think, is the primary element. Looking forward volatility at extreme levels that we haven’t seen since the 80s, where every trade relationship gets screened by governments where interest rates go up and down a lot, you know where inflation was in 1981 or 82, I think we had 14.7% interest rates here in the US. And that was trying to slow down this, this massive double digit inflation. Many managers out there many, across the corporate world and private equity, haven’t lived through that those times. They haven’t seen that kind of volatility. And it’s impacting everything, it defines all of the different ways. You know, Forex, where do you keep cash? Do you move it across borders? What about your people? What about your, you know, your your real estate, all of these decisions are being impacted by volatility, geopolitical, economic volatility that isn’t going away? In m&a? One of the interesting things I found was how difficult it is suddenly, in 2022, more so than even 2021. To just identify value, you have to nail down what is the value of this asset, and what kind of values are going to have in two years or five years depending on these factors. So I think the challenge for all professional services firms and the opportunity opponent, put it for law firms is developing a go to market strategy that is sort of a handheld holding element that helps your clients deal with this volatility, volatility, to deal with the fact that things are going to be changing rapidly, that their risk profiles are changing constantly, that compliance is not a one year exercise anymore. They’re going to need help in being able to more actively manage these components of their business models in the graph to be able to be nimble with their business models. And there are all sorts of implications for that. So law firms have the opportunity to step up and to play a greater role in have a greater voice in client strategy in client risk management, and client operational thinking. And that human capital element, we were joking about it earlier, and you know, the technology is coming to take your jobs. It’s not for some it has most of it, I think is really happened already. Yes, that’s gonna keep happening. But you know, it’s like working in a typewriter factory 1989 You were doing. But for the most part, the reality is technology is going to enhance our jobs and change our jobs, the way we do our jobs, are going to help us do those jobs better. You need to be you can be a leading voice in that as law firms, and you can be the partner with the clients. And that, of course, means looking beyond the traditional transactional relationships you have with clients, but you can be that partner. And I think that’s what’s going to, that’s where the client need is going to be. It is here today, but even more so is going two years, four years, five years, looking out. You need to be one of the parties that they can turn to that can provide them with informed advice that helps them make decisions, constantly make decisions and to be agile, to build resilient futures, to start lapsing into consulting speak for the organization so that they’re able to navigate this world.

Greg Lambert 38:10
Yeah, I think I think you’re right. There’s probably people in leadership positions that have never seen interest rates above 6%. And cheap money has been a norm for for 15 years plus. So yeah, I think I think you’re right, it’s going to be a rude awakening for some people on how to handle double digit, not just inflation, but interest rates as well if it comes to that. So Tomek Jankowski, Director at ALM intelligence and pacesetter research, thank you very much for coming on and taking the time to talk with us today. Thank you Tomek

Tomek Jankowski 38:48
Greg Murray’s been a lot of fun, really, thank you for having me.

Greg Lambert 38:53
But sometimes you need someone that with enough experience to remember how things used to be to get ready for how they’re going to be again. And and yeah, I hadn’t, you know, I really hadn’t thought of it. But you know, it takes someone from that perspective, especially someone that went through the Cold War and all the issues that happen with the fall after the Berlin Wall and the rise of the ex Soviet countries, you know, that we’re seeing a lot of that take place, and I hadn’t I hadn’t really thought about how that affects the legal market, but it makes sense that that’s something to worry about.

Marlene Gebauer 39:28
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I also like sort of the contrast of of being very methodical and thoughtful about your planning and and basically solving problems with new processes and new technologies rather than sort of looking at the shiny new objects and just sort of focusing that way. Like his his example of how, yeah, we have digital technology, and it sounds great, but nobody’s sort of taken the time to go behind the scenes and figure it out. Hey, does this integrate appropriately? And I mean, it made me think about like this, this is actually goes back to what we talked about about legal teams. Like if we want to do something like this, then you got to bring in, you know, the people as you were asking about, you have to bring in the people, and and you know, who have the expertise to be able to point these things out, so that you can thoughtfully address them.

Greg Lambert 40:23
Yeah. And were you proud of me that I didn’t use my favorite saying of all problems or communication? I

Marlene Gebauer 40:28
was really thinking you were gonna do it.

Greg Lambert 40:31
I thought about it, but I have to hang back. So. So. Yep. But yeah, that was, again, when it comes to problem solving. Identify the problem, you identify the problem by talking about the issues, and finding out what pain points your clients have. And it’s one of the things that lawyers hate they and they won’t, there’s, you know, they’re very reluctant to put their people that can solve those problems in front of their clients. So, you know, I think, again, this is just one more example of all problems or communication problems. So sorry, I had to do it.

Marlene Gebauer 41:07
And speaking of communication, I want to thank all of you, our audience for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm

Greg Lambert 41:22
on Twitter, And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter,

Marlene Gebauer 41:25
or you can leave us a voicemail on our new new geek and review Hotline at 713-487-7821. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 41:40
Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later.

Marlene Gebauer 41:43
Okay, bye bye hey, take me back to back days, devils backbone. Devils back

I should be taking a victory lap. Instead, I am on an apology tour urging in-house departments not to listen to me—i.e., ignore my long-standing advice re asking law firms about their use of technology. I’ve concluded that the common application of my advice only adds unnecessary friction to an already friction-laden system—similar to the value-subtractive frictions introduced by ubiquitous, well-intentioned, and misguided approaches to discounts, panels, outside counsel guidelines, AFAs, etc.

I understand the motivations. I also understand the constraints. Everyone operating in our space should be able to connect the dots on these four statistics:

• 75% of GCs recognize workload growth will outpace budget (problem)
• 74% of in-house lawyers are experiencing burnout (consequence)
• 70% of law departments are not investing in digital transformation (unavailable solution due to resource constraints)
• 70% of law departments are asking law firms about technology usage (attempt to cope within resource constraints)

Though I would prefer the first three statistics were less depressing, I can conceptualize  a world where (a) the last stat is higher and (b) this is a good thing. I now strongly doubt (b). Which makes the seeming inevitability of (a) somewhat tragic: 97% of law departments are either already asking law firms about technology (70%) or plan to start asking within the next three years (27%). Look at the upward trajectory:

This should be gratifying to me as the author of Unless You Ask, which is premised on the importance of these types of questions. The guidebook, published by the ACC, takes its name from a 2015 Altman Weil survey in which 62.7% of law firms responded they were not doing more to change the way they delivered legal services because “clients weren’t asking for it.”

Instead of patting myself on the back, let me say this: I was wrong. I am sorry.

I stand behind my symptom identification. I stand behind my differential diagnosis. I stand behind my treatment plan—in the abstract. But my advice was poorly calibrated to survive contact with reality.

I know how much pressure in-house departments are under. I recognize this will only get worse. I should have foreseen that, in making attendant tradeoffs, most departments would opt for an oversimplified alternative to the resource-intensive structured dialogue I advocate. I should have better understood the net negative impact of the additional friction.

While the situation still screams something must be done, doing nothing is superior to doing the wrong thing, which includes doing the right thing the wrong way. At best, the wrong things squander already scarce resources. More often, the wrong things make a bad situation worse.

Succinctly, some advice to in-house counsel. Doing the right things below is legitimately hard (and likely infeasible for many resource-constrained departments) but this reality should not be a barrier to expending less energy on the wrongs things so common to legal buy:

• Minimize fake discount discussions as much as feasible and reorient towards real pricing conversations—i.e., pricing the work (not the lawyer) in context of the (i) value of the work to the enterprise and (ii) the market in which the work is being bought
• Do not treat panels and AFAs as variants of the discount discussion or even ends in themselves; rather, panels and AFAs should be among the natural outcomes of the work decomposition, work pricing, and work/supplier sorting fundamental to rationalizing your legal value chain to deliver business value (e.g., embedded advisory, compliance by design, portfolio partnerships, legal marketplaces)
• Focus outside counsel guidelines on reducing friction in your B2B relationships and improving transparency, with an emphasis on consistent data quality and a strong bias towards driving industry-wide standards (e.g., SALI)—rather than further increasing friction in the vain hope micromanagement will deliver incremental cost savings (i.e., another cumbersome discount variant)
• Do not ask law firms about their use of technology unless you can, and will, use the answers to engage in structured dialogue to change behavior, theirs and yours, in a manner that sustainably improves business outcomes at scale and pace

That’s the short of it.

For the intrepid few who prefer the verbose, nerdy version, I will expound more (in parts) and consolidate the entire brain dump here with the aim to flesh out the above. My objective is to increase understanding and, especially, empathy as we do our collective best to, at the very least, not increase unnecessary friction. Specifically, I will attempt to:

• Reinforce that we face wickedly complex problems
• Explain that it is both natural and counterproductive to seek simple solutions to complex problems
• Illustrate why facially simple solutions —discounts, AFAs, panels, RFPs, outside counsel guidelines—to the complex problems of legal buy are counterproductive on both an individual and system level

Stay tuned.

A great Lawyer Wellness Program is something that Jennifer Walters could really benefit from with her stressful life of being the face of the GLK/H law firm’s SuperHuman Law Division. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that is offered by the firm, so she accidentally ends up in a group wellness session at Emil Blonksy’s ranch retreat. 

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Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:19
Imagine running a SuperHuman Law Division at a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She-Hulk: Attorney at Law show on Disney Plus. And we’re going to dive in this week to episode seven the retreat. I am Greg Lambert, and alongside with my SuperHuman Law Division co counsel and Joshua Lenon, who is on the road currently in Denver on his way to ClioCon. Joshua, how’s travels going?

Joshua Lenon 0:52
Things are going well, I’m going down a little early for the Clio Cloud Conference. It’s actually going to be in Nashville this year. So Denver is just a stop along the way. And we’re very excited. One of the weird things I got to do as part of my job today was have a phone call with Neal Katyal, who’s going to be one of our keynote speakers, and talk about how he is one of the most prolific Supreme Court litigators ever. I got to do that this morning. So it’s been a pretty cool day, all things considered.

Greg Lambert 1:26
Well, let’s see if we can keep it cool by discussing this week’s episode. What was your thought? I know there’s not a lot of not a lot of GLK/H in this one.

Joshua Lenon 1:38
Very, very little GLK/H. And so it was less She-Hulk Attorney at Law and more, Jen Walters, group therapy is how I would rename the episode.

Greg Lambert 1:52
Yeah, yep.

Joshua Lenon 1:53
What were your thoughts?

Greg Lambert 1:54
We really had about three again, kind of three different segments here. We had the the too good to be true, Josh that she met at the wedding last week, and his ghosting of her. We had a very short conversation with Nikki her paralegal at GLK/H. And then we spent the bulk of the episode at Emil Blonsky’s retreat called Summer Twilight somewhere in California. And I have to have to say right off the bat, the seven soulmates were nowhere to be found on this episode.

Joshua Lenon 2:34
Oh, that’s right. So in Emil Blonsky’s parole hearing which we saw in episode three, I believe. He had character witnesses in the form of seven pen pals soulmates, seven women, who for some reason were dressed remarkably similar and gushing over him in the background. We were we were kind of led to believe in the end cap, court images that he left them behind once he obtained his parole. So they weren’t anywhere on the retreat that we saw, although it appears to be huge grounds and immaculately maintained. So I’m wondering, who does all that work?

Greg Lambert 3:21
Maybe it’s done through magic. So we’ll have Yeah. I did want to just briefly cover the scene at GLK/H. And there was one thing that stood out to me. And that was the fact that Jen was nominated for Female Lawyer of the Year, from what I’m gathering. It’s SCLA, which probably a Southern California Lawyers Association. Yeah, these these types of awards are quite common in the legal industry.

Joshua Lenon 3:56
Right. So all of our bar associations and law societies will have Awards where they honor someone, and it could be based on a particular type of practice area that they do, right, like the best family law lawyer, or the most innovative IP law lawyer, or it could be based upon lifetime service. And in this instance, it seems like the award is recognizing someone who is making contributions as a lawyer, who is a woman, and Jen been nominated. So we don’t know all the details behind the group. But yeah, these types of awards, you see announcements for them in a lot. And they’re different than kind of the directory programs that are out there, which oftentimes have similar confusion names, like Super Lawyers, which is, I think, an appropriate example for this podcast. It’s basically a marketing slogan that will reach out to lawyers and say you’ve been identified as a Super Lawyer. By now to claim your profile, you get a badge you put on your website and all of these kinds of things. And the criteria, those are nebulous at best.

Greg Lambert 5:19
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting, because if you’ll remember back for the promotional materials, there’s the picture of She-Hulk sitting on a bench with an advertisement on it. And Super Lawyer is actually the the name use there. So I know some of our marketing people were wondering whether or not the magazines that do the Super Lawyer were consulted about that using that name, or if that’s just so generic and name that they were able to use it.

Joshua Lenon 5:50
Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, they actually had blocked out part of the bench, right? Because she said, No, I think that’s how they got away with it.

Greg Lambert 5:59
That’s probably true. That’s probably true. It’s very, very crafty. So that was really I didn’t see anything else that the GLK/H this week. Did you?

Joshua Lenon 6:09
They that the entirety of the episode after that, outside of the law office and not no real courtroom scenes either.

Greg Lambert 6:17
You want to jump next into I think we should probably save the the Josh part other than being ghosted. You want to save that to the end and go into the meat of the episode, which was up to the ranch with the Emil Blonsky?

Joshua Lenon 6:32
I think we want to highlight one thing, and that’s because Jen had had several dates with this Josh character, and things seem to be progressing well. When she stopped hearing from him, it really started to weigh heavily on her. And I think that’s important to highlight going into the reason she’s been called out to the retreat, because it then sets up some of the like conflict and character development that we see later on. Because Jen is stressed, angry and disappointed that the situation with Josh does not appear to be working. Yeah. And and then she wakes up to a call.

Greg Lambert 7:14
Yes. So she she doesn’t see Josh since Thursday. And then Sunday morning, she gets a call from Chuck Donelon, the parole officer for Emil Blonsky. And so do you want to talk about what happened to make the parole officer give her a call?

Joshua Lenon 7:31
Jen gets a call from the parole officer because she is the attorney on record for Emil Blonsky. And in addition to that, she is also a Hulk. And so the parole officer is been notified electronically that the inhibitor, I think it’s an anklet that he’s wearing, right. Kind of like a you might see in a home arrest, ankle monitor. Apparently, there’s some malfunction. They don’t know what it is. And so he as the parole officer must go and investigate. And he really doesn’t want to go alone and investigate with some guy you could turn into like, What did you say with a 12 foot tall lizard monster? No public servants getting paid enough to do that. And so Jen agrees, I think for two reasons, one to protect her clients interests. And two, there’s a strong chance that she’ll get to kind of exercise some frustration. And that is something she’s looking for. And so she begins the trek out. Now, I think it’s important to highlight some of the legal aspects of parole that many people aren’t aware of. So when a prisoner agrees to be paroled, it’s not as if they just get to go and do whatever they want. There are conditions placed upon them. One of the explicit ones that we’ve seen with Emil Blonsky, is he has to wear this inhibitor colander at all times, and refrain from turning into his Abomination alter ego, but he’s also actually waived certain constitutional rights. As a part of his parole, most paroles are limited and when, where and how they can travel, they’re supposed to constantly check in with their parole officer. So usually they might be limited to a county or metropolitan area, maybe a state, depending upon the resources of the justice system that’s available. They also have given up their rights against unreasonable search and seizure. So in Blonsky’s case he’s not in government housing, like a halfway house. He’s in his own particularly owned dwelling, this giant retreat estate, it’s probably the best way to describe it. Yeah. But if a parole officer comes knocking, he has to open the door and has to consent to the search to do otherwise would be a violation of his parole and he’d be right back in for isn’t without a trial without necessarily any defense. And so there’s a lot to be said for the parole officer making this visit on announced on a Sunday. You didn’t even have to call the lawyer. He did specific mitigate some big green back up.

Greg Lambert 10:20
You notice that one he has a code to the gate. So he must have been given that code to the gate, although he’s struggling to enter the code to the gate. And as part of your showing up on announced when Jennifer pulls in and the gate opens for her, apparently she has a remote open for the gate. And she gets up and starts honking the horn to alert him which completely makes the parole officer come unglued for doing that. He’s he does not want to face the 12 foot tall lizard monster so so he even asked Jen to make sure she Hulks up before they meet with Blonsky. The inhibitor apparently was malfunctioning because Blonsky was chasing after his favorite chicken and came in contact with the electric fence as it was his excuse or reasoning for that. And then one of the things that Jin tells him and kinda I think this is kind of both as a comment and a warning. And that was you spent a lot of effort to get out of jail. I would hate to see you go back. And so I think she was kind of warning him to be careful.

Joshua Lenon 11:38
Yeah, yeah. I think she’s rightfully notified him, but he’s under this heightened scrutiny. Yeah, right. And good intentions don’t matter.

Greg Lambert 11:47
Yeah. And I was wondering, Is GLK/H going to charge him for this time?

Joshua Lenon 11:54
Right. We would definitely see Holden asking why weren’t they? But it might depend upon the retainer agreement between GLK/H and the abomination. Yeah, given the nature of the firm, I’m betting these are billable hours, including travel time and mileage.

Greg Lambert 12:11
Yep. Yep. That’s, that’s what I would bill. So. All right, so Donelon, the the parole officer hightails it out. Jennifer is right behind him. Unfortunately, her car gets disabled when a couple of and these are really D-list players in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Man-Bull and El Aguila. That’s some serious damage to Jen’s Prius Prime. And I noticed that they really say Prius Prime a lot in here felt like an advertisement.

Joshua Lenon 12:50
The brand there. Yeah, I think we I think we’ve just seen some product placement. And they weren’t quite stealth about it.

Greg Lambert 12:57
No. So Man-Bull is, runs into the car, disables it, he goes, and again and she turns into She-Hulk and stops him and tosses them to the side to protect her property. Man-Bull admits fault right there on the spot. And she basically demands money payment for the damages,

Joshua Lenon 13:20
Which used to be for a car accident, fairly amicable, right? Depending on the state, right? It could be that insurance isn’t even involved here. no fault insurance actually means that you don’t necessarily need a police officer to come and review certain types of damage. All you need is a report. And then you can file it for your insurance and they’ll cover it. Given that it’s California we can we can look that up and see what type of car insurance and can Jen make a claim for the fact that her car was hit head on by a Man-Bull. A tragic lab accident gone wrong.

Greg Lambert 13:56
Yeah. And I was also wondering the fact because Blonsky admits that he is allowing Man-Bull and El Aguila to work out their differences in a safe environment, which means that he may be responsible for the actions that they’re taking, because he is in his business. As part of his business. That’s his advice for them. So I’m just wondering if Blonsky may be responsible for damages as well?

Joshua Lenon 14:26
I think it’s tougher to say kind of the the third party liability here on this. He may not necessarily be encouraging them to take things as far as they have. But I do want to point out that the very fact that he is counseling these individuals may itself be a parole violation.

Greg Lambert 14:44
Another question I had.

Joshua Lenon 14:46
Many, many paroles blew the condition of no association with known felons or other members of the criminal elements. We don’t know the entire history of the characters that we see throughout this episode. But several of them have been criminals or superpowered villains in the comics, that She-Hulk has been a part of the very fact that he has these people on his estate and he’s counseling them, even if it’s for like a good cause, right to rehabilitate them, it could technically be a violation of his parole. And I was really surprised to see the nature of his retreat attendees.

Greg Lambert 15:30
Yeah, I agree. That was a question I was gonna throw at you so good. On a side issue here, not related to the story here. But El Aguila is actually in the comic books is a mutant. And in fact, you see a little bit of his powers as he shoots bio genetic energy through his sword. But if he’s a mutant, that means that he’s part of the X Men franchise, which was actually sold off in 1994 to 20th Century Fox. Did you know that they bought the rights to X Men and all the mutants for a measly $2.6 million in 1994. And they’ve had over $7 billion in revenue.

Joshua Lenon 16:14
I didn’t realize it was that small amount? Yeah. That’s very interesting. And we’ve talked before about the tortured nature of IP rights in contracts that has impacted the Marvel Universe. Spider Man was the example we bought before but now, it’s interesting that we see a mutant popping up, especially after we’ve seen us now in the Ms. Marvel miniseries that was on Disney Plus, and within the Doctor Strange multiverse of badness. So it seems as if Disney is getting ready to really leverage their new Fox acquired IP of the mutants and so we’re gonna see a lot more excellent.

Greg Lambert 17:04
Yeah, so both Man-Bull and El Aguilar are two of the characters but then we have more show up so we see porcupine Yeah, show up and then we have Saracen. Who is apparently the son of blade another franchise that’s out there. That’s that’s coming back. So the vampire slash vampire hunter also shows up. And then we have a kind of a surprise visit from Wrecker who is part of the Wrecking Crew who attacked Jen in episode three. So she does a fourth wall break here and does a Wait, did they do a previously on this guy? Instead of waiting, she just goes ahead and does a previously on so that she reintroduces Wrecker to us.

Joshua Lenon 17:46
Of him when she breaks the fourth wall. I really appreciate that. So she rightly reacts, I think in a defensive fashion, accuses him of assault and Hulks out, which is the phrase that they’ve they’ve established. Yep. And it turns out that kind of behaviors really unwelcome. When it’s a group therapy session,

Greg Lambert 18:06
I know. It must not be a safe environment for them to work out their problems. So

Joshua Lenon 18:11
So as Jen waits for a tow truck, she is kind of forced to be a part of this group therapy session. Because the only place she can access her cell phone, see if Josh is texting her right? Or if she’s still being ghosted, and eventually gets drawn into the therapy session.

Greg Lambert 18:31
Yeah, it makes me kind of kind of worry what all can can happen in this. In fact, when she does get into this, you feel like this is a trap at some point. But so far in the episode, it was not. And so you say that, her attacking Wrecker, you think that’s justified no action taken by wrecker on what Jen did to him?

Joshua Lenon 18:56
Well, I think she could make an argument that this is a person who was attacked her before, especially when he kind of appears out of nowhere, which he had just done again. And so she was acting with reasonable fear for herself and protected herself. And depending again, on the state, it could fall under a kind of a Stand Your Ground Doctrine.

Greg Lambert 19:17
Okay. All right. So just during the sharing with the circle during the group therapy, I think Jen once again, and this is kind of a theme that we see throughout the entire show, is really kind of separating almost two completely different individuals between She-Hulk and Jennifer Walters and really kind of talking in the third person about Jennifer Walters while she’s in the She-Hulk form. So I’m wondering if at some point because I know in the comics, there was a point where Jen basically stopped being Jen and she was She Hulk all the time. And I wonder if we’re are leading up into that type of result, at the end of the season?

Joshua Lenon 20:03
we are going to see her struggle with kind of bifurcating her life between these two things. And at some point, realize that there are a lot of advantages and maintaining her She-Hulk for, right, just the height, the strength, the invulnerability, the ability to intimidate all of these things can be really positive things, right? The People’s mostly positive reactions to her, which is not something that every hope has has gotten to benefit from is also something that must be really enticing. Most of the problems between having kind of two personas seems to be when Jen feels like people are rejecting the Gen persona, and only wanting the She-Hulk. And so the struggle will be how do I kind of combine those in a way that lets me have the best of both worlds?

Greg Lambert 21:03
Yep. So after the group therapy, and they kind of talk She Hulk and Jen off the ledge, so to speak, as she turns back into Jin, the group decides together that they should go and kill Josh. Do we have a conspiracy? Charge here with the threatening to kill Josh? Threatening

Joshua Lenon 21:25
No, right? Freedom of speech, even around threats, is actually really tough to show, like an intent and a crime. But if they had gone through with it, then everybody in that session may be up for a conspiracy charge. And Jen, as an attorney actually has an ethical duty to disclose that a crime might be happening to the authorities, even though she has a client there. They could invoke like attorney client confidentiality. Any attorney that knows about a commission of a crime and will cause harm to an individual must report it.

Greg Lambert 22:06
Yeah, the only other legal thing that I that I saw, and maybe you saw some more was, they gave her a kind of a going away card at the end. And it was signed by Blonsky. And the gang and which, again, a gang and Blonsky quickly goes now not a real gang, just in case of the parole board.

Joshua Lenon 22:26
Yeah. And that’s, again, a reference to associating with felons and other other criminal elements. And so clearly, that was kind of part of his mind there. But for some reason, doesn’t apply to his counseling. I’m still trying to figure that out. We know that he did do kind of amateur counseling to other people within his super villain prison. Right. And so it could be that he’s continuing that work, and it is sanctioned. We’ll have to see about that. But I do think it’s actually important to note that federal prosecutors, especially when it comes to drug trials, are looking for anything that they can label this kind of gang related activity, because it is considered an aggregating factor in terms of the charges that are available and the sentences that are recommended. So if I were in the criminal elements, I would be very mindful of being labeled a gang member as well. And we even see in immigration law, that these kinds of gang designations on things that may or may not actually be gang designations, like wearing a certain color, right, are definitely things that immigration lawyers need to be mindful when it comes to deportation orders around their their clients. It seems like a little joke, but it’s pretty serious in the legal world.

Greg Lambert 23:52
Yeah. Did you notice that the tow truck had the name slot on the side of it? That was towing off her car?

Joshua Lenon 24:00
I did not. That’s amazing.

Greg Lambert 24:03
And the driver had a name tag that looked like it said, Daniel. So Dan Slott, to wrote the savage She-Hulk, which is the one that I think the focus is the most on her legal career. So there, there was a little shout out for Dan Slott. And so then we get to the the really, really tough part, which is we find out that too good to be true. Josh, is really too good to be true. I did want to point out that I did find the QR code again. And that was on one day my question. Yeah, one of her dates with Josh there’s like a food truck and there’s a QR code there and it actually goes way back to a Tales to Astonish 1958 comic book, which introduced porcupine so there’s our there’s our tie in porcupine has been around a long time.

Joshua Lenon 24:57
I did not realize that and he’s the guy who were There’s a suit that has kind of the appearance of a porcupine. Right. And apparently the the needles can do certain things like we saw a bunch of knife blades pop out of that tangle the brush of his suit.

Greg Lambert 25:12
Yep. And apparently he’s been wearing it way too long. So it smells pretty bad.

Joshua Lenon 25:18
It smells pretty bad. Yeah, it’s almost become like his security blanket, right? This means of dealing with the world from a place of, unfortunately, poor mental health.

Greg Lambert 25:32
Yes. All right. So the last part would be our interaction with Josh. And of course, we’ve already talked about, you know, they dated, they had their third date just spent the night and then apparently ghosted her. But then at the end, we find out there’s actually a lot more going on. I know, they show Josh waking up to leave in the middle of the night. His phone is apparently stealing all of the information off of Jennifer Walters phone. So we have that issue there. I know, there might be an issue that some people talk about sexual coercion, whether or not he was lying and using some type of fraud. I know in the United States that that is a very, very hard charge to stick. Not sure Jen has much there. But he also takes a picture of her while she’s sleeping, which, first of all, you know, gross, don’t, don’t do that. And then text the following emojis to the Hulk King, which we know from that terrible website. For man babies,

Joshua Lenon 26:50
the intelligencia. What a misnomer.

Greg Lambert 26:53
Yeah. So the emoji is a blood syringe, a green test tube, and a thumbs up. And so before we get into that, I just want to say Hulk King. Is that, is that going to then lead us along with Daredevil to King pen? That’s what I’m wondering, or is it the leader? I’m up in the air? Now,

Joshua Lenon 27:15
think because they’ve established that turning into your Hulk persona is called Teen out? Yes. This is, let’s turn everybody into a hoax project.

Greg Lambert 27:26
Okay. I guess the last two episodes will let us know.

Joshua Lenon 27:30
I know. Yeah. So yeah, there’s there’s inducement here, which, as you say, is definitely a hard charge to make stick? I think for a couple of reasons. One, nobody even knows where Josh is. Right? And so being able to charge him with a prime in some you can charge him but you can’t really prosecute if you can’t find them. And then the only real record we have, right, because Jen doesn’t know about any of this nefarious stuff at the end. Is the fact that you yourselves have gotten back to we have a stream of text messages. That’s it. That’s all the evidence we have. And so unfortunately, it is a he said she said in a situation that just is very difficult to handle.

Greg Lambert 28:16
Yeah. Any other legal issues around Josh?

Joshua Lenon 28:20
Well, I’ve definitely if he is taking, like blood samples and things like that without a permission. That’s just straight up assault. Right. Right. And when that comes to light, that will be problematic. And depending upon what he does with that picture. It could also be criminal publication as well. So

Greg Lambert 28:40
the infamous revenge porn.

Joshua Lenon 28:42
Yeah. And that one’s really tough to fight under standard tort law, because oftentimes, again, it’s difficult to prove, was there consent to the image? Was there consent to the image being published? Who is actually publishing the image? Right? If Josh is texting it between friends and a close circle, is that considered publishing? Is it being done for the purpose of embarrassing, Jen? There’s a lot of different factors that we might have to wait for this. And then again, we would have to look at is there a state law criminalizing this activity? And would it be applicable in this instance, there are some interesting it approaches to revenge porn, being able to file copyright claims under the digital management Copyright Act, that allows for the kind of these quick takedowns internet sites of information that’s been published, and so we’ll have to see what’s done with this photo. What actions Mallory book might have to take on Jen’s behalf?

Greg Lambert 29:43
Yeah, well, you know, the the saddest thing about this episode is that it all ends next week. We only have two more episodes. So oh my gosh, and so I am lining up after the series wraps up for us to do a wrap up episode as well. And I’m lining up a couple of guests. Hopefully that will join us. And we’ll talk about some of the interactions within the law firm and kind of just do a recap. So sad to see it ending next week. But also exciting to see if we ever get Daredevil to show up. And who the big bad turns out to be. Yeah, I’m

Joshua Lenon 30:24
excited for that as well. This really feels like they’re using the season to set things up. And then it’s going to end on a node that definitely, I think, leads into a second season. Yep,

Greg Lambert 30:35
I sure hope so. But more time. Yep. So Josh, I know you get a you get to catch your next flight to your next location. So thanks for taking the time to on your trip to talk with me. Anything else?

Joshua Lenon 30:48
As always advise our audience to stay super. And to remember all the good that lawyers do doesn’t just happen when you’re big and green.

Greg Lambert 30:58
All right. Well, thank you, Josh. I hope if people see you at ClioCon, I hope they come up and talk She-Hulk to you.

Joshua Lenon 31:03
I hope so. I’m looking forward to it.

Adam Curphey’s new book, The Legal Team of the Future: Law+ Skills guides the reader through the need for less silos in legal practice and much more reliance upon teams and collaborative efforts. The idea of a “Law+” model for the profession brings in the essential processes of adding people, business, change, and technology to the law and creating legal teams to solve legal problems.

Curphey’s experiences at law firms like White & Case LLP, Reed Smith LLP, and Mayer Brown LLP helped provide insights into what worked and didn’t work in legal innovation. His membership on the O-Shaped Lawyer Steering Board also provided the human-centric skills needed for the integration of teams into an industry filled with accomplished individuals used to going it alone. This expansion of the T-Shaped and the Delta Model Lawyers brings in more of that human interaction that is needed in today’s complex legal environment.

This week, Purvi Sanghvi  from Paul Hastings, and a current Legal Value Network Executive Board Member, explains how the legal industry may approach a potential economic downturn in 2023, and how that must be different from the 2008 or the 2020 approaches on previous challenges to the profession.

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Transcript

Marlene Gebauer
Welcome to The Geek in Review, podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert
And I’m Greg Lambert. Marlene, I just it hit me today that the last episode of She Hulk Attorney at Law is next week. And so I’m just not sure what I’m going to do to fill the void once that show is over.

Marlene Gebauer
I know that it’s like we need to have another Marvel rollout before, before the next one comes out for the next season.

Greg Lambert
Yeah, we’ll have to figure out something. So I know that Joshua Lenon and I are going to do at least one recap episode for our superhuman law division podcast with some guests to talk about, you know how the big law firm worked in a world where there’s, you know, super powered individuals. So

Marlene Gebauer
the really super powered individual really super powers.

Greg Lambert
The one thing that I know we’re going to talk about is apparently this law firm that She Hulk works in, obviously doesn’t have a marketing department. So we’re really going to talk

Marlene Gebauer
about crazy. Like, no and no.

Greg Lambert
So if the listeners haven’t tuned in on that, and you want to get really geeky, come join Joshua Lenon. And I, over at superhumanlaw.com. And all six or seven episodes are, are up now. So we’re just having fun.

Marlene Gebauer
Yeah, really go check it out. It’s a lot of fun. So this week, we have Adam Curphey on the show, to talk about his new book, The legal team of the future law plus skills, we added to the T shaped lawyer and the Delta lawyer and bring you the concept of the O shaped lawyer. So this builds really well on our episode a few weeks ago with Heidi Gardner on Smarter collaboration, this whole idea of moving away from the individual leader and doer in the legal industry and focuses on the value of a team approach.

Greg Lambert
Looks like we’ve kind of uncovered a trend here and about not just going alone for the lawyers and the legal professional. So I like this trend.

Marlene Gebauer
It takes a team you know, it does, it does.

Greg Lambert
Well, first up, we have Purvi Sanghvi from Paul Hastings, as well as one of the board members at the legal value network. And she stopped by my impromptu recording studio there at LBN experience conference to answer our crystal ball question on what she sees, from her point of view for the legal industry over the next to say two to five years. So we’ll hear from Purvi first, and then we’ll jump right into our discussion with Adam Curphey.

Purvi Sanghvi
I am Purvi Sanghvi, I’m the director of pricing with Paul Hastings, and I’m a founding member of the legal value network. i It’s interesting that you asked that question because I been asked people if I’m being reminded of what happened in 2008. So with the economic downturn, and lawyer demand being down, what am I seeing? Am I seeing the same kinds of requests? And what’s interesting is that, you know, there’s some tone of the same kinds of questions, but there’s so many more people on Legal Operations, and both sides and the law firm side and on the client side now that what I foresee is more collaboration, and I see easier conversations, I see more value added responses rather than reactionary habits that had happened in the past. So I’m hoping that, you know, economic cycles will always go around ups and downs and how we weather through them. This this time around, I think it’s going to be a lot more, a lot productive, a lot better for everybody in the game.

Greg Lambert
What would you think would be the worst reaction for an economic downturn from a law firm and from a client side, versus maybe a better approach this time around? And what happened say 12-15 years ago?

Purvi Sanghvi
I think a worse reaction could be just slashing prices without having a conversation around what the pain points are. I think a worst reaction would be having a conversation about something as nuanced as one bill or one price, rather than talking about the entire engagement or the scope of what’s being worked on. forby Thank you. You’re welcome.

Marlene Gebauer
We’d like to welcome Adam kirpy, Senior Manager of innovation at Mayor Brown and my good colleague, welcome, Adam and congratulations on the book.

Adam Curphey
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Greg Lambert
So, Adam, you’ve had a very career as an associate as an educator as an innovation business professional, among many, many other things, I am sure, can you tell us a little bit about your journey to writing This book, the legal team of the future law plus skills.

Adam Curphey
Yeah, sure. This really started when I was teaching, and I was just teaching business law and law firms started to come to us and say, Hey, what’s this innovation thing? What can we do with technology? How do we get new skills, and I started everyone, I don’t know. But I can find out, started meeting with various innovation teams from various different firms across the board, and found out that what they were looking for was much wider than the real focus on technology that a lot of the new legal innovation courses were coming up with. And so I devised a course there and started building that. And then I joined a group called the O shaped lawyer, which was started by a group of GCS, so started to hear from the in house voice that they were looking for human skills. And that group of skills became much more multifaceted than I think we were seeing a lot of in terms of innovation in the future of law. And then I got back into practice, and started to see more and more about how it persisted, and all these different skills that people wanted. And as part of my other activities, I was an external consultant at King’s College London. So looking at their innovation courses, and my publisher approached them and said, we are looking to break into legal publishing, we’ve done business publishing, Do you have anybody who think you could recommend for writing a book and they said, Well, this guy never shuts up. So maybe he’s got something. So I realized that from all of the experiences I’d had, and pulling all of this together, that I did, and there was a model there pulled together various bits that were out there, and could give a different way to really looking at the future of law and and how it can be done. Because it seems so much about the lawyer of the future. And I just think that that title is so unfair on so many people. So this is really on the legal team of the future and bringing together all those multidisciplinary professionals.

Marlene Gebauer
Yes, exactly. Because you’re a law Plus model really has something in it for everyone, doesn’t it? Can you explain how people in different professions can use the model? Sure, yeah.

Adam Curphey
So it really it really is for everyone on it pulls together lots of different models under the various parts of it. So it is for lawyers to see how they can adopt new skills and where they might like to focus their skills in addition to legal knowledge. But it’s also for those business professionals, allied professionals and others of us working in the legal profession. So in terms of the model, it can give you an outline of the current status of legal practice. So you can see a bit about the book talks about why do we need this? Why are we doing all of this. So that can give you that sort of background. And the model itself can give you suggestions where there might be gaps of where you can fill, how you can add value, what the lawyers are doing, and where it is that you can really bring in your skills usefully to work with them. And I try and introduce case studies. And there is a whole chapter dedicated to a single simulated case study, which is based on a real world scenario, which is how different professions can work with the lawyers to really deliver a better level of client service. So this is all about being a bridge and working with specialists. And as much as we often say, lawyers, you have to be that bridge. And you have to have that legal knowledge and also it skills and process skills and change skills and human skills. I think there is something in the business professionals being able to look at it and say, Well, I understand these bits of the law. And I can be that bridge too. And I know the right questions to ask you. And I know the right responses to give. So it’s really designed to give this overview of how we might categorize the various skill sets that we’ve got. And so it can help to build teams. And that can be with hiring people it can be with creating a team for a pitch it can be How am I going to work with the lawyers in this firm. So it is a bit for everyone.

Greg Lambert
So you introduce the concept of an O shaped lawyer and we’ve talked on the show and there’s lots of talk in the industry, about the different shapes of lawyers. Now there’s the the T shaped lawyer that Amani Smathers had created there’s the Delta lawyer which built upon that from Amani from CAP moon and Alice and Carol. And now the the O shape lawyer seems to build upon these two other concepts as well. Can you give us kind of a an overview of what is behind the O shape principle?

Adam Curphey
Sure. And I will say that the shape lawyer is not mine by any stretch is another model that I’ve introduced just like Allison and cats model and I was lucky enough to speak with Allison and cat before the book was published to get their version And to include the various parts of the Delta competency model. But the O’Shea Gloria really speaks to the human part, if we’re looking back at the Delta model, it’s the people deserve it. And this started with a guy called Dan Kane, who at the time was GC, of Network Rail. And he was thinking about taking in lawyers from private practice and how you had to almost de privatize their skill sets to turn them into in House lawyers. And in doing so realize that, actually, he wanted to see the same skills from his providers from his legal advisors, those humans skills, communication, collaboration, all those sorts of things. And that led to the Oh, which has five different Oh, words of openness, ownership, optimism, originality, and opportunism. And that’s what he wanted his legal advisors to have. So he went out and partnered with various people. And that time, one of them was me, I was I was teaching at law school at the time, and was able to talk to her about, certainly in the UK, the changing paths to legal qualification, and how it was an ideal time to look at new skills. And he did a survey with various GCS from a huge group of different companies looking at what they wanted, was this right? Were these areas that he created correct. And what really came out what kind of 12 attributes that clients are looking for, based around adaptability relationships, and value creation. And that model is now expanding to the US, he’s about to start doing the same survey in the US to build it in the same way. And I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in the, as I said, right from the start and coming together with competency models for them. And I’ve drawn on that in the book for the human shape skills, because I don’t want to replace any of the good work that’s been done here. And so a lot of those O shape skills are the skills that you’ll see in the law plus people element of of the law Plus model.

Marlene Gebauer
Adam, you note that the current model of lawyering puts too much pressure on the individual and that legal teams of diverse groups with different talents are the future, which sounds right. But for some this might be seen as a law firm not being a law firm anymore, in terms of how we’ve seen it historically, you know, accomplished individuals who have run things are essentially asked to share leadership, I guess, in some areas with others, you know, even though practitioners are the ones who really take most of the risks involved and representation. So how do you change that mindset? or encourage leaders to sort of think about how this should look in the future?

Adam Curphey
Yeah, sure. I mean, that pressure on the individual is, is something that I’ve just watched happen more and more surreal. Yeah, when I was teaching I was it was, you know, when we started, even in the time that I was there, it was, it was just the law, you need to know. And then it was law and business. And then it was, well, oh, now you need to know law and technology. And then it was, well, actually, you need human skills. So now it’s law. And, and we kept piling up these things. And I used to have this slide of like this book, and keep on piling up of somebody just getting weighed under. And in an industry that’s already got mental health issues, I don’t think that it’s fantastic for us to be you are responsible solely. And I had so many students at the time saying, I feel like there’s so much I not only have to know the law and this very complex area and thing that I’m doing. But I’m also expected to be able to code and to do this and to do all these different things. So that’s really kind of part of why I think it does put too much pressure on but at the end of the day, we have to remember that law firms are businesses, even if we don’t always learn that law school. But law firms are businesses that serve clients. And although we might like to divorce our legal advice from the reality of commercial decision making, it’s just not the way the market is going. It’s not what clients want. We’ve seen GCS are being asked to be more and more of a part of the business, to give strategic advice, not just legal advice, and to be a quasi separate entity that just sits there waiting for something to go wrong. We’re seeing clients increasingly wanting their advice within the context of their business, whether that’s through asking in the relationship, or we’ve seen tenders and pitches that say, well, actually, we don’t just want you to change the law. We also think our process for doing this isn’t fantastic. So we want your firm to fix that as well. Who have you got on what have you got that can do that. And we can’t keep on saying the lawyers. Yeah, you can do all of it because it’s just not fair. And they’re not going to have to focus on the very technical, very good legal skills that they have to do that. And this trend of deregulation is already happening. People are already sharing leadership. There’s new entrants on the market, particularly in my market in England and Wales, where you’ve got new entrants in the market who are increasing competition. So To law firms in particular, if they don’t take stock and start looking at what structure might work for them, they’re gonna find the world runs away from them whether they want it or not. I think that history has changed. And we need to accept that. And if we want to continue to serve our clients and be the first point of call, and that trusted advisor, then we need to change the way we do things.

Greg Lambert
Adam, you’d mentioned earlier that you did some case studies in the book and one of those case studies talks about a latticed pathway for professional progression. Can you tell us a little bit more about this particular case study and how it worked.

Adam Curphey
So this is one of those weird situations where it’s a very small world full of coincidences. So this case study came from Nigel Spencer, who’s who’s currently at Queen Mary University. But worked at Reed Smith, just before I’d worked at Reed Smith in the l&d department. So we actually missed each other, but got to know each other separately. And this case study was something that he was engaged in when he was at the Oxford side business school and conducting research with Meridian west. So they were looking at how to establish the firm of the future. And they essentially found through that research, that the career ladder is increasingly no longer a ladder, there are new routes opening up. And as firms evolve, promotion becomes this latticed pathway, where we might jump in and out of several teams during our careers. You know, from legal education, to lawyer to innovation, you know, this is one of those lattice pathways that I’ve taken. But there’s plenty of people who I know and who I’ve worked with, who have started off as lawyers and moved in technology in the move back or have come from other areas to move into law. And we are increasingly seeing within law firms more and more paths to promotion. And I propose a similar structure in the book looking at Splinter points, which are those times of real attrition for law firms, which could be ideal points at which to introduce new training tracks for individuals to add new disciplines to their skill set. So trying to formalize some of that. But it’s something that really resonated with me when I heard it, that we’re no longer junior associate Senior Associate partner. And that’s the only way to go. And I think that’s the right way that we should grow.

Marlene Gebauer
One of your suggestions is that lifelong learning should not just be the initiative of the individual, but also firms, and they should be coordinating that initiative to support their employees and bridge gaps. So how do you think they should go about this? Yeah,

Adam Curphey
so if we, if we want law firms to really have a group of multidisciplinary professionals, that between them can fulfill all the needs of the business, then you have to go about it in a slightly more coordinated way, then it’s on you. You do what you like, go out there and search

Marlene Gebauer
stuff, you know, go pick what you want. Yeah, exactly. Where

Adam Curphey
could you possibly start, just go and learn everything. And I’m fully aware there is a lot going on with firms already and with l&d teams and and I think this really starts with grass roots. There are a handful of firms who are introducing new joiners to more rounded looks at how law firms work and skill sets. You know, even within our own firm, Mayor Brown, the apprenticeship in England and Wales involves working for Business Services teams, Reed Smith, doing things where they have people in working for Business Services teams before they join. So there are things going on with looking at that wider group of skill sets that might give people the impetus to particularly pick a route. But also it means working with Legal Education providers to have a competency framework that you want to meet that can be handed over and continue to build. And I talk a lot in the book about portfolios and building up portfolios at work of being able to say, These are the skills that I’ve pursued. This is where I excel, this is where I want to carry on going, which can be useful not only for the whole CLA and CPD type stuff, but also to make sure that we have a path and part of the reason for splitting this up into a model was to say to people that there are four different areas which have two different parts to them, that you can go down, you can go down law plus people skills and work your way through that. You can look at law plus business little plus change little plus technology, and you can start to specialize in those areas. So I think having a path for people is a real big part of it, which tracks for legal engineers, legal technologist. Now that might mean partnering with external providers like the LinkedIn learnings of this world. But I think one thing that firms near that really need to remember is that you can put all this stuff here, but if you don’t tie it to anything in terms of incentive, or progression nobody’s going to do it, and they just carry going to carry on doing the things they’ve always done. So there has to be an incentive.

Marlene Gebauer
What type of incentive? Do you do you think would work.

Adam Curphey
So talk about a huge range of incentives in the book. I mean, it comes back to, I think the one that we’d all like, which is more money for various different roles and accepting that business services professionals currently out a lot less than lawyers do. But also, it’s things like being able to give hours, if we’re going to accept the hours is the measure of success, then, and that’s what we’re going to go with and for good or ill, the billable hours here, then we need to widen what’s included in that time, what do those hours represent, we need to give people the chance to say yes, working on stuff that is going to fundamentally change the way you work, but isn’t instantly going to deliver money right now, that is worthy of your time. And it should be counted towards when we’re looking at bonuses, when we’re looking at your hours targets, that sort of stuff. If we don’t let ourselves do r&d, and there’s a stat in the book that I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it talks about how law firms don’t do anywhere near as much research and development as any other industry, that if we don’t do that, then we’re never going to change and other businesses who can now provide legal advice are going to come along and say we’ve done the r&d. And we started working on this five years ago and realize that everything’s changed. So we need to give that incentivization. I also talk about spin offs and incubators and creating that culture of innovation. So giving people the opportunity to have seats and sit comments and peek into another way of working or partnering with others, or do you get the kudos for bringing in new technologies? Do you get profit sharing, you know, there are all sorts of things that can go on around decentralization. And it sounds like I’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this, I almost slightly have because one of the things that I really recognize in the book is that every firm, every educational establishment, every in house team is different. So if I can provide a number of different routes for how to get there, you can pick the one that most resonates and most works for your organization.

Greg Lambert
Yeah, and I think all that ties into the fact that we’re dealing with professionals, both the lawyers and the allied professionals, who tend to be looking to avoid risk. That’s how we’re trained, we’re trained as issue spotters on everything that can go wrong. So I like the idea of having those incentives, and then probably having to adjust those incentives based on the needs of the people that you’re wanting to, to change behaviors. And so it’s good to have Mambo multiple ways to attack that problem, many carats, one of the things and another issue, I think, is that a lot of times, lawyers are wanting to advise clients, they’re wanting to kind of take the lead and say, here’s what you need to do, when a lot of times the clients are really wanting them to know more about their business than to and so you talk about the importance of listening on the job. And you even point out that some firms have set up what they call client listening initiatives. Can you explain what those are? And, and how one would set one up?

Adam Curphey
So we are often guilty as a profession of not listening. And then maybe it’s this need to be the smartest in the room? I don’t know. You know, we often talk first, and we want to be the one that seemed to be talking and giving that advice. I’m certainly guilty of it, I have to stop myself all the time, just be like, No, you have to listen and hear other people. But these kinds of listening initiatives are generally objective groups. So they might involve and they usually involve a BD team, because they’ll they can help to target who you should speak to. So you’ve got business development, and either perhaps an external organization and there are external organizations that can help with client feedback or former partners, or essentially somebody who’s not directly involved in the client relationship. And the current matters tend to be the makeup of these teams. And what they do is they go and they meet with the client at whatever intervals, they may decide. And they interview the clients about the relationship generally to get qualitative data to let the client talk rather than saying, Oh, how good were we on a scale of one to seven? It’s just that how are we doing? How can we help? What do you need? from us, and then you can get all of that data and start looking at it and say, Where are the opportunities, not only with this client, but across the board? What are we here? And where can we improve. And one of the things the O shape lawyer did in the early days was set up a number of pilots, with law firms, specific law firms and clients to work together to do that very sort of pulse survey, how are things going feedback loop, so they identified a particular area of their relationship they wanted to fix or work on, I wouldn’t say fix because that implies it was broken. But it’ll be communication, for example. And over the course of a set amount of time, or one single matter, both the client and the law firm would say how they thought they were doing at communication, and there’ll be a facilitator from the ownership group. So again, an objective third party that’s consistent to all of these things, who looked at that and said, Well, I noticed, you know, something’s dipping here, something’s not going very well, we need to talk about this, or you need to meet or maybe we need a training session, or maybe you just need to pick up the phone to a client. But those client listening things, I think, start with business development, they start with identifying which of those clients are most important to you, it’s them finding the right third party to work with. And I think they’re so useful because they provide honest feedback, which we’re sometimes quite scared to receive as lawyers. It’s, it’s often fraught with peril, speak to a client, and we have to go through a lot of trust as business professionals, now I professionals to be allowed to be put in front of clients. And that’s understandable, because the way in which people are incentivized is how many clients did you bring in as a partner, what’s your book of business? So I totally get that. But the more we can listen, actually, the better that relationship can be. And yeah, that does mean you might have to share your client a little bit with BD and this, whoever the third party is, but those things, once they’re set up can really help you identify how not only you can just sit there and give advice when it’s needed. But you can proactively be looking for things you can do to improve that relationship, get more work in the future. And if you do it for others, they might do it for you, which can increase cross selling, which is great, because they’re all good business reasons behind these things.

Marlene Gebauer
Right. So I’m going to shift to a practical question, you know, when you’re looking at a process or technology to see if there’s a better approach, you’ve suggested using the scamper principle, can you tell us what that is and how it works?

Adam Curphey
Yeah, sure. It’s funny that you focus on that, because scamper was actually a last minute addition that I really liked scamper it as a framework, and I undenied about whether to include it, because there are a lot of toolkits in there. And I thought, actually, you know what, the more information I can give somebody, the better. And this is, it’s one that resonated with me before I even knew what scamper was. And it’s really a guideline to help you coming up with new ideas, we don’t often have time to sit down and have ideas, especially, you know, when you’re on the billable hour, and you’re looking at targets, and you’re trying to think There’s that famous picture of the cave, people pushing a cart with square wheels, and somebody’s offering them a circular one. And they’re saying, I don’t have time to replace the wheels, we often find ourselves in that position. So scamper is just a little bit of a framework to help people come up with ideas. So each of those, you know, there’s, there’s substitutes is the s, which is kind of replacing part of an existing process or service. So the way in which you give your information to a client, do you give it in a 60 page Word document? Could you maybe give it in something that’s a bit more in line with their business contextually aligned to what they want to see a dashboard? A couple of slides? Because that’s what they have to give back to the CEO, you know, can you replace part of what you currently do? You can combine, which is the C, which is taking two things that have been separate and stick them together? We’re seeing some of that with relativity at the moment and saying, Hey, we’ve been doing ediscovery. Why don’t we do transaction based discovery as well do the due diligence piece and the AI around that? Because the two tools are pretty similar? And if we can combine them into one, would that work? Could you combine a client dashboard with a client calendar? It’s like cell phones that are phones and cameras, you’ve put them together. And you’ve got to adapt or add which is the A which is evolving or adding extra features to an existing solution. So adding on all these new things and try to think about, am I providing enough could I give an extra bit of capability for my client, you can modify which is changing one thing so it might be changing the design, how to access it, the speed, who the target group is the example I always go back to on this one, which I really like is that what about jungle gyms but for adults And you know, you’re changing the user. And that’s only because I want jungle gyms for adults that I’ll keep on talking about that one, you’ve got, you’ve got other pay, which is put to another use. So that, you know, there was a acronym that we used in education, which I would never think of using in law, but it was case, which is copy and steal everything.

Because in education, if you see something you like, do it in motion the same way, can you take another solution and apply it to law, you know, a lot of the technologies that we use, and we see a lot of the things that we do, and the way in which we do them in our personal lives is nowhere near like, how we do them. When we’re practicing law, or when we’re in the law firm. So can we borrow from elsewhere and think about, what else we could be doing is the the eliminate get bits of rid of bits of the existing process, often you find people who are far too senior are doing work that they shouldn’t be, or you’re going through more jurisdictions and more people. I remember one of the examples, which I think is in the book we talked about, we sat down with a business services team at a firm and asked them to take us through what that process was. And once they’d seen it all written down, they kind of said, here’s what we do. To go through this process every day, seeing a write down is very different. And it turned out, they actually went and asked another team for access to a technology. And then that team got it and got the information from that tech and gave it back to them. It turns out that team didn’t want to be doing that either. And everybody wanted actually, the original people who were requesting it just have straight access to the tech, but nobody had ever joined the dots. And then we did in that crowd, a huge bit of the process. And then the last one is just to reverse or rearrange. The famous example like using from this one is just a very simple process of fixing a church roof, which is, you know, proof is broken. So you raise the money, you put up the scaffolding, you fix the roof. But the church in the US didn’t do that church in the US said, Well hold on, what if we put up the scaffolding first, before we raise any money, so they put up the scaffolding. And then they sold the space for advertising. And that’s how they raise the money, which then they could fix the roof. So even just that three step process, flipping things around, and thinking about them differently, can help it be a much easier process to go through. And quite often, document automation sees you want to consider here, it’s very easy to say, ask the questions as they come up in the document. But actually, that might not be the right way to ask the questions to get the best information. So it’s just thinking about things differently. But that’s why I like scamper. It’s a quick and easy way to go to to go. Hmm, do I have an idea about this? Can I add something to take something away? Can I combine with someone else somewhere else?

Greg Lambert
Well, we we have unwittingly follow that example by restructuring how we ask some of these questions we had for you today. So I’m going to I’m going to jump now over to the our crystal ball question. And so Adam, we ask all of our guests, the crystal ball question, which is what do you see in the next three to five years in terms of legal innovation, and I’m pretty sure you have some some pretty good thoughts on this.

Adam Curphey
Like from from the people side of things, I think we’re gonna see more varied professions and tracks to promotion, we’ll see much more of these hybrid routes. And not only at the grassroots level, but as we work our way through the promotion levels as well, I think we’ll see more shared ownership and alternative Business Services entering into the legal profession. And the deregulation will continue on its path of going through various parts of the world. I think we’ll see more of a marrying between business advice and legal advice. You know, that is something that in house teams are already being pulled down into saying, Well, you need to prove yourself you’re not you know, how are you not a call center? What are you doing for us? Where are you strategically involved? We don’t just want to know what we can do. We want to know what we should do. So I think they are going to have to be dragged in. And that’s going to pull the law firms in saying, Well, no, I don’t just want 60 pages and a legal opinion that says, yeah, it could be any of these routes. But you know, don’t take us on any of these, it’s up to you, which you go with, they want strategic advice. And to do that, we’re gonna have to round out the teams that we’re providing. So I really think the future of law is much more multidisciplinary, it’s accepting that we have to get professionals from other areas and industries and working with them. And being able to provide that level of client service. And from a technology point of view, I’m still really excited about what we can achieve with data. You know, now that the honeymoon period of AI as a futuristic cure all this past and everybody’s gonna go, Okay, I can’t do everything and we’re getting down to the reality of what it can do. We can start to concentrate on saying, okay, that’s really exciting. But first, should we you know, collect structure clean In data and work with data specialist, and I think that’s going to identify new areas that legal advisors can help, I think it’s going to show us new ways that we can deliver that advice. I think it’s just going to change quite a lot, the more we learn, and the more I see data being applied to various different elements of the legal profession, the more excited I are about how we’re going to use it, and how we’re going to do things differently.

Greg Lambert
So when is the book going to be released?

Adam Curphey
So the book was released on the 22nd of September, so it came out, and it’s available on Amazon and anywhere else where you get your books?

Marlene Gebauer
Well, Adam, you’ve certainly given us a lot to think about. Thank you so much for an excellent interview and for coming on the podcast.

Greg Lambert
Thanks, Adam.

Adam Curphey
And thank you so much for having me.

Marlene Gebauer
So I’m really happy that we had the opportunity to have Adam on the podcast, you know, I did read the book. And I think it’s very comprehensive and lays things out, you know, very clearly for the reader to process and to also take advantage of and use. It’s a lot to unpack, but I’m really glad that we had the opportunity to talk to him.

Greg Lambert
I like how he also brings in the allied professionals on this, because we were talking kind of after the, through the interview on the focus on attorneys. And I mean, he’s right, we already layer so much on attorneys, and we have people that are supposed to be doing a lot of you know, the human side of this.

Marlene Gebauer
And who wants to and want to be more involved. Yeah,

Greg Lambert
yeah. And so, you know, let people do what they’re really good at doing, and not try to load everything on on the shoulders of individuals that need to be focused on other things. I guess at the same time, we’re still looking for that holistic approach to things but it doesn’t mean everyone needs to take on everything.

Marlene Gebauer
A couple of points. Like I think about this, as you know, first of all, we’re talking about attorney unicorns like, Okay, you have to have all of these skills, and you have to be fantastic at all of them. And we have to find all the attorney unicorns and we know what we know. And we know just from trying to find unicorns in our own space, that is like, you know, there aren’t unicorns. And the other thing I was thinking, you know, hear me out on this is that you’re mentioning Yes, you know, we still want to have lawyers with the skills, but it’s kind of like, if you think of a librarian, like, Okay, you have a broad range of knowledge in a lot of areas, you know, but you’re not necessarily the subject matter expert. I’m thinking of like research librarians, you know, you’re not necessarily the subject matter expert, but you know, enough about everything to be able to sort of function in that space to a certain extent until you get the expert in. So I mean, maybe we look at it, something like that, you know, you should have a level of these skills. But you know, you don’t have to be the expert in all of them.

Greg Lambert
Yeah, I agree. And I haven’t had a chance to dive deep into Adam’s book yet, but I like a number of the case studies that I’ve seen from that, and having that practical experience or practical examples that are out there. So I’m excited to dive deeper into the book. Yeah, yeah, I think you’ll like it. So thanks, again to Adam Curphey, for joining us today. The book came out on September 22. We’ll have a link to order that on the show notes.

Marlene Gebauer
Yeah, please order the books. And thanks to all of you audience for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter

Greg Lambert
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter.

Marlene Gebauer
And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert
Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later

All right, Ciao for now

Clients will do a lot of things to get out of legal predicaments, but Mr. Immortal would literally prefer to die than listen to attorneys and paralegals arguing.

In Episode Six, “Just Jen,” it looks like Disney+ was trying to save on CGI costs. That issue to the side, we look at three parts of the show that looks at legal issues ranging from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, to divorce laws and when is a dead spouse, not really dead. Sprinkle in a little assault with a deadly superpowered weapon, and you have a full rundown of this week’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Can an Attorney Really Ever Take Time Off?

Jennifer Walters is asked to be a brides maid for an inconvenient Thursday wedding. (Really, aren’t all wedding inconvenient?) But, how does taking a couple day off for an attorney at a BigLaw firm affect those all important billable hours?

If You Cannot Die… Can You Fake It (and end a marriage)?

Mr. Immortal is a new client of GLK/H and is needing to negotiate a divorce settlement. With eight former spouses. Mallory Book and Nikki Ramos are there to represent him, but their hearts aren’t really in it. This quasi-arbitration/divorce settlement brings in some interesting concessions, and somehow they keep Mr. Immortal from jumping out another window.

Intelligencia – The Website for Man-Babies

Speech is protected, even in the MCU. But, there is some serious hate-speech directed at She-Hulk in this episode through the Intelligencia website. This mix between Reddit and 4Chan tests the limits of free speech in Earth 616 and in our own world. What’s protected, and what is outside the protections of the laws? It’s an issue that all universes apparently face.\

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts |  Spotify

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Share this with friends, and don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

Stay Super Everybody!!

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:19
Imagine running a superhuman law division at a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She Hulk Attorney at Law show on Disney plus. This week, we’re going to dive into Episode Six. Just Jen. I’m Greg Lambert alongside my superhuman law division co counsel, Joshua Lenon. Joshua, what did you think of just Jen?

Joshua Lenon 0:44
Just Jen, I thought it was probably an episode where they were attempting to save on CGI costs.

Greg Lambert 0:53
That is probably true. Right. Now, they did warn you right up front that this is a standalone episode about a wedding. So no, so no Daredevil, no. Matt Murdock,

Joshua Lenon 1:03
I always love the call back to kind of the original She Hulk, John Byrne gimmick of breaking the fourth wall. Right. And so when the actress looks right at the audience and and talks, I like that, I think it’s a neat callback to that series. It allows them to recognize kind of some of the ridiculousness of the series as well, which is pretty amazing. And I don’t know, did you notice that they even changed? Like the show title card?

Greg Lambert 1:36
Yeah. To just Jen. Just Jen. Jen. Yeah, they’ve done that before, because they’ve done the She Hulk lawyer for hire. Yeah. So they’ve changed the title card a few times in the series. And I I love a show that messes with the title card that does some unique things. And those are always fun, because I think it it is a way to tip your hat to the intelligence of the audience.

Joshua Lenon 2:02
I agree. It makes us feel like we’re all kind of participating in the story together.

Greg Lambert 2:07
Yeah, yeah. So this episode really kind of is broken into three parts. And I think that’s probably the best way to address it as I think we can take each part kind of individually if you if you’re okay with that. So we have the Mr. Immortal divorce. We have Jen’s high school friend Lulus wedding. So we have a wedding, and we have a divorce. And then we have kind of this combination of somebody spying on Jen. And I think this probably harkens back to the Wrecking Crew, and we have this new website called intelligencia. And so I think we can split that into three. I think the biggest non legal part of it would be the wedding. Do you want to take that up front?

Joshua Lenon 2:56
Yeah, yeah. I think there were very few legal issues in the wedding. Yeah, probably the biggest one was that there was an assault. Yes, right.

Greg Lambert 3:07
Now, everything’s about you, Jen. Except it really is

Joshua Lenon 3:10
it really was about Yeah, so Titania cons her way into the wedding as a plus one. And then once Jen has become a bit of numerated, and separated from the crowd, just sucker punches are right, very clearly assault. And one of the more interesting things that hasn’t been explored yet in the Marvel universe, is, oftentimes, certain types of criminal charges have aggregating factors that might increase the seriousness of the charge. So assault versus assault with a deadly weapon, for example. And what we haven’t seen explored yet.

Greg Lambert 3:51
Would Titania be a deadly weapon since she has superpowered?

Joshua Lenon 3:54
It could be that there was that also, we could take a look at her intent. Because she struck Jen when she was not in her She Hulk in vulnerable form, right. And so we can take a look at what she intending to do some type of serious or deadly damage as a part of the attack. Given that she has superpowers and the the person she was attacking at the time, was not like under the influence of superpowers, taking advantage of their superpowers. So there’s got to be when

Greg Lambert 4:29
she was under the influence, but not not for her superpower. So she was throwing up from over drinking and it was sucker punched, poor sportsmanship to say the least.

Joshua Lenon 4:41
But then, we can also have a similar charge against Jen later in that fight. So there’s a breather. Tatianna is kind of like taunting Jen to turn into she hawk and fight. And it seemed very clear that Jen could have no Got escalated the situation by just refusing to participate. Right. But instead, she transformed did property damage to the wedding venue which Tatianna hadn’t yet. Right? Right? He did her and kind of earthquake move and destroyed the patio. Yep. And then there’s some poor server who keeps getting thrown around by these women in the course of their fight. Yeah, yeah. So he definitely has a claim against both of them for reckless endangerment. And that was about it.

Greg Lambert 5:33
Yeah, there was a slapping of the cell phone out of out of a woman’s hand. So that that could be it. So I want to point out something that it’s not a legal issue, but I think goes more to the lifestyle of a lawyer and how it’s presented here. But one is, this is a Thursday wedding. And so Jennifer has to take off from work. And so she is somewhat reluctant to do it. Because that means that Mallory book has to take, she says, pick up her slack. And I think that’s a that is something that is constantly on the mind of attorneys, and that, you know, if I take a day off is going to hurt my career. I can’t take a breather, because someone’s going to swoop in and take my work away from me. So I think we got a little bit there. And then the other thing when she was talking to her friend Lulu, about and was really in a good, good place about talking about, hey, look, I’m the new head of the division at this very prestigious law firm. I’m doing great. And of course, then she was like, I don’t care about that. Are you dating someone? Yeah. So I think it just shows kind of a tough life that being a lawyer can can be I know, this is other industries as well. But you know, we’re in the legal industry, she’s playing a lawyer. So it’s something that we see a lot of, and kind of stretch it out a little bit, especially for women lawyers, that these types of pressures, taking care of children, doing things on your own, taking time off, to do fun things, or even for mental health days, is seen as something that could harm your career in the long run. And I think you see little snippets of that throughout the series.

Joshua Lenon 7:33
Yeah, we don’t know the full details of Jennifer’s employment agreement with JL K and H. Right. And so yes, she is the head of this division. But they also imply that she’s salaried, right. She’s not a partner, right, which is very unusual to be both the head of a team at a law firm and not be a partner. And that means that any way to improve her compensation at the company will evolve, meeting her billable hourly targets. Most big law firms will set a billable hour target, how many hours you bill in a year. And then if you hit that, you’ll be eligible for some type of bonus. Yeah. When Jen’s worried about falling behind, I mean, a day of lost billable hours can be really tough to try and squeeze in somewhere else when you’ve got a high target that you’ve got to get to.

Greg Lambert 8:27
Yep, anything else at the wedding that we need to cover?

Joshua Lenon 8:31
I am kind of wondering if we’re seeing and this is going to tie into I think our later point the Wrecking Crew guys pop back in as some of the prospective daters and other romantic foils that we’ve seen.

Greg Lambert 8:50
I think I’m thinking the the guy, Josh, that she’s chatting up at the wedding. I think he’s, I think he’s somehow involved in that. So yeah, even when it seems to be going good, it’s going bad. So

Joshua Lenon 9:07
right now. Yeah, Borgia.

Greg Lambert 9:10
All right. Well, let’s let’s jump over into the divorce case of Mr. Mortal this really harkens back to the dance slot series where they took very kind of legitimate legal issues and applied superhuman possibilities to it and I think this is a fantastic case study in legal issues. I think it was well briefed us for for us, Mr. Linen.

Joshua Lenon 9:41
Yeah, so JL, K, and H as a new client, come to the firm, who is functionally immortal, so apparently is not invulnerable, but will regenerate and revive even after a life threatening injury. Yes, yes. And one of the things that’s awesome implied is that he is also somewhat ageless, or at least has lived for an exceptionally long period of time. Yeah. Because he talks about really long ago historical events. And over the course of his immortal existence He has loved and lost and, and seems to do so with quite a bit of frequency. Yes, yes. And his solution to when whatever Paramore has lost their luster and things be the relationship becomes work is he doesn’t fake his own death, he triggers his own death in some way. And then just kind of gets up and walks away afterwards. Only defied yet another new love of his life. Yeah, so

Greg Lambert 10:52
I guess he really epitomizes the it’s better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. And He has loved in, in many people have lost along the way. So I think there’s eight, seven or eight. I think there’s eight former spouses that are there. And so unfortunately, modern technology has caught up to Mr. Immortal. And that normally, I guess with the other divorces, deaths, spouses, yeah, he’s kind of gotten away with it. Yeah, the spouses he has faked. Well, I guess he’s really died. And then let the spouses think that he’s dead. He revives themselves later and walks away, creates a new identity, and seems to fall in love and get married again, over and over. And unfortunately for him with cell phone cameras, one of his deaths was caught and was placed on this website called The intelligencia website. And one of his former spouses sees that and realizes that he’s alive, and thus files for divorce. So he’s coming to GLK and H to get advice on how to handle this divorce.

Joshua Lenon 12:15
Right really, really

Greg Lambert 12:16
interesting. set of facts here.

Joshua Lenon 12:20
One of the things that I said in the earlier episode about the magician Donny Blaze, is that if I were attempting to shut down Donnie Blaze and his magic, I wouldn’t have used Wong as the plaintiff, I would have used the the audience members that Donnie Blaze was teleporting against their will and abandoning right. And here we see the spouse is actually doing that exact same thing they have unified in our common app Mr are mortal, for his actions and his abuse of his own innate abilities. for his benefit.

Greg Lambert 12:55
We have kind of this kind of quasi it’s almost like a mini class action suit as well as an arbitration. The whole style of this is is kind of bizarre. And because Jen is taking off to go to this wedding, her paralegal Nikki is teamed up with Mallory book, and they are interviewing Mr. mortal and taking his case. And then somehow or another, they’re also doing the arbitration, it seems like on the same day, so absolutely.

Joshua Lenon 13:29
So here’s how I think this came about. And again, we have to make a lot of assumptions in a 2022 minute show on Yeah, on what actually is happening. But you have the spouse is looking for the divorce. She is bringing in the previous spouses as kind of character witnesses, evidence of fraud, right, and using those as a part of her divorce action. But the spouses also have potential future claims of their own. They could file for criminal charges of bigamy, which is when somebody who is married, goes out and marries someone else later, usually through fraud. They could also have like civil liability claims of fraud against Mr. Mortal himself, that, you know, he faked his identity, he lied about his abilities, then we know in at least two other instance, two of the spouses that they had some really serious consequences because of that. One, founded a business with Mr. Immortal and worked with him on it for two years. Another former spouse had a kid with Mr are mortal, that he then was dead and so there was never any child support or involvement on behalf of that. And given that A Mr. Immortal and as we get an example of his abilities in just a little bit, given that there really isn’t this period where he’s incapacitated, right, yeah, that he should have been providing support for, say, like the kid if nothing else, if not alimony under a divorce.

Greg Lambert 15:18
It’s really, really interesting concept on this because I was trying to think if if the facts were most favorable to Mr. mortal, and you could prove that I truly did die. Yeah, do your contracts, you know, die with you. And so here we have a set of facts that, so forth, for example, if someone were to disappear for a number of years and was legally pronounced dead, and they came back, what are some of the ramifications of that? I know that’s, you know, at least has happened on television shows before I’m sure. And I’m sure it’s probably happened in real life where people have disappeared for death and run off. Yeah, and then come back. So really kind of kind of an interesting set of facts. But yeah, I think Mr. Immortal thinks of himself as a good guy. And that this is false. That says that a lot. Like I always say, if you if you had to say that you’re cool, you’re not. And so if you have to say you’re a good guy, you’re probably not a good guy. And so we do get an example of what happens because he seems so adverse to having conflict, that when he’s discussing the divorce with Mallory book, and with Nikki, they start kind of arguing back and forth talking amongst themselves. And then he goes and just jumps out the window of you know, I’m sure the 45 Yeah, the law. Yeah, and lands on a poor security car down below, so

Joshua Lenon 17:01
limits to his death, and then just gets up and walks away,

Greg Lambert 17:06
kind of straightens out is his broken bones and walks off. Yeah, Joshua, this is where we have this week’s QR code was on the security car. And what does this lead to? It takes you to West Coast Avengers number 46, which is the first episode our first issue with Mr. Immortal, so Mr. Mortal get a little surprise there.

Joshua Lenon 17:32
Oh, that’s excellent. I’m gonna have to go read that. So I actually had some real problems with this scene from client service perspective. So one of the things that they raise is, Mr. Mortal resist the fact that he doesn’t think lawyers or his lawyer is allowed to, like, disagree with him. Like, I’m a good guy. Both Mallory

Greg Lambert 17:56
and no, lawyers are supposed to be so judgmental.

Joshua Lenon 18:00
Exactly. And it’s completely false. You can have personal opinions about your clients. You can even voice them in situations where it won’t impact your clients interests, say, like with your client, like that was a really dumb move. But what you can’t do is re act that way in situations where it might harm your clients interest, say before a court, or in a public negotiation or on camera. And so the idea that lawyers have to like and have to agree with their clients. It’s just not the case. And I’m really glad that they represented that here. But

Greg Lambert 18:42
I felt a but coming Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 18:45
Mallory in particular was very argumentative, and very, sort of looking for aggressive in conveying her opinion to Mr. Murrell. Much more so than a professional setting entailed. And it is after that aggressiveness that Mr. Mortal flings himself out the window. From an employment law perspective, if my paralegal is causing my clients to commit temporary suicide, that’s a problem. And yeah, and so I do think we’re, and as we discussed in the previous episode, that we we see Nikki’s duties as a paralegal are not in alignment with what we see in our universe as opposed to Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Greg Lambert 19:38
Yeah, and I think this is a good spot to point out that I wasn’t sure how I was going to like or not like Mallory book, but I will tell you that I think she she is a fantastic person to work with. There’s a number of things that she does in the As part of the show with a divorce proceedings with Nikki, that I think shows that she is a leader, and that she is also a mentor. And so you see a number of things that Nikki is doing, which I think goes back to her days working with Jennifer, both at the prosecutor’s office and then as she’s moved over and as become the paralegal for her there at GLK and H, if you notice, Nikki, when she comes in, she walks in and sits behind kind of on the window, behind Mr. Immortal, and without making any type of overt gesture. Mallory guides her to co sit in the chair next to the client. So I think that was good. She also attempted to keep negative conversation Yeah, to wrap the conversation. And you can see, again, not doing anything over the top, but just kind of making signals to her. This is not the time to talk, let me handle this. And, of course, Nikki does not follow those instructions all the way. But then also, toward the end. One of the things that she does because of Nikki’s involvement and getting a settlement is that she compliments her tells her that what she did was unique and was you know, it was outstanding, and she does it in front of the client and the others. So giving her that public recognition that really boosts the confidence of a lot of employees. So Mallory Brooke is someone I would love to work with, because I think she she knows how to handle people. She also looks like even though she is completely in control, seemingly all the time. She also has a personality that comes out. You see that a couple of times as well. So she’s definitely someone that I think a lot of lawyers and staff would love to work with.

Joshua Lenon 22:04
And interestingly, we learned some personal facts about her as well. She has she as a kid.

Greg Lambert 22:10
She has kid and she’s married and apparently like nobody knows this. So. So she’s very quiet. Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 22:17
She hasn’t made it like something front and center, which could be because of the office environment. And as we’ve talked about, yeah, the difficulty is in advancing. I had one last issue with the Mr. Murrell introduction. And that was after he flung himself out the window and crushed a car underneath. They kept him as a client. Yeah. Why would you do that? Our listeners may not know, but lawyers can fire clients, so long as it doesn’t impact the client’s interests. And so there may be situations like if you’re in a trial, where you may have to get the judge’s permission to withdraw. But here we’ve got basically the initial consultation. And the guy seriously endangers at least whoever was supposed to be in that security car that he lands on. So I would not want that. That person as a client at all. Yeah, I would say thank you. Let me direct you to some of some other lawyer directories where you might find a firm that’s better suited to your particular needs.

Greg Lambert 23:25
Yeah. And also, well, there’s a couple of things. One is I think this also again, shows that the the GLK and H’s superhuman law division is set up not to necessarily make a profit, but rather as a PR wing. And so I think that’s my guess is and of course, we have no facts to back this up. Is it probably Mr. Holloway is not allowing them to fire this client that Yeah, that could use building. Division. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you think of the negotiations? For for the divorce? I thought it was just weird.

Joshua Lenon 24:11
It was weird in that we didn’t actually get anybody who identified themselves as the lawyer for the divorcing spouse or the previous spouses. Right. And everybody’s just kind of chiming in.

Greg Lambert 24:24
And we saw some security guys kind of in the background, so I’m not Yeah, not sure what that was, but an absolutely no legal representation for the other side.

Joshua Lenon 24:32
And as we see, later on, everybody has some really divergent interest in what they want to get out of negotiating with Mr. Immortal like some people want money. Some people want an apology. Some people I think they had some real estate that transferred hands. And so the fact that all of these people were unrepresented or were represented by a maybe a single lawyer, we don’t know is probably not some thing that you would see in situations like that they would they would try and find somebody right to represent their interests. We also didn’t really see all the harms that are probably going to be the fallout of Mr. Immortals through abilities becoming public. Presumably, for example, some spouse has collected life insurance on Mr. mortal, right. And if he’s not really dead, was that was that insurance fraud, and now they have to deal with insurance fraud claims. And we didn’t see the back child support being a part of the settlement either, right. There were there are a lot of issues that could have been just mentioned as parts of settlements, right. And weren’t. And so instead, we got kind of some, a little more silly things like Mr. Mortal will give you a heartfelt apology that will last 15 seconds and will include direct eye contact contact.

Greg Lambert 26:04
Yeah. And that was that was the one concession that he disagreed with. Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Lenon 26:12
And there was that funny scene where it looked like he was going to try and throw himself out the window again. Right. And both both Mallory and Nikki gently guided him back down, you

Greg Lambert 26:23
can sit back down here. So I don’t know if you saw in the in the court drawings at the in the credit scenes, there’s the scene where Nikki is holding the iPhone timer set at 20. And yeah, Mr. Mortals, wedding. Yeah. So he’s. So apparently he did get to pay off that debt. And yeah, you’re right. It’s it was silly. But you know, it really, you know, again, as an academic endeavor, you could think about the fact that if you did have someone that could not die, just all of the issues that would come about with that the legal issues. Yeah. And especially if they were trying to hide the fact that they could not die.

Joshua Lenon 27:08
Even Yeah, even in the real world. We have scenarios that roughly aligned with these facts, right, Mr. mortal, threw himself out the window, landed on a car died, and then an instant later got up and walked away. Right. And we have people in the real world who unfortunately expire and are revived. And nobody says, Oh, well, you died for, you know, three seconds, your marriage is over. And you don’t have to pay your student loans. Congratulations. Yes, you win. You win. Yeah, that’s that’s just not how it works. And so Mr. Immortal claiming to be a good guy. He’s clearly not with the facts as presented.

Greg Lambert 27:46
Yeah. But again, in, in the Rules of Civil Procedure four, or 616, we have to get this all settled in one self contained episodes. Yeah, yeah, lots of bending of reality in these television shows,

Joshua Lenon 28:04
given that if I were a life insurance company, for example, or a security company whose car had gotten crushed, there’s, there’s gonna be lots of business coming from Mr. Mortal to GL dnh. Somebody’s got to pay for that window. Somebody’s got to pay for that window. So the real question, though, is, how do you as a law firm, protect yourself when your client does something dumb like that in the off law office? And it’s an unfortunate reality that for many family law lawyers, that they really have to think about security as a part of their law firm operations. Can we lock the door? Can we control visibility? Because upset spouses and family law cases, are highly emotional and can be highly volatile? They aren’t always as humorous as Mr. Immortal.

Greg Lambert 28:55
No, it’s not. It can be serious. And I think if, if you recall, back to the early 90s, I think there was the was Pillsbury office, and I think of San Francisco, yeah, where a disgruntled client came in and shot and killed a number of attorneys, because he had lost his case. And so security is a big issue, because there are very upset people who, who lose lots of money or property or intellectual property rights or number of

Joshua Lenon 29:29
kids or Yeah, and so while this was viewed humorously, I do think yeah, we’re gonna see JL K and H have to start spending on things that a white shoe law firm might not have considered in the past.

Greg Lambert 29:43
The other issue that I had with the window was it was single easily it broke very easily broke. So They at least need to get double pane windows. Come on. That’s Yes, it’s LA but it’s still gonna need to

Joshua Lenon 29:59
know And we’re totally seeing their insurance just skyrocket now.

Greg Lambert 30:03
So during the divorce proceedings, we did get mention of the intelligencia website. And so we dive a little bit more into that. Nikki and Mallory pull this up and find lots of information. Very disturbing post and information on She Hulk. And it’s kind of this. I don’t know, it’s a mix between like a Reddit website and like, like 4chan? Yeah, a chan website. And the thing I found interesting was, you had to get approval to even log in to get an account for this. And you got approval by basically insulting She Hulk. Yeah, it was kind of weird. But luckily, the Nicki and Mallory have weathered enough insults themselves that they were able to, to come up with some things they’d heard to get them. And yeah, and on the site, you saw things like, how do we SWAT She Hulk? Yeah. And then there was posts that asked how do we kill She Hulk and there, you know, just death threats that were going on? There are sites like this. And of course, with the at least here in the United States, there are laws that kind of protect some of these sites from the what the users place on them. This is really kind of kind of pushing that to the extreme.

Joshua Lenon 31:30
Yeah. And so there are a couple of issues raised here. The first of which is, is this protected speech. And so the First Amendment of the Constitution limits the government’s ability to impose or limit speech, we really struggle in the US with the concept of hate speech, for example, as something that can be regulated, we see in these organized communities of hate that unfortunately, allowing it kind of to fester, can act as almost a we mentioned aggravating factor before but this would be something that ramps up the hate. Yeah, yeah. And so somebody who just doesn’t like She Hulk suit is now unfortunately, part of a hate filled community, and is getting propagandized and radicalized from these things. But yeah, the US is definitely continuing to struggle with how do we as both a society and a government handle this, as well as respecting the First Amendment. But then we can look at it from a commercial perspective. So the intelligencia, who was providing the space for this forum, could or could not be controlling it. Because the First Amendment only limits the government, the intelligencia website could have its own Terms of Service could regulate certain types of content. And this is very important, cannot be held liable for some of this type of content under the infamous section 230, which is actually a really important bit of federal legislation in the US that enables this type of community created content, because it exempts the content host from liability around the content. And it was meant to be an IP law. Right? If somebody downloads an episode of She Hulk and posts it on your forum, right for everybody else to download, you, as the forum host, are not liable for the copyright infringement. It’s the poster who is, but it’s been greatly expanded to cover all kinds of hateful conduct. And we’re going to have to continue to wrestle with this issue for a long period of time to come. Can the government limit this hate speech? That’s still an evolving issue, legally speaking, some can. But the test for it is very, very strict. Can a corporation do so they can? Is the corporation liable for this? Probably not under Section 230. Those are some of the issues that just come from the fact that this place exists.

Greg Lambert 34:23
And we kind of get a hint that this website is tied to the same people that sent the Wrecking Crew out to try and get some of Jen’s blood as she Hulk. We see that Jen and her wedding date Josh are being monitored. And not only are they being monitored, but visually through cameras. There’s also seems to be some readings coming off of Jen for her gamma radiation. Yeah. And then we see the bent needle from the previous attack, where they tried to draw blood and now we see what we think is probably Todd’s Vibranium needle that he that he talked about on the date. So, and we hear that or we see this pop up from someone called Hope King, which that name also showed up on the intelligencia website as well. Maybe the leader, I think

Joshua Lenon 35:20
you’re right. And when you say the leader, you’re saying it as a proper noun. So that’s actually a comic book character called the leader, leader. And I think we’ve mentioned

Greg Lambert 35:29
gamma radiation. Yeah, person, but I’m pretty sure that that sleazy guy Todd is is definitely tied up in this. Yeah, I

Joshua Lenon 35:38
have to agree. Unfortunately, Jen’s love life is definitely intersecting with she hawks villain roster, and not in a good way

Greg Lambert 35:46
for Gen. Or Gen. Well, I think that kind of wraps up all the issues in this episode. Is there anything else? Well, I

Joshua Lenon 35:54
always want to remind our audience to stay super. In terms of legal issues. I actually am eager for Jen to get back into the law firm. So we can learn a little bit more about JL K and H and what are they planning? So for me, the business side of jail K and H is something that’s unexplored. And I’d like to see more of it. How about anything for you?

Greg Lambert 36:15
Yeah, I’m the same way. You know, the the one other thing that I saw, which was that Mallory did also have a bar set up in her office. I liked that. I think more law firms should have that. I’ll, I’ll pass that along to my office administrator decides to give me a budget for that, but I doubt she will. And of course, I really want to get into the law library that we’re just not seeing enough or not seeing that.

Joshua Lenon 36:41
Yeah, for the Law Librarian. That’s a critical flaw. All right. Well, thank you, Greg.

In both the real world, and on Marvel Comic’s Earth 616, Intellectual Property Law can be a super weapon to inflict serious pain upon your enemies. On the latest episode of The SuperHuman Law Division Podcast, we look at the legal issues raised when She-Hulk loses the rights to call herself She-Hulk after Titania stakes her claim to that trademarked term.

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Greg Lambert 0:19
Imagine running a superhuman law division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She Hulk Attorney at Law show on Disney plus. So let’s dive into Episode Five, Mean Green and straight poured into these jeans. So I’m Greg Lambert, and alongside with my superhuman law division co counsel, Joshua Lenon. Joshua, what did you think of Episode Five.

Joshua Lenon 0:47
Unfortunately, I think this was another miss when it comes to demonstrating some legal concepts and the practice of law, an enjoyable episode, I’m really loving the show overall. But I do think they’re struggling to find their footing when it comes to some of the legal aspects that are presented in this show.

Greg Lambert 1:08
Interesting I am, I am actually going to kind of give it a pass. In fact, you may have seen the tweet that went out earlier this week where someone was pointing out all the legal issues and and so what I’m going to do is I’m going to hang my hat on the fact that this is earth 616. And the rules of civil procedure in ORS 616 are going to be slightly different. So I’m going to apply that the rules of civil procedure and or 616 are going to be set up so that if it is on Disney plus, everything has to be done within 30 minutes. If it’s at the MCU at the theater, two and a half hours, three hours, you know, so trials are going to be super easy to get a proper trial. So I’m going to be very forgiving. But yeah, there’s there are absolutely a lot of a lot of holes in the legal system in the end she Hulk.

Joshua Lenon 2:11
Yeah. And again, a very enjoyable show. But unfortunately, they’re they’re erring on the side of I think kind of light hearted media presentation. Rather than this is us exploring legal concepts and an almost cartoonish, but relevant environment. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 2:35
yeah. So the legal issue this week continues from last week show which is the she hoped by Titania, the trademark lawsuit. And we actually get our very first product placement. And she Hulk, and that is the mentioning of the pro se podcast from law 360 Law 360 Being a Lexus product, and what I kind of feel famous by association, because Amber McKinney, it has been someone who I have interviewed before for another podcast. And I actually reached out to her and because she is the co host, along with Alex Lawson, who you actually hear Alex’s voice on on the show. And Amber said, Joshua, that she would love to come on this show. And do recap at some point. So I definitely taken her in her

Joshua Lenon 3:37
arm. Yeah, so I think one of the things we haven’t explored is, what resources are they using in terms of creating the show? to really investigate the legal issue or storyline of the week? Yeah, so I think that’d be a fun topic for us to dig into.

Greg Lambert 3:54
Yep. And I can point out that in again in Earth 616 that the the pro se podcast has sponsorships on it, which they do not have in this earth. So again, a little bit a little bit of the multiverse coming into effect creative Lysa. Exactly, exactly. But it was fun. And I know Amber and Alex, were super excited to have their podcast mentioned,

Joshua Lenon 4:21
just like any kind of industry lawyers have our own dedicated media, kind of entities and brands law. 360 is one of them. American legal media or ALM is another one that’s very popular. And we’ll probably see and we’ve mentioned in the past Thomson Reuters Westlaw and LexisNexis popping up throughout this series as well. And so these are things that where lawyers tend to find a lot of their industry specific discussions going on, and a great place for us to again see where the real world and A Marvel 616 collide? Have we explained why it’s 616? I kind of don’t why we keep saying that?

Greg Lambert 5:09
I don’t think we have. Do you want to take that one? Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 5:13
Well, I know what it’s supposed to entail, but there may be more history behind it. So within the Marvel Universe, they often take a look at kind of alternate realities, it might be different timelines, it might be different universes. But again, the fantastical nature of the stories allow them to explore. And one of the Disney media properties that has really tied into this is the cartoon What if where we got to see twists on kind of earlier stories that we’ve seen, my favorite one being the character, Peggy Carter, becoming Captain Britain, yes, rather than the character Steve Rogers becoming Captain America, and how that kind of shifted history. And so the storyline kind of the main storyline that exists both in the comic books and in what we think ours, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is numbered 616, out of the potentially infinite number of universes out there. The one that is kind of consistent the status quo is marvel 616. Yeah, but there have been just a ridiculous number of variations offered by different authors and comic book series, some of which are really kind of entertaining and some which are tragic. Yeah. And so here we see six months six is both entertaining, and tragic when it comes to civil procedure.

Greg Lambert 6:47
Yeah. And I can tell you as someone who collected the what if comic books in the 70s, and 80s, the one consistent theme was, whatever story they were having, ultimately, at the end, something absolutely tragic would always happen. So the universe would implode or a major character would die. So it was kind of a fun way for the comics to look at the multiverse idea and come up with these great kind of one off stories that you know, didn’t affect anything else in the Marvel Universe, but gave the author’s in artists to kind of a fun way to produce something without having any kind of Fallout lasting. Exactly, exactly. So well, the the issue this week, of course, is the all of a sudden, the She Hulk name seems to have been trademarked by our friend Titania, who we met in the the first episode. And what’s what’s kind of funny is you hear a lot of mansplaining going on about trademark law. And both the process server and Jin’s cousin CEDD. seem to want to explain to her see, Jen, you have to understand that, you know, whoever’s the first a trademark is the owner of that of that name. So is Joshua, is that is that true?

Joshua Lenon 8:21
Kind of right? There is a presumption that the first file is the owner. But in normal trademark law, there’s also an objection period. And so there are law firms and legal services that monitor these filings, both electronically and man and manually such that you can object during this legally designated period. Now, what we didn’t see in this episode, for example, was anybody actually looking out for Jennifer Walters and the shithole brand? One of the things presumably, that Tony Stark did when he funded the Avengers, as he brought his legal team with him. And so, Ant Man and Black Widow and all these people had their own army of IP lawyers watching out for their brands. Ironically, She Hulk at a prestigious law firm did not have a lawyer looking out for her brand. And so it’s we’re left wondering, given how kind of recent Jen’s transformation into She Hulk is, has this objection period expired, or can she take advantage of it?

Greg Lambert 9:38
Yeah. And we have a scene where we can show that there is there’s clear confusion on this brand, because her cousin Ched has bought a ton of she hold by Titania merchandise and with the plans of of having Jen sign this with her she holds name because obviously this is her product. So she has to explain that Titania has somehow taken the She Hulk name from her.

Joshua Lenon 10:11
Yeah. Which again, I think is an absolutely brilliant arch villain move in an earning superhero shout it. Yes. Yeah, I just love it.

Greg Lambert 10:22
So the next scene that we have is the pop up store that Titania has, where she has all of her products and people standing in line to come inside to buy this very expensive beauty products. And Jen does something kind of weird, I guess. I guess, if she wasn’t a lawyer, I could see her do it and doing this, but the fact that she’s a lawyer, and she goes in and she just basically asked Titania in person to stop and take it all down that Jen is the She Hulk, and that all related materials and products should be done away with and Titania makes the claim that the name She Hulk is mine. So would you if some if you had someone that was suing someone for trademark, would you go in and just meet face to face in a pop up store?

Joshua Lenon 11:22
Oh, absolutely not. One of the worst things A client can do is go off on their own, and especially communicate with the other party. There are actually rules about lawyers communicating directly with opposing parties when they know they have representation. Yeah. So Jen, as a lawyer should have known that she cannot go and talk to Titania. Instead, she should have been talking directly to titanius. Lawyers, there has been a barrier set up by the professional rules that prohibits that conversation from happening. There’s actually probably a pretty serious malpractice complaint that could be lodged against Jen, for taking this independent action.

Greg Lambert 12:11
Yeah, not not the wisest of decisions. So but I think at this point, I don’t think Jen has it on her mind that she is going to sue Titania, but rather, she’s just trying to be nice. I think she sees it. And again, this is where clients tend to get themselves into trouble by thinking, Oh, well, I if I do this, I’ll just make it go away. And very, very rarely does that happen. Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 12:37
But Jen, as lawyer should have known better. So I think that’s that’s kind of one of the black marks against this episode. Yeah, there’s,

Greg Lambert 12:43
there’s a lot of things. And I don’t think it’s just this episode, I think we’re gonna see that I think we’ve seen it in other episodes where you’re going, you should know better than then to do that. If you if you’re a lawyer, and you’ve passed the bar and you’ve practiced, there’s certain things you shouldn’t do. So

Joshua Lenon 13:00
yeah. And importantly, she’s been served. Right. So she knows there’s representation. Yeah, we’ve got an affidavit or an affiant saying that Jen has received the court documentation, the notice of claim that will have been signed by the lawyers representing Titania. There is no question of fact on whether or not Jen knew this situation.

Greg Lambert 13:22
Yep. So we ended up back at GLK and H. And there’s a there’s a couple of things going on. First of all, Jen, again, kind of talks about this dual personhood that she HK seems to be their own person. And Jennifer Walters is another person and we kind of get this mixed message here. And she says that, you know, I’m just Jennifer Walters, she HK is a thing that happened to me. And you know, and she acts like this, you know, she doesn’t care about the she hold name, but you can clearly tell that she does. I think there’s a there’s a stapler crushing incident there. So you can tell she, you know, this is at least bothering her. But we do finally that we brought up the issue over the past couple of episodes that we have yet to see Nikki, her paralegal that we haven’t seen her office yet. And we finally get to see her office this week. And, man, it is in the middle of a hallway. It is like the worst paralegal office I’ve ever seen. So anybody can just walk. Yeah, that’s the thing is most of the time, you know, paralegals are working on things, especially when you’re that close to the reception area. You want a barrier in your office between any of your client related materials, including the work that a paralegal or secretary or an attorney or librarian or anyone is looking Get or has access to, you want that completely separated. And that is that is just a bad bad setup. She She does have a window, which is in most offices a window is a prime location, location. Yeah, but get

Joshua Lenon 15:16
the window. Everybody else works in the center of the building. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 15:20
I also noticed that she had a little personality on her desk, which we have, we have found lacking in the attorney’s offices. She’s working off of a Windows Surface Pro, but she doesn’t have any monitors. So she’s literally working off the laptop, which is a bad working environment. But on her desk, she does have things like an elephant tape dispenser. She has a dumpster fire toy, which I found kind of funny. She’s got filing cabinets behind her with her own printer, which is a another rarity. In this day and age. Most printers are networked and somewhere in the center to reduce on overhead.

Joshua Lenon 16:02
And also for security. You don’t want a lot of loose paper laying around your law firm. Absolutely.

Greg Lambert 16:06
But she is positioned right outside of Jen’s office. So they can see each other that felt more like a secretarial type location than it did a paralegal location for me.

Joshua Lenon 16:20
Yeah, I agree with you currently, goals produce just as much kind of work product, as lawyers do. Yeah. And so that means they need periods of uninterrupted time where they can sit and focus on their outputs. We have yet to kind of see Nicki do that. She’s done a lot of research on behalf of Jen, for example, when she found Wong’s contact information on LinkedIn. But we haven’t seen her draft anything, for example, right? It could be their unique relationship, or it could be that we are, again, are seeing kind of creative license when it comes to the workplace.

Greg Lambert 16:57
Yep. And we noticed that I haven’t seen a secretary or legal assistant for Jennifer, we’ve only seen Nikki, who’s kind of playing that dual roles. So again, in are 616, and I’m sure with the paying of actors to play certain roles. It’s better to pay someone once for two roles than it is to pay two people two salaries. So which, which you may find also in law firms. The scene before we leave Nikki’s desk, I did, I did find it kind of funny that, you know, pug comes by and asked for the favor to stand in line for the new Iron Man, three sneakers, which are limited to one pair per customer. So he asked Nikki to stand in line with him. But he mentioned the the drip broker, which is a made up name, I tried to google it to see if that was meant something. But basically, it’s just someone who can purchase items and resell them, usually at a at a large markup on this type of blacker, or, you know, semi semi legal illegal market that a lot of these rare products are very popular products tends to create as a secondary market. But then she asked Nikki asked for a favor in return. And that is to meet the person who creates clothing for superheroes. So they go to the boba Cafe, which turns out to be a front for the superhero clothing business. There is a QR code that when you walk in, and I spotted it and clicked on it, and it will take you to a free issue of the Dan Slott run. She Hulk issue number 10 which is Titania. Whoa. And what’s funny is the cover of that is Titania literally taking over the cover of She Hulk. So a lot of you finding this

Joshua Lenon 19:05
stuff. Yeah, it was very, very cool. Well, it seems like a throwaway plot point about standing in line for sneakers, right? It’s just a reason for them to talk. It actually does demonstrate though the value of controlling your intellectual property. Right, Tony Stark’s a state presumably owns the rights to Ironman. And so these limited edition sneakers which are gone for hundreds of dollars, and are so sought after that a big law attorney is willing to waste billable hours standing in line for them. It really just shows the value of controlling your brand and your IP even in a superhero universe. And so it seemed like a bit of a throwaway just to bring these together and advance the subplot that leads us to the BOMA, but I actually found it to be instructive as to why Should have been paying attention to this issue from the beginning.

Greg Lambert 20:02
Yeah, that is why intellectual property is part of the Constitution and the United States. It is such a valued way to make the marketplace somewhat stable, to make sure that people are rewarded for their creativity. It’s a huge part of the commercial environment. In a free market society. It’s one of the things that when you talk about rule of law, IP, intellectual property is part of the rule of law. And you see that is kind of a benchmark for a lot of societies. Yes. Is your creation protected? or can anyone steal that and you see in, you know, in some areas in the world where IP law is not respected, that you have these counterfeits that come in, and that’s kind of kind of where we end up at the boba cafes, you see all of these counterfeits that are out there. And the Avant Jure Zia volunteers, the scene at the courtroom drawing, where she’s holding up the Avengers cup finally make sense. So they were having a lot of fun with the bootleg stuff. Definitely lots of IP issues going going on in this episode.

Joshua Lenon 21:30
And one of the kinds of safe harbors for certain types of infringement can be parody. Like you’re doing something for a a comedy reason or the reinterpretation of the intellectual property brand. I think a bond yours is a real stretch, to be perfectly honest.

Greg Lambert 21:54
What about majors with an eye? Yeah. You know, the cool thing about the scene at the boba cafe was again, and you kind of catch us throughout this whole episode is, Jen in her She Hulk form, and actually, even in her human form, is dressing rather poorly. And so one of the things that you have to think about especially at work, especially at a high end law firm, you know that there is a certain expectation on how you present yourself at work. And so we get to meet the clothes designer in and tailor for the superheroes. Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 22:41
So there are a couple of things that I think are interesting around the issue of John’s attire. From a superhero perspective, it’s definitely implying that superpowers are much more widespread, then we’ve seen like in a lot of the other series, yeah. Yeah, so the Avengers were kind of hit. And they fought aliens, right. But now we’re starting to need to get the implication that there are enough super powered individuals who have a need for specialized clothing, that it not only allows this one tailor, to run what looks like a really successful high end business, but also having to deal with competitors, and being able to turn away clients who he doesn’t think are worthy of his time and attention. So that was the first thing I thought about with this. I’m like, Whoa, okay. They’re really setting up a much wider class of super powered individuals. Yeah. The second thing is that, unfortunately, appearance is a really big issue in the legal industry, and it comes out of a variety of different points. We know that judges, for example, can be very strict on dress codes for lawyers that appear before them, oftentimes mandating certain types of attire and doing so in a way that is not always equitable, right? For example, male lawyers can get by in like a blazer and slacks. But judges have in the past ordered female attorneys to appear not just in a skirt, but also in pantyhose and have been found that because they have this kind of expansive authority in their courtroom, that they get to make these rules. And so appearance in for lawyers in a courtroom can be a bit of a landmine field field of landlines field of mind. And then we also see that it can impact your kind of political options within the law firm itself, especially in a white shoe firm, no pun intended, like GLK and age, how you appear and Jen’s appearance is very much a part of her role. role at the law firm can influence how much support you get from the partners, your career advancement opportunities. And so it seems maybe a bit silly to devote a whole episode to tailoring. But brand is important in these big law environments. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 25:18
And and, on a side note for that, the dress for the office dress codes are very regional and law firms specific. And so if you are and I know of law firms that have New York offices, Chicago offices, Miami offices, and Los Angeles offices, and the dress codes can vary between each of those offices. And in fact, I’ve heard stories of New York partners going down and interviewing attorneys in the Miami office, and how they dressed in Miami and a much hotter environment much more casual, that they had to kind of debrief the New York lawyers to say, they are not going to dress like you dress in the northeast, this is in you can’t hold that against them. That’s that is just a regional preference. And that is okay with us. So it’s, it’s really kind of funny to think about that you can’t just have a one size fits all when it comes to the dress code. So it’s a real pun intended there. Exactly.

Joshua Lenon 26:30
I can give a personal example. Actually, that’s okay. Yeah. So I was invited to speak at a legal Technology Conference in Mexico City, Mexico. And I knew immediately that the the kind of the tech company attire that I often adopt when speaking at technology conferences in north in the United States and Canada, would not fit in. Because what we see for legal professionals there, especially for male legal professionals is very much conformity of black suits, white shirt, colorful ties. And it’s not something that’s like imposed, it’s just what everybody expects. And so I knew when I flew into that conference, that if I wanted to have credibility, I needed to dress the part. And that’s exactly what I did.

Greg Lambert 27:24
Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought of that soon. You think technology you think more casual here in the United States and Canada. So very interesting

Joshua Lenon 27:33
to hear that your jobs entire Yeah.

Greg Lambert 27:37
Have a hoodie, sweatshirt and a hoodie. So the next scene, we’re back at GAO k and h, we have a meeting with Holden Holloway, where he’s having Jen explain, why am I seeing the name She Hulk on Billboard’s out there when that is the face of our superhuman law division that we have put out there for the world. And now he calls it being put in the middle of a of a petty lawsuit, and that their clients don’t like it when law firms can’t handle their own issues, basically telling her she’s got to fight back.

Joshua Lenon 28:19
Yeah, she’s got to clean up this mess. And I do think it sets up the law firm itself, to show us not being maybe necessarily supportive of Jen. Right, this should have been something that was a part of their overall approach. If we’re going to have a superhuman long division and market based upon it, we should have set up the resources like controlling the brand, making sure that we’re in a defensible position against, you know, any claims against us. And instead, it seems very lackadaisical. So either Jen didn’t get the resources that she needed. Or they assumed that Jen would be on top of this and has it Yeah, and I think we’re still really shaking out how the law firm and Jennifer Walters fit together in this episode.

Greg Lambert 29:10
And one of the things that is consistently missing in this series is a solid marketing department. Yes, I just don’t understand where their CMO, the chief marketing officer is, because I think he or she needs to be fired for not one. Prepping Jen for all of her TV interviews, to making sure that they’re protecting any of their brands that are out there and how they’re marketing Jen and the She Hulk name. So I have lots of friends that are marketing professionals and I would love to get their take on what would they do if they were put in charge of the marketing at GE Okay, and ah, so,

Joshua Lenon 29:53
that’d be a fun episode as well. We should do one of those up. Yep.

Greg Lambert 29:56
There is an issue that is brought up Because Holloway makes Mallory book take the case for Jen to protect her rights as she Hulk and thus the firm’s rights to She Hulk are protections for She Hulk. There’s a couple of things and one of them is clearly pointed out that a lawyer should not represent themselves because there’s, you know, the a person who represents themselves has a fool for a client rule. But I will also say this, very rarely, if ever, do law firms take their own cases. So whenever a lawyer has any type of whether it’s personal suit that someone brings against them, or it’s a malpractice suit, 99 times, maybe 99.99 times out of 100, that is given to another law firm to help represent them. And the same rules apply. Typically, law firms do not represent themselves, for the same reason that individuals do not represent themselves. And so I think it’s, you know, as convenient for the TV show, but not something that you would see in our Earth

Joshua Lenon 31:15
now. Well, if you think about it, the interest of JL K and H and Jennifer Walters actually diverge a bit, right? Yes, and so and so there can be a conflict of interest between the interests of the law firm, and she Hulk, when it comes to the liability that’s here. Again, if she Hulk is the face of the superhuman law division, apparently, they’re they’re throwing sheet hook all over their website. They’ve got her on their core, their lawyer directory, all of this. And so theoretically, not only is Jennifer Walters, potentially in trademark violation, but the law firm is as well and can be sued separately. So they should not be handling this in house. Because there will be a point in time, if this trademark stands, that they may have to go their separate legal strategies. And that’s why firms turned to outside counsel or something like that.

Greg Lambert 32:17
Yep. It’s also an I’ve mentioned this on previous episodes, is the thing that will get law firms in trouble is remembering exactly who the client is. And you figure that out in conflicts, you figure that out in the scope of the matter that the law firm is taking on. And so you’re spot on, whose interest is actually is Mallory book going to protect? Is it going to be G O K and H is interest? Or is it going to be Jennifer Walters interest? Because those again, could be different and probably are different. So it’s another reason why usually, lawyers have their own individual counsel and law firms have their own individual counsel, you know, again, we don’t see that here. Apparently, the the rules in are 616 are slightly different. Either that or GL K and H is showing some very poor management of of this matter. So anything else on either Mallory taking the case,

Joshua Lenon 33:21
I’m excited to learn more about Mallory, it looks like we’re gonna set up a bit of a rivalry here. Yeah. Between Mallory and her experience in a big law environment, and Jen’s experience as a government lawyer. And what’s kind of the the stereotypes they live up to as a part of their roles? So I think this is where we really start to see that develop. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 33:46
hopefully they stay friends. Yes. I think that that kind of storyline gets a little old. And so I’m hoping we don’t we don’t necessarily see that here. You want to get into the trial? Yeah, let’s

Joshua Lenon 33:59
get into the trial. All right. Well, the

Greg Lambert 34:00
very first thing I noticed is apparently they were listening to us complaining on our last episode, but they finally started standing when addressing the bench. Thank goodness. And but I think mentioning what you mentioned last week, I think you’re right. I think it was the CGI part because if you noticed she Hulk stayed seated the entire time. There was no up and down

Joshua Lenon 34:26
this time around the time she got up it wasn’t when they said all right.

Greg Lambert 34:30
Yeah. And that was that was it. She stands so no walking around the table. No, you know, no extra CGI. So I think you are right there. Now we’re gonna get into I think some of the issue that what was this hearing?

Joshua Lenon 34:49
So that’s, I think, where we have kind of the biggest legal fail of the episode is unfortunate. We don’t really have a lot of context behind And what’s being litigated here such that we know are they litigating properly? Theoretically, there’s an injunction against Jin Walters to use the name She Hulk. There is a countersuit mentioned by book on suing Titania for infringing upon the professional identity of she hauled, which is necessarily a legal concept. But a countersuit is not a bad strategy, because then it forces new issues into the trial, which at that point in time would have been focused solely on Titania file, the Shiho trademark. Was it provisionally granted by the Patent and Trademark Office? And it was the objection period, like over and could they have invalidated the trademark. And so this does give book a little more wiggle room in terms of pulling in certain types of evidence and certain types of arguments. But again, we just don’t know and so much of a trial is actually kind of held on paper that is really tough to see what issues are particularly in question. When we look at like a TV court drama.

Greg Lambert 36:21
Yeah, there was just it was a mess, cuz I couldn’t tell if it was a if it was a pre trial hearing or what? Yeah, it just made no sense to me. It was fun. I liked when titanium tried to get the foot exfoliant admitted into evidence. Yeah, I

Joshua Lenon 36:39
think we’re definitely continuing the series focus on just bad client behavior and quarter. Again, Titania can punch through a wall if you’re her if you’re her counsel, are you going to tell her to sit down?

Greg Lambert 36:53
Yeah, yeah. And speaking of her counsel, that guy was terrible. What a horror was am first of all, he’s taking pictures of her as court is going on? Yeah, he kind of just throws his hands up when she starts speaking to the bench and doesn’t try to.

Joshua Lenon 37:14
Yeah, he’s not taking up her best interest in terms of presenting, right Titania as somebody who is credible and empathetic for the court. Yeah, right. Instead, they tend to use coming off as shallow ones. And the lawyer is as well, yeah,

Greg Lambert 37:31
he does stand to address the bench, so good for him. He also tells Titania, that she doesn’t need to stand while he’s he’s addressing the bench. So I mean, there’s a little bit of client management there, but but not a lot. So. And again, the judge kind of lays out, you know, here’s what I’m going to need to see. And that is that, if Jennifer wants to lay claim to the She Hulk name, she’s going to have to show that she has used this name in a public setting more than once, because a show where she wants

Joshua Lenon 38:09
the judge use a phrase pattern and practice, yes, which actually is kind of part of the standard for certain types of behavior. So a one off isn’t enough, sometimes to be dispositive in certain types of evidence, you need to show a pattern and practice of continual usage. Now, that all depends on again, on the type of issue in question. And what we don’t really know is, does this actually a legitimate legal argument? Because we don’t know what the basis is. So here’s, here’s my best guess. All right. My best guess is that we can compare Jen’s name to memes, rather than identity. We look at it as memes, okay, because Jen didn’t come up with the name. But it’s now associated with her and there have been trademarks, and contested trademarks around memes like Grumpy Cat, right, the Success Kid, which is like a little baby going like this. Yeah. And even the singer Lizzo trying to trademark a phrase 100% Bitch, which is a line from one of her songs, but it’s something that she actually derived from a meme that had been circulating on Twitter. So I think the stronger legal lens to look at this is actually needs because Jen didn’t come up with the name. It’s something that is now associated with her from the outside looking at. And in those cases, trademarks are granted like for Grumpy Cat for example, because the person filed for the trademark quickly, like the meme was still popular and be began defending against usage of that meme like identity. So all these other people were putting Grumpy Cat on their products, and the owner of the cat upon whom the meme was derived, was like sending out cease and desist letters and trying to get those types of items pulled. And the court found that activity as dispositive of a proper trademark application. And what we’re not seeing in this case, is that yes, Jen, people are associating the name she hoped with Jen, but that she hasn’t gone out and kind of claimed that name and defended it, which is what the grumpy cat trademark ruling focused on interest. So that’s why the judge is saying, it’s not enough that you tell me, you want to keep the name, you have to show me that you’re keeping the name.

Greg Lambert 41:01
Yep. So Jen, through a chance meeting at the law firm with one of her bad dates, comes up with the strategy of that she has actually presented herself in public and online and elsewhere as she Hulk multiple times through her very awful dating profile on matcher. And has decided to truly embarrass herself in order to get the win. By parading her bad dates in front of the court to explain how she used the name She Hulk went on dates, as she hoped, presented herself as she Hulk and not as Jennifer Walters, it was painful to watch, which I think was the reason for it. But the four or five bad dates show up for court testify. And the the judge rules in Jennifer Walters favor that she may take ownership of the name She Hulk.

Joshua Lenon 42:07
Yeah, and there are a couple of legal issues here. One, the fact that she was even able to bring witnesses into the hearing is something that several people have commented on social media that just isn’t supported, depending upon the arguments and procedures that you’re taking here. Right. Now, if we look at the motion to dismiss from titanius lawyer, what they’re arguing is that we don’t have really any questions of fact here. And so we should just rule based on the legal questions, what we could be seen. And again, I’m really qualifying here because a lot of unknowns, and some lawyers gonna call me on it. But what we could be seen is that book is actually arguing that there is a question of fact, and we have evidence that can be submitted in support. Does a question of fact, still need to be decided in this case? And we should have a larger trial to answer that. Most of the time, though, it’s written submissions. So you don’t have to have the bad dates on stand. You can just have four guys on a piece of paper that said, Yeah, I went on a date where she hauled in front of a notary, and that would be enough. But again, I think creative license has put the dates on the stand. And that’s what we saw here, I think. Yeah, I do, however, feel the ruling is an error. Yeah. Because again, if we go back to what existing case law we have in this reality, about memes and trademarks around memes, it’s not personal usage, but commercial usage, that is actually determinative and some of those and some of those precedents, and so the fact that she was calling herself She Hulk on a dating site, as opposed to her professional website, with jlk and age, I think means that she should have lost this Yeah. Titania should have retain she hope and love better solution would have been having to license her own name that that’s something the outcome.

Greg Lambert 44:18
Yep. I agree. 100%. On that, after the trial courts have the judge rules that Titania has to do away with everything that she has to pull everything from the market. It’s a pretty brutal victory on Jen’s part and Titania as much as you may not like her, again, probably not a very fair ruling for Titania pretty expansive. Yeah. The follow up scene at the they’re back at the legal ease bar with Mallory and Jen. There was one comment that Jen made which I wanted to bring up and that was, she makes the comment that this is why Holloway pays Meet the medium bucks. So interesting that at a large, essentially white shoe law firm, which are notorious for having large salaries for for their attorneys, Jen who has brought in Meghan the stallion as a as a client is not making what you think is very large amounts of money compared to her counterparts there. So I found that pretty interesting to hear that, because again, for most profits per partner, which is kind of a, you know, it’s not what they make, but it’s kind of a baseline measurement and the legal industry, I would think that a firm like GLK and H that their partners would be making, you know, high six, low seven figures.

Joshua Lenon 45:52
Yeah, I actually absolutely agree with you. I think it’s further evidence that we see that GLK and H is not really hiring Jen for her legal acumen. But it’s really just trying to attach a recognizable brand to their team, and are turning to the rest of their lawyers to handle the quote unquote, real lawyering behind that. Yeah, we’ll have to see if that changes.

Greg Lambert 46:20
And and again, which doesn’t explain why didn’t they go out and protect that brand prior to this lawsuit? So yeah, lots of legal questions still going on here. I did want to ask a legal question about the tailor to the superhuman group that’s out there that, is there any legal implications for creating super powered suits, because he talked about things that are, are waterproof things that are fireproof things that have built in weaponry? You know, I think that last

Joshua Lenon 46:54
one, yeah, is where you get into some interesting questions, right. So if you’re building something that you know will be used in the commission of a crime, for example, then there may be some vicarious liability that can be applied, and they should worry about I built in, I don’t know, Taser into these gloves for a client, right? And then surprise, the person went out and tase someone, well, maybe you shouldn’t have put in, you know, an actual working Taser into gloves. That’s sold to an individual with a known history of violence. So it’s not necessarily illegal, but it can be seen as reckless. And it can be seen as the basis for including that Taylor and a lawsuit because of the clothes that they’ve made. And how somebody else use them. Yeah. So in law school, the question is, can somebody sue for that? And the answer is always yes. The question is, can they win? Right? And I do think you can make the argument that there are going to be some people who get beat up, and they’re going to sue this Taylor and they may win.

Greg Lambert 48:08
Yeah, yeah, I asked that because as Jen is walking, and you see someone walking out the word on the street, is that that is leap frog, who will show up apparently later in episode so he’s not just making them for superheroes. He’s also making them for villains. And for vigilantes because we also see as another lawyer costume out there as well as

Joshua Lenon 48:39
Longley imply another superpower lawyer. Yeah, it looks like Daredevil helmet, right?

Greg Lambert 48:47
Yeah. The yellow suit. So everyone’s excited about the about the original yellow suit that Daredevil once more.

Joshua Lenon 48:55
Yeah. So at this point, what we may be seeing is conspiracy charters. And now we are moving into some criminal liability and civil liability. If he is actively aiding and abetting people in the commission of a crime, whether they’re a vigilante or a bank robbing guy dressed like a frog. Absolutely, he could be considered criminally liable for aiding and abetting depending upon the type of actions taken by the person he makes the costume for. And given the cartoonish nature of some of the villains in comic books where they have you know, a special outfit and that’s what turns them into the frog that can rob banks. That absolutely could be the case that why did you give this guy a second Frog Suit if you know he’s gonna go and rob banks?

Greg Lambert 49:51
Yeah, yeah, lots of issues there. So we do not have a mid credit scene. However, there is One shot that I wanted to kind of bring up that was in the courtroom drawings. And that was, there’s a shot with pug and his shoe closet. And there are a ton of superhero and supervillain tennis shoes that are brands that are not what we think of in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah. And so we kind of get some real life licensing issues here. So you see things like Deadpool you see x men you see fantastic for a number of things that the MCU has recently licensed from other corporations. So

Joshua Lenon 50:46
the in its its ongoing move to own every bit universal trademark ever has acquired the rights to some of those storylines and the characters within them. And we do know from some more recent announcements about where the MCU is going, like in terms of movie titles and things that they’ve talked about. Yeah. And we know the Fantastic Four is one of them, for example. And so this is the first release of new Fantastic Four IP in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even before the movie or the cast list, or the story name has come out. Some artist drew a Fantastic Four and an X Men sneaker. And that was it. Now I can

Greg Lambert 51:34
Yep, yeah. Well, technically, I think the Doctor Strange multiverse of madness did have have that in there. But again, if this was something that was made, three years ago, they couldn’t have used those without going out seeking that license. So IP law is a real thing. Even the Walt Disney Corporation has to follow the rules there. But you’re right. I think they’re they’re trying to own not just the the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the universe. So we’ll see.

Joshua Lenon 52:05
My question for you though, is when they inevitably take these drawings and make them into real sneakers. Are you going to wait in line for it?

Greg Lambert 52:13
I am not a sneaker head. I do know some people I do have a pair of vans, Avengers shoes. But they were they were a Christmas present from one of my kids a couple of years ago. So they have like their their green and blue and yellow and red with with each of the you know Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America. Thor, they they have silver wings. So really cool. So I, I wouldn’t say I, you know, I would definitely wear them. If one of my kids, you know, were to end up buying one of them. And so kids, if you’re listening, I would I would go ahead and take that as a as a Christmas present.

Joshua Lenon 52:56
Nice.

Greg Lambert 52:57
All right. Well, I think that wraps up this episode. I’m looking forward to seeing whether or not is Daredevil going to be in the next episode or not? I’ve actually held off even though it’s out I’ve really resisted not watching. So I’m really looking forward to watching the next episode. So Joshua, any any parting thoughts before we sign off?

Joshua Lenon 53:23
Oh, just stay super listeners.

Greg Lambert 53:25
All right. Thanks, Joshua. I will I will see you next week.

Four speakers and a moderator were presenting at a conference. 

Speaking of conferences, Greg just returned from the Legal Value Network eXperience in Chicago with a fresh batch of answers to our Crystal Ball Question. First up is Kate Boyd, COO at Sente Advisors on the new generation of professionals and the diversity of experiences and knowledge they are bringing to the legal industry.

Marlene Gebauer 0:21
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:28
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well, Marlene, I just got back from the legal value network experience or the LVNx conference in Chicago. And man, I just had a lot of fun catching up with a number of old friends and colleagues who haven’t seen in in a few years for some reason, I’m not sure why we haven’t hung out. So but, but it was great hanging out. And you know, really listening to these folks that are in Legal Operations and pricing and LPM. I think they just really have their finger on the pulse of what’s driving change in the legal industry, you know, especially from the expectation from the client side and the firm side on how these matters are managed. It was really fun.

Marlene Gebauer 1:13
It’s always nice to hear from the clients and how they perceive things. I think that’s extraordinarily helpful.

Greg Lambert 1:19
Yeah. So while I was there, I also did some recording of our crystal ball questions. And I handed out some of our Geek in Review stickers. I have some stickers. Listeners, reach out to me and let me know if you want one.

Marlene Gebauer 1:36
Yeah, well, you certainly did better than I did on the recording and the sticker and out. I unfortunately had had a bit of a fail on both of those things when I was at Ulta. But I vowed to do better next time.

Greg Lambert 1:53
Well, it’s a it’s a learning experience.

Marlene Gebauer 1:56
It’s it was a learning experience. Like do not put all your stickers in one person is really what the learning experiences. And make sure you check your levels well before you to record.

Greg Lambert 2:07
That’s just a good life lesson all the way through.

Marlene Gebauer 2:11
It really is true. Yes, true. So this week, we bring in Martha BReel. So this week, we bring in Martha Brielle, from Cooley as well. So this week, we bring in Martha Brio from Cooley. She’s the co chair for the 2022 iltacon, which was held in National Harbor. Martha talks to us about all the planning that went into holding a post COVID conference and what to do when a conference sells out as iltacon did this year.

Greg Lambert 2:39
So first up, we have Kate Boyd who recently went over to Cinti advisors to work with our friend Ryan McClead. And we got her to sit down with me while I was at LV annex and answer our crystal ball question. Now Marlene you had interviewed at iltacon effort. But we found out that the the audio wasn’t wasn’t quite up to snuff. So although Kate kind of fought me on it, I finally got her to sit down and rerecord her answer. So we’re gonna Yeah, thanks, Kate. So we’re gonna listen to Kate’s answer. And then we’re gonna jump right into our discussion with Mark seborrhea.

Kate Boyd 3:21
Hi, this is Kate Boyd, I’m with Sente Advisors. In the next three to five years, I think we’re gonna have a new generation of professionals entering and moving up the ranks in the legal profession. And I think they will have survived and thrived in an a different environment that is much more focused on clients, and what do clients need? How do we create kind of teamwork? And how are we very pragmatic about how we solve problems together? And I think that’s, I think that’s gonna create new ranks of professionals in the legal industry, and some new opportunities for people to step forward and have fulfilling careers.

Greg Lambert 4:08
Now, are these going to be people that are new to the industry? Or is there going to be some type of revamping of the industry?

Kate Boyd 4:15
Good question. I imagine it’s gonna be a little bit of both. I think there’s a lot of people that are circling around the industry in different roles who are going to be stepping forward. And then I think there’s gonna be blurring of lines between industries. I think we’re gonna see people coming from financial arenas, accounting, stepping in and really thriving, maybe even other tech industries and thriving in ways that they they don’t even know yet.

Greg Lambert 4:44
Kate, thank you very much.

Kate Boyd 4:45
Thank you.

Marlene Gebauer 4:49
We’d like to welcome Martha Breil, Legal Service Delivery Manager for Cooley LLP and co chair for ILTACon which was recently held at National Harbor. Martha, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Martha Breil 4:59
Thanks Marlene. I’m glad to be here.

Greg Lambert 5:01
So Martha, this was, I believe, your second year as the ILTACon. co chair. So you handled really, you handled both of the coming back from COVID meetings that ILTA has held. First of all, I want to I want to ask you how stressful personally who was dealing with the issues of holding an in person conference in the era of, of COVID.

Martha Breil 5:26
It was pretty stressful. And I kind of think I was crazy to volunteer for it in the first place. But somebody needed to do it. And really, I’d been a longtime volunteer with ILTA and for ILTACon in the past, it’s a great organization, as I’m sure we all know. So I wanted to do my part to try to help it maintain itself through the pandemic. And I’m not overstating that, for those of you who don’t know, trying to keep a nonprofit up and running is no small feat in and of itself. And then you add a pandemic, which pretty much kills your cash cow, the the large conference annually that you’ve been doing for years and years, and you’re in pretty dire straits financially, so somebody needed to step up and do it. I thought I could do a good job. In relation to the stress, it was stressful. But I think in the grand scheme of things, it is, well, we’re doing what we can to make this work. And we’re just going to be adaptable and flexible, and try our best and not get too wrapped up in the drama. And for the most part, it didn’t keep me up at night, which is a good, a good thing. We went forward and I it was successful both years. I think it was a smashing success this year. And of course, I’m biased. But But this year was more fun than it was stress last year was an equal balance of stress and fun. But largely speaking, both conferences were successful.

Marlene Gebauer 6:55
Yeah, I mean, I can tell you just from my time there, and I wasn’t even there for the whole time. I mean, people were just so happy to see one another. I mean, you could just it was just palpable in the air. Just everybody was just really, really in good spirits.

Greg Lambert 7:10
Yeah. And this year, it was completely in person, right? There was no hybrid conference.

Martha Breil 7:17
Correct. It was completely in person. Yeah, everybody was just delighted. I didn’t realize how many friends I had through ILTA. And at the conference, but I went with four new colleagues who had never Cooley colleagues who had never been to an Ulta con before. And like just I couldn’t even get through like the hallway to get to my room. Like, forget it. We’re done. We’re going to bed. Let us know. Let us know when you finally get through like just talking to people and reminiscing and just seeing faces. And it’s so special. After the last two and a half years. It was great. It’s always fun to be there. But this year was particularly special just to see everybody the things that we used to take for granted. We don’t yet take them for granted anymore.

Marlene Gebauer 8:05
Now you were saying how hard it is to kind of keep a nonprofit afloat. And the you know, the conference is really the big moneymaker for the organization. Well, the 2022 conference was officially sold out. How excited were you when you realized how much the ILTA membership embrace coming back to the in person conferences? quite excited.

Martha Breil 8:26
In fact, I think that might have been my most excited moment. I really like did I hear right? It was creeping up. But for the massive registration happened it really in the last three weeks before the registration deadline and then extended after it until literally like you said Marlene, it was at capacity. We couldn’t let any more people in we we would have loved to but we were beyond fire codes. And you can’t really mess with that. Because no, you can’t. That would be a bad way to restart iltacon Post pandemic. But joking aside, yeah, I was pretty excited. And we knew it was good. But within the last week, it went through the roof. And I was delighted. A lot of people put a lot of hard work into this volunteers, the ilta staff. ILTA has been working with probably half the staff that they ideally need to pull something like this off. So just having it be this successful was just so rewarding. And it just made me very happy. Because these are my friends as well as my colleagues.

Greg Lambert 9:31
Right. And I know that you’re obviously a volunteer for this. How was it being as or how were the other volunteers handling this? The stress of this as well? How much did you get to rely upon the team of volunteers?

Martha Breil 9:48
Very, very, very much. We had a fantastic team of volunteers which makes my life and my co chairs very much easier than it would be otherwise. Yeah, most of our we call them team coordinators, they lead the session Planning Committee, and each are signed in their, you know, area of subject matter expertise to a team of about six coordinators, who they are responsible for organizing and managing. And they put together collectively the session content. The team leads, we call them the team coordinators, they were fantastic. They for the most part, they took care of most of the incidental things. So it wasn’t a problem when it did get to myself and my co chair, Scott David, it was things that we needed to intercede on, it wasn’t the day to day stuff, they handle that. So we didn’t have to. And that was a huge blessing. The team was fantastic. This something this large, certainly is not attributable to any particular individual, I played a role, Scott played a role. But if the team that was supporting us didn’t play their part, we wouldn’t have been able to pull up ILTACon off. So it was a fantastic team. You know, I was blessed to work with them. And I’m I’m hoping at some point in the future, I’ll get to work with them again, in some capacity.

Greg Lambert 11:10
Now the the fire, we’ve mentioned that you are capped out with the the number of people that could actually register and attend by the fire code, were those normal pre pandemic numbers, or did the pandemic lower the the number of attendees that you were allowed to bring in?

Martha Breil 11:31
A little bit of both the pandemic are limited the selections that we made on space, for the opening reception, particularly, we could have had a larger space had we imagine that we would have that many people in January, but there was no way that would have been a very, very bad strategic bet and a part of ILTACon because once you commit, you sign a contract, and you’re obligated to pay for the space. So they couldn’t make that commitment in January. And they didn’t have any flexibility later, when we realized that we were at where we were. But also though, I believe my stats are right here. This was a third most well attended iltacon ever. And I think it’s an I think there have been maybe about 35 to 40 At this point, depending on when you start counting really ILTAC on and the you know, the earlier iterations of it. So it was a well attended conference by any standards, the only conference that was actually sold out. And I’m pretty sure these are that’s the correct status. The third most well attended conference, we we had to cap it at 2950, so about 3000 people.

Greg Lambert 12:38
That’s That’s great attendance. So wonderful attendance, of course, you know, the attendees are a large part of the conference experience. But also the vendors are another large part of the conference experience as well. And so how did the vendors handle the conference this year, were there were there any unforeseen challenges or, or even successes that she found on the vendor side of things?

Martha Breil 13:02
More successes this year than challenges, they were great at supporting like the there’s different membership levels, they were great at signing up for membership levels, they were great about trying to get space in the exhibit hall. So we had no problem filling that we might have had a couple of couple of tense moments on who gets what spot. But luckily, I don’t have to deal with that. They were out in full force. And the other nice thing that I heard from a number of vendors, and we also call them business partners, was the people who have been going to iltacon for as long as I have, which is about a decade now who are on the business partner side. We’re saying you know, this is an unsolicited in my my part, they were just coming up to me and saying, Look, this is the first conference when we have felt like we’re completely first class citizens, we’re not being treated any differently than any other ilta or iltacon. Attendee or member. And that means a lot. And it’s been a long time coming. So I heard more of that. Then what I’m sure did happen, which was, you know, some I’m sure there were complaints from everybody, right? You never hold anything this large without somebody having some legitimate or maybe illegitimate, who knows some issue some complaint. That’s just the nature of who you talk to. Yes. Right. Exactly. 100%. So I’m sure there were complaints. I honestly can say I didn’t hear any from members or business partners, aside from something incidental, like we didn’t have enough food at the closing reception. Okay. Yeah, duly noted. There wasn’t enough food, but you know, if that’s the if that’s the only complaint I heard, and the whole time I was there, I’m gonna consider that a massive win.

Greg Lambert 14:49
Well, I went to I wasn’t able to go to ILTA. I went to the AALL conference earlier in the summer. And I think one of the comments that was made About the vendors because typically there’s some type of rollout or announcement or you know, there’s some launch that vendors use that occasion to, to do. But I think, and I don’t even know if this is a pandemic issue, but I think we’ve seen less and less of that, as vendors have done these more iterative rollouts of upgrades. Was there any, any you don’t have to give specific names? But were the vendors using this to make major announcements or launch products here at ILTACon?

Martha Breil 15:35
I don’t believe so. It’s interesting. When you asked me that question. I don’t know of any. There may have been.

Greg Lambert 15:42
It’s not just you.

Martha Breil 15:44
Yeah, it Yeah. Yeah. But no, and certainly not in like grand fashion. I wouldn’t have known about that. But no, I’ve gotten so many emails, I couldn’t keep up with all of them. But I I scanned most of them prior to the conference from the different vendors. And I don’t remember anything about like, massive new release and changes. I know. Westlaw and Lexis are introducing some new, pretty new functionality and their platforms. But as far as I know, they weren’t using ILA as the place to announce that in any grand fashion.

Greg Lambert 16:19
Okay, but yeah, definitely. We’re sorry. No, I was gonna say, I think that that’s kind of the the new normal to hate to use that phrase. But I think that’s, that’s an old style of launch. And I think now that they’re, they’re pretty much using their own internal methods, rather than waiting for these conferences to do so. I just wonder if it’s now. I mean, that’s true. But I just wonder if there’s something that as associations look to how we adapt going forward, if there are incentives that that might be out there, just just me thinking out loud now.

Martha Breil 17:00
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s an interesting point. And I think it might be something the folks planning for the future built account should consider because there’s an opportunity there for sure you get that many people in person, and you get potentially the right people like the C level folks who are there for the G 100. And the G 200. And you have like, the audience that you probably want to reach at some level, not, you know, the weeds level, but on the strategic, the strategic changes to the platforms that CIOs care the most about, I would think that would be a great opportunity to to leverage that in conjunction with like the global 100 or global 200. Sorry, I’m using acronyms. There to lead the largest law firm leader is that who attend ILTACon?

Greg Lambert 17:46
Yeah. Oh, speaking. I’m going to hit you with with a question. You probably don’t have the numbers for international attendees. Did you have a lot of international attendees?

Martha Breil 17:57
Oh, goodness, I should have gotten the actual stat. But

Greg Lambert 18:00
Yeah, I just got you out of left field on that one.

Martha Breil 18:02
No, no, that’s okay. It’s something I’m interested in. It’s something we’re really been trying to push the international reach of ILTACon into both South America and across Europe and Australia and New Zealand as well. But I don’t have I don’t have the stats. I can say. I know. There were two people who are ILTA volunteers from Brazil who attended spoke and yeah, Barbara and her colleague, Marianna also was there. And she participated as a volunteer on the ILTACon conference committee. I was fantastic. So I know, there were at least two attendees from Brazil. And I think they had a third colleague there too, but I, I wouldn’t swear to it. And there were there were people from my colleague from the UK came as well. So the international presence were was there. There certainly were a lot of non American accents, if that’s any indication, but I know there’s a lot of expats here and all of that, but it was

Greg Lambert 19:05
All those Canadians that came down.

Martha Breil 19:06
All those Canadian. I know, I know. What are they thinking? So but I, you know, that would be an interesting follow up. If I can find a stat for you. I’ll post it and you can share it in the notes.

Marlene Gebauer 19:22
All right, we’ve been talking about how you and the volunteers and the vendors are have been very excited about the conference. So what has been the feedback from members post conference? Was there a demand for you know, expanding demand for any specific topics for the next conference or for post conference educational sessions?

Martha Breil 19:43
The one I’ve heard the most buzz about was around the Legal Lean Six Sigma workshop that we did on Thursday. It gave you a white belt. And I think the next level of belts yellow, so how to continue that between now and the next iltacon. And we’re working with the, I guess the speaker who, the person who headed up the workshop to figure out how to do that between now and next year, and potentially extending workshops like that on the Thursday to give people enough reason to, like stay Wednesday night and get something a little different out of their attendance at iltacon. So that’s what I’ve heard the most buzz about in terms of follow up. And, of course, Marlene and I used to volunteer on the other side of ILTA, which is not the conference, but just the recorded content that ILTA provides year round. And there’s always opportunities there to pick up on the themes that are the hottest, and then follow up the trend with the virtual workshops, and whatever media they decide to use podcasts even. And, and deliver content that way. But the one I’ve heard the most about is the Legal Lean Six Sigma and continuing that kind of offering, as we think about more process maturity in the area of law.

Greg Lambert 21:07
Yeah, I could see why that’s popular.

Marlene Gebauer 21:09
Yeah. That’s very interesting. It’s, you know, obviously, it’s a great topic. And I mean, it’s also really smart to have it at the end. Because I can tell you, it was interesting. I was there through through Wednesday, and but I talked to people who a lot of folks stayed the whole time. And you know, oftentimes at conferences, that’s not the case, you know, people will, will leave early. And I know somebody who presented at the last session on the last day, and I presented at the last session on Wednesday, and I was very nervous about like, Oh, are we going to get enough people and we got a full house, this person on Thursday got a full house. And I thought that was terrific, and really spoke to the fact that people were really, really engaged and just wanted to get the most out of it.

Martha Breil 21:56
Yeah, we were really excited about that, too. Because it does, thank you put a lot of time and effort, both on the planning side of it and as a speaker, and have hardly anyone in the audience is is a let down. And we’ve been trying for years to really get people to stay that Wednesday night. And and I think we’re about at a good approach to making that happen in a way that adds more value. So yeah, this was the first year for workshops. So I think next year, it’ll be even better.

Greg Lambert 22:28
Good. So let’s talk about your experience at the at the conference. So we know you, you put a lot of yeah, a lot of work up front with with the planning and getting things going. I’ll ask you what, what my wife always asks all the kids when we finish something, it was like, what was your favorite part of the conference? So I’m gonna ask you that what what did you enjoy most about it and start with that?

Martha Breil 22:55
Sure, I think I just enjoyed really like seeing, getting the like, onstage, before the opening keynote, and just seeing everybody sitting there was just so powerful. And that that I did enjoy, although I would never have thought I would enjoy speaking in front of that many people. Luckily, it was short. But nevertheless, it didn’t. I wasn’t even like really nervous, I was just impressed and just excited to see everybody. And then continuing that just the inner like talking to people collaborating, networking about challenges that work and sessions, just having the opportunity to connect in person and have real conversations about the challenges and what may work and what may not work that you can’t really have in the virtual world, we just first we don’t have time, there’s just too many distractions. And second, you just have a report, at least I do. Maybe some people are better at having that report. Virtually I have a report if I’m talking to somebody, like appear from another firm or an organization where you can talk in person and read body language and be a little bit more open and honest and not worry about, I don’t know somehow getting it to the wrong person and offending someone or so forth and so on. So that’s I mean, that’s what I just enjoyed that whole experience and, and being able to kind of carry on the conversations for the for the week. I also really enjoyed just meeting the my peers at my firm who I’d never met in real life, including one of one of whom actually reports me never met her in person until iltacon. Which is crazy. That would be nuts three years ago, but it’s it’s normal now. So those were my kind of most memorable moments.

Greg Lambert 24:45
Was there anything and I think are you rolling off of the as one of the chairs for the conference? Are you still working?

Martha Breil 24:53
I am done. Yeah, I’m officially volunteer, retired. I tell everyone.

Greg Lambert 24:58
So any any word Is of wisdom for the the two souls that are going to take the mantle for next year or one. Whereas next year is going to be and what advice would you give the folks that are taking your place?

Martha Breil 25:15
Oh, so it’s going to be in Disney in Florida. Orlando. At the Swan and Dolphin resort and advice. Oh, goodness gracious.

Kate Boyd 25:29
Words of wisdom.

Greg Lambert 25:30
It’s too late to say no, but

Martha Breil 25:32
yeah, right. Right. Don’t do it. What are you thinking? No, both both. My my co chair, Scott David. He’s, he’s he was a great partner all year. And he Yeah, we worked alongside each other. And that’s why iltacon has two chairs, or that’s why they call them co chairs just because it helps like that first year, you’re learning. And he learned a ton and he was a fantastic partner. And Rodney Mullins is joining him as his co chair. Rodney has been on the ILTACon Planning Committee, leading those teams I mentioned earlier as a team coordinator for probably about five years now. So he’s a fantastic person to step in, in terms of advice. You know, there’s some logistics advice that would make things smoother. No one cares about that. But just enjoy the experience. Be open to ideas, Listen, before you talk, and don’t come in with preconceived notions on all things. But you allow for possibilities. And I think once you do that good things happen.

Marlene Gebauer 26:36
Those are good words of wisdom. You say?

Martha Breil 26:38
Well, I hope so. Don’t feel wise. So take it or leave it, everyone.

Marlene Gebauer 26:46
All right, so so we have come to the time in the podcast, where we asked our guests what we call the crystal ball question. So can you please pull out your crystal ball and peer into the future for us? And let us know what you see on the horizon when it comes to ILTACon and other legal conferences in the next three to five years?

Martha Breil 27:05
Well, I’m very, very optimistic about conferences in the next five years, I might not have been before the pandemic because there was a lot of chatter and the it there was there was a lot of like, kind of talk about whether or not younger generation saw the point in conferences. And I think we have the answer to that now. They do, because there were a number of people emerging in their professional years. And they attended ILTACon this year and made up part of the 3000 attendees that we had, I think we have an opportunity to continue them. But that potential forward if we approach conference planning correctly, and allow for different ways of delivering messages that possibly get alternative formats, if you will, that get away from the traditional expert classroom kind of thing and allow for expertise to be more of a shared experience, rather than being talked at. So I trying to figure out how to do that effectively, in a conference setting is going to be a challenge because a lot of those rooms just aren’t logistically set up to do that. But I think if conferences evolve in a way that allows for more of that, there’s a real potential for continuing to draw people in and having that in person experience in the learning opportunities and the networking opportunities that are important for both in individuals professional development, and are also important for organizations to build the best employees they can and ideally to retain them by, you know, investing in their development and allowing them to actually attend stuff like that, to grow and learn. So I think this is a rambling answer. But if that’s my you know, this is my future. projection for it is I think conferences will do well, I think they do need to sort out how to make them more engaging and effectively offer alternative formats to the like the head table and the speaker thing because I think that wears then, and I think it wears thin faster with people and the younger generations.

Greg Lambert 29:23
Again, more more words of wisdom. So Martha Breil from Cooley, And now the past co chair of ILTACon, we thank you very much for coming in and taking the time to talk to us.

Marlene Gebauer 29:36
Thank you, Martha.

Martha Breil 29:37
Thanks so much for having me. It’s been fun. Thanks, Marlene. Thanks, Greg.

Marlene Gebauer 29:43
Well, you know rambles can be nice and I think this one was definitely a nice one. I loved hearing, getting the inside scoop from from Martha about ILTACon and all that goes into it. And I also thought was interesting. She’s talking about trying to pivot away from the panels or the talking heads type of thing, because that’s actually something that we did in the session that I was participating in. That was very much. We were talking, we were walking, we were, you know, asking the audience questions, we were polling them. So a lot of different things going on, to keep the audience engaged. And I think and hope that they really appreciated it.

Greg Lambert 30:26
Yeah. And I think she’s right, in that, you know, especially, it was a question that a lot of us were asking, before we even heard of pandemic was the how do we keep the younger members engaged, because they have a different experience and different expectations. And yeah, learning style for when it comes to conferences, it’s their approach to educational presentations, or, you know, they they come at a different angle than us. And so any changes are probably going to be needed as we go forward. And I think this year, you know, this year, I think people were very hungry to get back in person. Yeah, I’m going to be curious to see how things go next year, and to see whether or not you know, that type of energy and engagement for this type of in person conferences is going to continue? I hope it does, because I enjoy them. But it’d be interesting to see how next year’s conferences go as well.

Marlene Gebauer 31:35
Well, I’m glad to hear that they’re looking, again, at doing workshops. I think that’s, that’s another area where I think I think that that everybody feels that there is a specific sort of value associated with that. And I mean, if you you know, in this example that she gave, if you’re getting your white belt, I mean, you’re you’re attending and no, you’re getting something concrete coming back. So

Greg Lambert 31:59
there’s, there’s out, you know, there’s outcomes, there’s rewards, right? And, and so it’s definitely something I think people are more excited about those types of programs and just sitting back and listening to four people in a moderator.

Marlene Gebauer 32:18
Being a joke, there was four people in a moderator because

Greg Lambert 32:21
we’re super rare. Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been I’ve been on one of those jokes. So

Marlene Gebauer 32:27
I think we’ve been on a few of those jokes.

Greg Lambert 32:30
Well, thanks again to Martha Breil from Cooley and ILTACon for coming in and sharing her experiences with us.

Marlene Gebauer 32:38
And of course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter,

Greg Lambert 32:52
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter.

Marlene Gebauer 32:55
Or you can leave us a voicemail on The Geek in Review Hotline at 713-487-7270 and as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 33:07
Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk to you later.

Marlene Gebauer 33:10
All right, bye bye.

There are lots of legal issues covered in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Ep. 4, but almost all of that coverage missed the mark this week. Still, we dive into the legal issues ranging from False Imprisonment and Theft, all the way to Tax and Insurance law. There’s a lot to unpack in “Is this not Magic.”

Can you get an injunction against magic?

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts |  Spotify

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:00
So imagine running a superhuman law division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She Hulk Attorney at Law show on Disney plus. So we’re gonna dive into Episode Four. Is this not real magic? I’m Greg Lambert, and alongside my superhuman law division co counsel, Joshua Lenon. Hey, Joshua with the only two “n’s” exactly where you think.

Joshua Lenon 0:48
Oh, I love that call out. That’s a great reference. So this episode. Hi, great. It’s great to be here.

Greg Lambert 0:54
Let’s jump in. First of all, I think we were talking a little bit before the show that this may have been somewhat of a of a downer episode, as far as is content still of the show overall, but maybe my least favorite what what did you think overall, Joshua?

Joshua Lenon 1:14
Yeah, I think I don’t want to knock the show. But I think from a legal issue spotting perspective, this show was a mess. It did not actually, I think, characterize both the legal process, the legal system, and the legal issues in a way that made sense to me as a lawyer.

Greg Lambert 1:32
Yeah, this one felt pretty sloppy. Like I said, I still liked the show. It’s a fun show. And I think for what it’s advertised it, it hits the marks on there. But I would like to see a little bit more of a tightening up on the legal stuff. But let’s jump into the episode itself if you want and we can talk about Danny Blaze and magic act.

Joshua Lenon 1:56
The central conflict comes from this stage magician Donny Blaze, who is very clearly meant not to be a sympathetic character. So he does sleight of hand does not do it. Well, no. And And in a world where you have people flying around in suits of high tech armor, and you have wizards actually battling it out in Central Park in New York City, with their little flying clothes, sleight of hand is just not cutting it with the audience. So we get an unusual moment where it turns out Donny Blaze the stage magician knows real magic

Greg Lambert 2:41
Yeah, really interested because he’s got the the little ring.

Joshua Lenon 2:46
I think they called it the sling ring in the original Doctor Strange movie. And it sounds right.

Greg Lambert 2:53
And so it turns out he’s got one of those and can thus create some real magic specifically making portals into other dimensions. And I do have a have a side note that the actor that plays Cornelius is hype man. Yeah, the actor is actually 104 years old.

Joshua Lenon 3:14
Oh my gosh,

Greg Lambert 3:15
I want to look that good when I’m 104. So yeah,

Joshua Lenon 3:20
I mean, that’s almost the entire history of film. Yeah. So what’s interesting about Donny Blaze’s stage show is that he then asked for a volunteer from the audience while he’s generating this portal.

Greg Lambert 3:35
And we are introduced to a interesting character for the show.

Joshua Lenon 3:39
Yeah, her name is Madisynn. She introduces herself and comes across as very intoxicated. Yes, a party girl is the stereotype. I think they’re they’re aiming for clearly. And she tells us that she spells her name, Madisynn with two n’s, and a y and not where you think.

Greg Lambert 4:02
And it’s true. It’s in fact, I laugh because later you see someone that’s writing her name down and then when she spells it, he scribbles it back out and has to re-write it.

Joshua Lenon 4:12
Oh, that’s funny. I missed that little.

Greg Lambert 4:16
So with Donny and his magic act, he asked for the volunteer we get to Madisynn with two ends in a while but not where you think he first does some regular magic. And then that’s not hitting it with the with the crowd. So as hype man Cornelius is saying do the thing. Do the thing. So he whips open a portal and or Madisynn falls into the portal. Yeah. And that’s kind of where we start the show. So what legal issues do we have here in this opening scene?

Joshua Lenon 4:52
Well, one of the problems I had with this episode is they didn’t really show what happened in the act after he opened portal we then see as a consequence later. And so what happens is Madisynn ends up falling out of the sky upon Wong, the master of the Mystic Arts The Sorcerer Supreme. As he settles down to watch The Sopranos. Yes, he’s very clearly having some me time. And out of the sky falls, an intoxicated Madisynninto wherever he is in Nepal. And he immediately knows that this is Donny Blaze’s fault. Yep. This is not something that is a singular event. Yep. So from a legal perspective, though, we don’t really know. Like, how did Madisynn end up falling from the sky? Because we don’t see. Does she agree, for example, to be a part of what is very clearly real magic. Now? We know she volunteered for a stage magic show. But then once the portal opened, did she agree to walk in it? Did she agree to be teleported all the way to Nepal? Like none of these things are shown. And so from a participatory perspective, we don’t really know if there’s the concept of assumption of risk.

Greg Lambert 6:15
Yep. And add to that the fact that she’s clearly inebriated,

Joshua Lenon 6:19
clearly enumerated right and so does she have the capacity to contract an agreement to participate in a risky endeavor? Yeah, all of these are issues that were not explored in this episode. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 6:32
I thought I found it interesting. I kind of took some leaps of faith here, when she popped into Wong’s house. And a couple of things that I noticed is one, she’s holding a heart that’s kind of still beating. And the other is she doesn’t know where she is. Again, Wong knew almost immediately who was behind this. Yeah, so there’s there’s an issue I want to bring up later. Regarding Huang’s culpability in this whole thing.

Joshua Lenon 7:04
I agree with you. And there’s one other thing, Madisynn mentions that she had to sell, like some of her blood or part of her soul, six drops of blood, yeah, with some demon in order to actually be sent to walk. So there’s this stop along the way, where Madisynn had to enter another contract. Right? Well, whose outcome we do not know. Will it be something that pops up in a later episode or not? Yeah. Like this woman has been through a lot. Yeah, yeah. And in the episode, she keeps her spirits up, but oh,

Greg Lambert 7:35
yeah, she, she She’s definitely the party girl. Now there was one more side issue that I wanted to talk to you about. And now it was, you said that Wong was settling in to watch an episode of The Sopranos. And I want to know, if he can bring some type of suit against her for spoiling that episode. And just ruining the experience of that particular episode, which has a major death and any cause of action there, Joshua.

Joshua Lenon 8:06
So sadly, nah, there’s really no cause of action there. Spoilers one? Yeah, she didn’t know if he’d seen it before. It’s something that’s been out for a long time. There really is no legal recourse for long on spoilers. Just as our listeners will have no legal recourse, but the spoilers were given on this episode, you

Greg Lambert 8:28
should definitely watch the episode before you listen to this. So the next scene is Jen is talking with her dad about the attack from the Wrecking Crew. And I wanted to pick your brain on this. Yeah. Now as an officer of the court, which I think is and I don’t know exactly what the rules are in California, but I know that members of the bar have certain ethical duties when it comes to illegal activity. And so Jen admits that even though she was attacked by four men, she did not report this to the police. Yeah. Is there any do you know if there’s any kind of ethical duty or legal duty for a lawyer who has some type of criminal activity such as an assault if they don’t report that?

Joshua Lenon 9:22
Well, the duties around lawyers tend to have to do with the responsibilities towards clients and being officers of the court. And so in this particular instance, there, there wasn’t a client involved. She was not knowledgeable about an upcoming crime or a future crime that will be happening, lawyers do have a responsibility to report those. And there was nothing involved in terms of candor of a court issue withholding facts from a court. So Jen may not have the duty to report this to the police. Now that does not mean There aren’t legal issues involved with not reporting into the police, for example, her dad actually comes to do like an upgrade to her home security. And Jen might have the ability to claim certain deductions based on that, right? Like, there’s a threat. They’re reacting and spending this money because of a threat. And so if she’s looking to maybe, like pass it on to her insurance providers, or to look and see if there’s any appropriate state, or federal tax deductions that might come from this, the fact that she did not file a police report, actually can be used against her to deny that claim, or insurance may require that proof, or the the tax itself a tax deduction may require proof of crime, and now future prevention of crime. And so the fact that she didn’t report it doesn’t mean there aren’t legal issues. It’s just where those legal issues appear and kind of approach from might differ. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 11:05
I bet people listening to this show did not think we were going to get into insurance and tax codes.

Joshua Lenon 11:12
I’m no expert. I just I know the top of the top of it. Yeah, that’s all I can tell your local attorney up.

Greg Lambert 11:17
I wanted to talk a little bit about because Sarah Glassmeyer, who’s a friend of mine, and I think of yours, yeah, well,

Joshua Lenon 11:25
Amazing Law Librarian.

Greg Lambert 11:27
Absolutely. What she brought this up on Twitter this week, asking if we had talked about any of the technology that’s being used at G L, K, and H

Joshua Lenon 11:36
still a very limited amount. Yeah, perfectly honest. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 11:39
Quite frankly, the only technology I’m seeing is Microsoft Windows based laptops or desktops, regular monitors, we did get a peek at some throughout the show of the screens. And I’m seeing almost exclusively Microsoft Office, whether it’s Word or Outlook. The one thing that we saw a lot of on this episode was Microsoft’s To Do List, which I think she was using, not in OneNote, but rather in Outlook, that she had that on there. And Joshua, I did not see Clio at all.

Joshua Lenon 12:22
No, yeah. And so listeners may not know, but I am the lawyer in residence. For Clio we build software for law firms. But we are not on this show. So there’s no conflict of interest here. I think the fact that we’re seeing windows, though, is actually true to light. Yeah. If you look at most surveys of lawyers who use technology, most of them are using PCs. The vast majority of them are using Windows on that PC with Outlook. And then if we move into larger law firms where they have structured technology environments, the law firm exclusively uses Windows and Microsoft Office as their drafting tools, then they may have add ons on top of that. They use Microsoft exchange for their email servers almost exclusively. The one place where they go outside of that ecosystem is when we talk about mobile phones. And then we find in the US anyway, there is a preference amongst lawyers for iPhone. Yes,

Greg Lambert 13:27
yes. Yeah. The one app that she had on her computer that I don’t think was sanctioned by the firm was the matcher app.

Joshua Lenon 13:40
Yeah, so that was on her phone, right?

Greg Lambert 13:42
Oh, that was actually on her. She had it on her phone. The website, but she was she was setting up her profile on her computer now could have been a website. So if it was a website, that’s, you know, it’s kind of hard, a little harder to control that. But

Joshua Lenon 13:58
no filtering at the GL K, and H is virtual network. Yeah, there’s a lot

Greg Lambert 14:03
of things if I if I go on my firm’s network, and I go to certain sites, one, I may either be completely barred from going to that site based on security preferences, or I may have to click a button that says, you can go here, but we’re tracking that you’ve gone here. And if something goes wrong, you’re on your own, we’re not going to you know, we’re going to show that you went outside our rules. So good luck. We’re not going to stop you. But we’re not going to support this either.

Joshua Lenon 14:36
Yeah, and a lot of that, interestingly, comes from clients imposing security standards on law firms, as we know that an increasing number of law firms are getting asked about do they have mobile device management? Do they have whitelist and blacklist for IP access? Do they have certain types of filtering to prevent things like malware from being installed by visiting the wrong websites. What I think is interesting is there is a need, sometimes for lawyers to visit wide variety of locations on the internet as a part of researching the issues involved in their particular cases. Right? If you are helping people with Cryptocurrency you may be visiting like these Cryptocurrency website, yes and using wallets that are produced by these third party services. And that’s something that a law firm should be worried about, right? What’s being installed? How is it being used, but at the same time, it might be a part of your practice, and you really have to find a way to balance the risk and the access in the law firm. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 15:44
well, we did get a look at Jennifer’s to do list. I will tell you she had 92 tasks on there, which are way too much. But I isolated some of the legal tasks that she had. Do you want to want to run down through some of those with me with them? Yeah. All right. So top of the list was to call a meals, which is Blonsky, the abomination call his parole officer and finalized his injunction, the conditions of his release. Yeah, well, she’s creating guidance for the inhibitor that they’re going to make him wear. So pretty interesting. As far as blonde skis case. The next thing on the list that I saw, she has to interview summer associates. And she’s got a sad face next to that, but then she also has to plan summer associate outings. And she has a happy face to that. So anyone that’s worked in a large law firm, they know that they go out and recruit first year and second year law students last law school being three years here in the United States. And so in between their first year and second year, and their second year and third year, they may be invited to work at the law firm as a summer associate. And then once they’re there, typically there’s a lot of fun activities that go on during the summer, because they want to wine and dine the summer associates so that they feel like they’re part of the origin of the firm. And also that the firm is a fun place to be some other things that she had with Runa are shapeshifter. There’s a couple of things is that there’s a Alyssa says IP research for Ms. Pete And Ms. Pete has actually Megan the stallions real last name. Oh, okay. So we called

Joshua Lenon 17:49
it it will be it will be IP related to all the trademarks that she owns. So So one of the interesting things about that is because Runa has lost the case in the previous episode, she has been found guilty of fraud and impersonating Meghan the stallion that now becomes evidence that Jen could use in future proceedings against Runa. And you’ve already been found to be doing this activity. Do you know there’s judicial record? So I don’t have to establish that now. I can just point out to the court that you’re still doing it. And now we’ve got a different plaintiff around the same set of facts. So she gets to kind of keep milking it.

Greg Lambert 18:33
There’s a couple of things that are tied together here. Remember the seven soulmates for Blonsky Yep, she has on her to do list to follow up with Blonsky soulmates but then and this isn’t on her to do list but when she pulls up the the her dating app matcher there’s a QR code

Joshua Lenon 18:53
Oh, is there an Easter egg?

Greg Lambert 18:54
and I clicked on that QR code. And it takes you to a comic book and online comic book for West Coast Avengers number four. And the title of that comic book is gather now we Seven Brides. Whoa. And it turns out that the Seven Brides in the comic book are actually She Hulk Susan Richards and they’re all superheroes dagger from cloak and dagger storm from the X-Men.

Joshua Lenon 19:26
And it sounds like there’s a creepy setup happening there, unfortunately.

Greg Lambert 19:29
I think we may see the seven soulmates at another time,

Joshua Lenon 19:34
That was a clever easter egg.

Greg Lambert 19:36
Well done. The other legal things that she had was she had a meeting with Holloway at lunch and then a late afternoon meeting with with Mallory in her office. One last thing while we’re still in her office before Wong appears, is that one of her interviews on the news networks kind of these TMZ type shows that They’re in Los Angeles. She’s asked the question of how she comes up with the name She Hulk. And there’s just a little blurb that says, Oh, it’s a funny thing I didn’t. And we’ll touch on that at the end. But we’re interrupted on that because one shows up in her off

Joshua Lenon 20:18
in the glowing portal. Yeah, so portals are a big part of the special effects for this episode. And Wong is looking to hire Jen Walters to represent him against Johnny Blaze. So we find out the Donny Blaze actually was a student of the school to which now Wong is the head of failed out, apparently very quickly, but took enough of the basics and the ring, the little sling ring that we talked about before with him, and is now using these in a way that was described as dangerous to the integrity of the universe. And so he wants Donny Blaze to stop using real magic, which leads us to the courtroom scenes that we see later on in the episode. And so the first move that should have been done is that Jen should have signed Wong up as a client, run the conflict check to see if there were any issues within the law firm, especially their superhuman law division, that might impact their ability to represent long. And then third, figuring out how long is going to pay because Wong has been traditionally shown to not really function in the same fiscal realm as everyone else. An example is he was trying to go buy a What was it like a turkey on rye or something, some sandwich from a deli in New York, and Dr. Strange asks ‘hey, you go any cash?’ and Wong very clearly lives. Not in the realm of the material world. It was my takeaway from that. Yes. And so if I’m going to be representative Wong, I need to figure out how I’m getting paid. And that was totally skipped over. They didn’t do any of that in this episode. And it would have been nice to figure out does GLK/H accept Indian Rupees as a currency? What’s going to be their exchange rate calculation? Is there a barter involved? Most people don’t know this. But lawyers can accept barter as payment for legal fees, so long as they aren’t deemed unreasonable. So maybe if Wong brought in like a giant diamond, and offered to pay with that the law firm could accept it, but they might have to have it appraised. Figure out its actual fair market value, and see if the legal services in question might be less than that value. And if so, maybe they could hold the rest of it in trust. I’m doing air quotes for the people who can’t see it home for future legal services on behalf of the sorcerer supreme, or Yeah, some type of refund. But none of this is covered. So we have no idea how Jen is getting paid if she’s getting paid for the work that comes later. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 23:11
So he is asking that She Hulk needs to basically make an example out of out of Donny Blaze. I keep wanting to say Johnny Blaze, who is the Ghost Rider. But apparently at this point, it note no relation, but no relation. He wants Jen to, “set a precedent that no unlicensed person ever attempt to practice the Mystic Arts again.” And then Jen goes through a client interview where she basically walks through some very simple steps because she was like, Oh, well, on the surface, it sounds like it should be, you know, a pretty easy case. Let me ask you a few questions. Did you have him sign a nondisclosure agreement or an NDA or a non compete agreement

Joshua Lenon 24:08
of which they have none? Yeah.

Greg Lambert 24:12
The next question was, was there a contract when Donny Blaze began his training at Kamar Taj, and Wong says,

Joshua Lenon 24:25
no, no.

Greg Lambert 24:27
And then he did say that all students make a pledge to the Mystic Arts, and she’s a great, did you get that in writing? And of course, no. So this school doesn’t seem to have a huge administrative department.

Joshua Lenon 24:47
That definitely seems to be the case. And we know from existing case law, that things like an honor pledge as a part of a school’s documented enrollment process can be brought to bear as a part of conflicts that arise in education environment. And so the lack of what we might consider traditional documentation, right? They swear to magic magic can’t really appear in the courtroom to our knowledge and testify whether this is a valid oath. So Wong is bringing a really difficult case in that there isn’t really documented evidence that Jennifer Walters can use to support the claims that this is unlicensed magic. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 25:36
But Jen does go ahead and craft a cease and desist letter against right Blaze. And

Joshua Lenon 25:43
So I think Donny Blaze responds to it in the only fashion that is appropriate. And that is he, he just basically makes it disappear. Right? So within legal circles, cease and desist letters have a place, right? It’s a great way to try and do an end run around the court process, right? If your client is asking you to prevent something that’s really illegal. Trials are expensive, they can be risky. And so a cease and desist letter is a great way to try and expedite a solution. Hey, we know you’re doing something bad. Here’s a reason you shouldn’t be doing that, fix it or we go to court. And that’s what a cease and desist letter does. But there are many times when cease and desist letters are used when there really isn’t a good thing to back them up. One of the most famous actually happened in the 1970s there was a fan wrote the the legal counsel the Cleveland Browns saying some of the fans in the stadium are throwing paper airplanes. I want them to stop immediately or I will sue. To which the lawyer wrote, dear, concerned fan, someone who is some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters I thought you should know. Sincerely. Look, Cleveland Browns legal counsel. And this This response is legend. Just legend amongst lawyers. Yeah, we all dream of the day where we can write back something as short and as witty and as compelling as this response to a cease and desist letter. And I think Donny Blaze without knowing it had the proper response. There isn’t a legal basis cited in this episode as to why Donny should not be doing the tricks that he’s doing. We aren’t showing the contents of the cease and desist letter to know what arguments are kind of being put forward by Wong and Jennifer Walters on why he should cease and desist. And so why do

Greg Lambert 27:52
yeah, my my thought on this and maybe we can get into it when we’re to trial. But the fact that Donny actually took the property of the school in a sling ring that and I think without the sling ring, he can’t open the portal. So it seems to me like the the more direct approach was to go after and repossess the sling ring. And yeah, so um, and in civil court or have him charged with theft. But I do like the scene where Donny Blaze says, you know, you you can’t own magic, you can’t trademark a spirit. You can’t register a soul. You can’t copyright art in which Jennifer’s that well, actually you can Copyright.

Joshua Lenon 28:46
That’s the whole point of copyright. Yeah. It actually does get into some interesting IP law questions there. So we know, for example, that Harry Houdini, one of the most famous magicians of All Times has existing patents on tricks that he created, right? And so he was able to take an illusion and patent the process of generating the illusion, not the illusion itself, but the mechanisms behind it. And you can potentially copyright certain performances of magic, yep, right. This is my magic show. Maybe you might not be able to defend the processes behind it, right? We use the video camera well, other people own the IP rights to video cameras, you don’t get to claim other people can’t use video cameras in their show or mirrors right mirrors just exist. Now there’s no IP law behind mirrors. But in this instance, we don’t really know other than having the ring and waving your hand in a circle what is involved in this? I think one was the wrong client. In this instance, what I think Jennifer should have done is brought Huang on as a client, and then had Wong finance a different type of lawsuit. And that is I would have brought Madisynn in and sued Donny Blaze for false imprisonment. Yes. Yeah. Which is a tort. Right? Yeah, we could have. And this becomes apparent later in the episode that Donny has been doing this repeatedly. It’s not just Madisynn with a why in two n’s, but not where you think. But other women have unfortunately been subjected to unwilling or unwitting teleportation via the use of this magic. And so you could have created wrongful imprisonment, or other types of civil claims against ani that may have had the impact of don’t use magic on drunk women. Yes. And set a precedent on that in a way that I think is much more legally realistic.

Greg Lambert 30:46
But instead, they filed a complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction, citing unfair competition, and even better, better, gross negligence, which the judge immediately her ears perked up and was like, You’re gonna have a hard time proving that? Do you even have a witness? And of course they do.

Joshua Lenon 31:10
You have here comes Madisynn. Yeah, I think there’s a lot going on, even prior to the scene. For one. I don’t even know how this made it to a courtroom. Right? Like, what what are they actually claiming is the standing here? And why didn’t Donny and Donny’s lawyer does not appear to be that experienced in litigation? Why didn’t Danny’s lawyer even actually just challenge whether or not there was actually a case to appear before the court? That would have been my first instinct here? Yeah. And then the preliminary injunction has a standard of are we preventing irreparable harm to one of the parties here? That wasn’t really something that was covered in the hearing, as presented so long is talking about the fact that Dani is destroying the fabric of the universe and riskiness, all, but there’s, there’s really no discussion of what does that mean? And how do we prove that? And is it Donny that’s doing it or anyone doing these types of things? And if so, why the heck are you giving out sling rings, but none of those were really issues involved in the injunction hearing. The other thing I want to point out is that as we’ve seen in previous episodes, the clients cannot shut Ah,

Greg Lambert 32:31
there’s one other issue that has kind of bugged me throughout the show. And that is, when in court, none of the attorneys stand up and address the bench. And that’s like, you know, first year law school, you learn about certain decorum that’s, that’s in every court and doesn’t matter. If it’s the, you know, the Night Court handling the, you know, the drunk tank, or the highest court in the land you stand when you address the court. And I’ve heard a number of people complain about this, that that’s, that’s an easy thing that the show should have cleaned up. As far as

Joshua Lenon 33:12
well, I can actually think of one reason why they’re not doing it. And that is the height difference between the actress and she Hulk as a character. And so I’m imagining that it’s much more difficult to animate. Tatianna. She is a relatively petite woman, she Hulk is, like seven feet tall, and intimating her standing is just a whole bunch of extra CGI. Yeah, yeah. And so I’m betting that’s why they do it.

Greg Lambert 33:43
And I have heard that they did reduce some of the CGI to cut down on cost for the show. So it’s very, very possible. So the the realities of Hollywood meet the decorum of courts. And it looks like Hollywood wins again.

Joshua Lenon 34:01
Yeah, but my takeaway for the listeners is if the judge addresses you, you stand stand

Greg Lambert 34:06
up. Yeah, like right away. Yep. The other thing that bugged me was when they did call Madisynn, of course, Madisynn was out partying again, and had a drink in her hand and again, was clearly drunk. Yes. And was still allowed to testify, even though she was, again clearly inebriated. Yes. I just don’t think a judge normally would allow testimony from someone who is clearly under the clearly

Joshua Lenon 34:34
intoxicated yeah, that definitely is problematic. And normally in a lot of litigation settings, you have to provide a witness list in advance, and yet they kind of well literally summon her out of thin air with no no proof of identity. Nothing I think so. You’re right. Yeah, that was a procedural Miss there. There

Greg Lambert 34:54
was a lot going on or not happening. Yeah, in that I do. like that she does describe a little bit more of her experience when she’s in the different dimensions. And that was that she escaped by making a pact with a demon whose name was Jake. And apparently Cornelius knew who Jake was. But that made me wonder, well, if Cornelius knew of Jake, in this other dimension, is there another level of culpability for this? And I do love the fact that Madisynn states that when asked if she was scared, or what was her emotional state at that time, she said, Well, at first, it was fun, and then it was scary, then it was fun again, then it was spooky, but in a fun way, which then immediately the defense comes in and says, See, magic is supposed to be spooky, but in a fun way,

Joshua Lenon 35:52
in a fun way. And I think that’s the scene that illustrated, alright, concrete harms, that that you could have potentially proved with Madisynn. And again, I’m stretching here, like, how do you prove somebody entered into a blood pack with a demon? But that seems to be a little bit more demonstrable in the rules of the setting, right? Where you can actually go visit the demon and have the demon come testify, as opposed to the fabric of the universe is at stake. Right. Right. And that’s why I think Wong, unfortunately was the wrong client for this.

Greg Lambert 36:30
Good. Yeah. The other thing that I noticed again, I swing in a mess on the court proceedings, the defense was not actually given a chance to to cross examine the witness. Yes, Jennifer, just as okay. You may you may step down, which again, I don’t think was her spot to do that. So

Joshua Lenon 36:49
yeah, just no further question a lot, a

Greg Lambert 36:50
lot going on. And then not to mention that the fact that the defendant had smoke bombs that he was letting off in the, in the courtroom

Joshua Lenon 36:58
repeatedly, repeatedly. That’s that should have been instant content. They should have been ejected from the courtroom, like at most, the defense counsel should have been allowed to stay and and Donny should have been kicked out of that courtroom so fast that we make his heads.

Greg Lambert 37:15
Absolutely. So the judge says that she is going to issue her ruling within a few weeks. She has Jen asked her for a preliminary injunction, which is denied.

Joshua Lenon 37:31
Because a night I think rightfully Yeah, there was no evidence of irreparable harm. Yep.

Greg Lambert 37:35
So and then afterwards, we hear one come up with again, and extra judicial remedy that he suggests, which is, you know, you could send them to the mirror dimension, and there’s a good chance that Blaze wouldn’t die. So, again, Jennifer’s shoots it down. Don’t tell your lawyer, you’re gonna kidnap someone. Exactly. So that would not help our case. So

Joshua Lenon 37:58
yeah, that is one of those incidents where Jen might have to report something to the authorities. So

Greg Lambert 38:05
Jennifer, again, I think this shows the amount of hours that attorneys work. During their job. It is not unusual for an attorney to work 6080 hour weeks, Jennifer calls Nikki at night to ask her to review a brief that she’s working on. And then Nikki reminds her that it’s Friday night, and that tomorrow is Saturday and that, you know, she’s not working on Saturday, but I think it does show, you know that you take that work home with you that you’re constantly even when you’re not in the office, you’re at you’re doing work. And then she goes on some blind dates and really bad one. Yeah, there was only one of those bad dates that I thought was interesting, which was the guy who kept asking her about her powers and whether or not Vibranium would penetrate her Hulk skin. So I’m wondering if that’s a one of the guys from the Wrecking Crew or friends.

Joshua Lenon 39:09
Yeah, the wrecking Crews was my thought as well. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 39:14
I think we’re going to see more and somebody is eventually going to figure out how to draw some hope blood along the way. So let’s get now to we’re back to Danny’s magic show toward the towards the end of the episode. And things just go terribly wrong.

Joshua Lenon 39:34
Yeah, the field student proves that he is not the master here. He tries to summon his portal trick again. And this instance, this is where we find out that he has been essentially kidnapping these volunteers off the stage and sending them to random places. Because another volunteer on stage says she will not participate in the trick because that’s exactly what happened to one of her friends. So Dawn He pushes it further and tries another little trick and ends up opening a portal to which monsters demons, some a horrible CGI effect comes out and and begins feeling the theater where people run and scream. And he is left trying to figure out how to solve this problem.

Greg Lambert 40:24
Yep. And so he does what any good student would do and and he runs to the teacher and ask for help. So he portals to Wong’s house again in a calmer Taj and asked for help. And then Wong agrees reluctantly to help him, it then tells him to call his lawyer.

Joshua Lenon 40:48
Yeah, yeah. And Wong then actually calls his lawyer interrupts her first, like, successful date, right, where she seems to be having a real connection with the person she’s seen. And she is forced to drop the social engagement in order to help her client out. And this is something that I think’s interesting. You know, a lot of people don’t realize how lawyers have to operate at the drop of a hat sometimes, right? Your client gets arrested at an inopportune time, or something comes to light that needs immediate attention, your clients will run to you. Yep, as soon as possible. They do not care about the lawyer’s personal boundaries. And Wong is an extreme example of that. But just like doctors on call or volunteer firefighters, right, lawyers sometimes have to deal with their professional life imposing upon their personal life. This was a great example of that.

Greg Lambert 41:47
She did say something really interesting when she’s fighting the demons. And that was she reminded Wong that, you know, these are technically billable hours. So I’m charging you good

Joshua Lenon 42:00
lawyer thing? Yeah. 100%. Yeah, even if we don’t know how long is paying, right, the fact that Wong has hired her services, and is still relying upon her to help solve this problem, a good lawyer bills, right, you shouldn’t undervalue your time.

Greg Lambert 42:17
And now I’m going to point out Jen being a bad lawyer, and that is, I don’t know if you want to take this, or you want me to take

Joshua Lenon 42:26
the resolution? Yes. Yeah. So eventually, with teamwork, Wong and She Hulk are able to corral all the summon monsters, and Wong injects them to someplace using magic. But before he gets the last one, Jen holds it over Donny Blaze and his lawyer and says, before I send this last one back, I could leave it here. Or you could agree to the terms of our cease and desist letter to which Donny Blaze is his height. Man. They both agree. And the last monster is ejected from this reality. And that is seen as the resolution to the court case. Now, can you settle a court case outside of the court? Absolutely. 100%. We see that happen a lot, where you will then as a joint filing approach the court and say we’ve reached our own resolution, we’d like to dismiss the case, the court most likely will ask for some evidence of that resolution, right? And they may take a look at it from a public good perspective on is this like really an adequate resolution or somebody pulling something shady, and then they’ll just sign off on it and close the case? And you’re done. But because Jen used this monster as an implied threat? Yeah, she’s creating basically a contract of adhesion. On Donny Blaze, it could be argued that the only reason they agreed to the terms of the cease and desist letter was because they were being threatened with physical bodily harm from a monster and a Hulk. Not that they were agreeing to a contract in principle. So that was absolutely a bit of bad lawyering never ever threaten the other side, because you’re only setting your client up for problems later.

Greg Lambert 44:23
Yeah, not cool lawyering. But I think at this point, probably Donny has decided that he’s not up to snuff for doing these portal tricks.

Joshua Lenon 44:34
Yeah, hopefully he’s he’s given up possession of his ring. And it’s no longer really a factor. Exactly. Right. But from a legal perspective, I thought this episode was a swing and a miss. Yeah, they didn’t really address handling was a client. They didn’t address the issues involved in the case itself, right. How really could you have used the legal system and the strategy behind the case that you’re presenting to to advance the best interest of your client. And in typical kind of comic book fashion, the resolution was violence as opposed to cleverness.

Greg Lambert 45:11
Yeah, there’s one last legal issue of the episode and we can we can wrap it up. And that is our, our friend Titania. There’s a story on the television of how all of the charges have been dismissed against her. So her legal team took care of her on that. And then we get a knock on the door after Jen’s date goes home. And it turns out, it’s a it’s a process server pretending to to give her a gift. But she immediately sees through that, but so what is the gift that the process server is giving her?

Joshua Lenon 45:53
Yes, so California does allow process servers to deliver documents on behalf of lawyers and their clients. You’re not really supposed to be tricking them into accepting it. But you can take advantage of certain situations, like the person being in public or having them open their door expecting a delivery, you don’t claim you’re making a delivery, but you know, wearing a brown shirt or brown cap people think ups. And the rules vary by state to state on this. So I’m not an expert on California’s but the document in question. The lawsuit, notice that she’s getting is that Titania is claiming that she owns the trademark to the term She Hulk. And as you mentioned, in that TV interview we saw previously in this episode, Jen comes out in claims she’d make it up. Somebody just called her that. So I think our next episode is going to be an interesting look into trademark law. And will Jen Walters end up having to start paying royalties for the use of the term she HK as a part of her official duties to Titania. And that is the type of arch villain I want for a superhero lawyer. As as I want the arch villain who was like I entered a court of law and now you owe me lots of money.

Greg Lambert 47:22
I think that’s probably the best place to wrap this episode up this week. Did you have anything else Joshua?

Joshua Lenon 47:29
I just want to remind our listeners to stay super. And definitely remember that there are lawyers out there willing to help you. lawyers aren’t just limited to the superhero universe but are everywhere looking for clients that need their help.

Greg Lambert 47:44
Absolutely. All right. I will see you next week.

This week’s guest, HBR Consulting‘s Axelle Flemming, stresses that “Intentional Leadership” creates leaders who “own their purpose.” And a purpose is separate from a business “goal.” Axelle’s experience showed her that when a leader truly knew what their purpose was, the purpose they were trying to achieve, they went to that level of execution. In addition to being an Intentional Leader, that must be balanced with the wellness of the organization and its people. In today’s work environment, we are in 24/7 fight or flight mode and intentional leaders understands that challenge. Leaders also see beyond their own goals and purpose and see other people’s goals and purpose as well.

On Thursday, September 15th, Axelle Flemming is presenting a Keynote presentation at HBR’s Legal Information + Knowledge Services (LINKS) Conference, on this very issue. She “sprinkles” in some of the spice of her talk her on the podcast, but will bring the “secret sauce” to the LINKS Conference.

Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert, along with John DiGilio will wrap up the conference through a discussion of Axelle Flemming’s and the other presentations of the day.

Registration for the LINKS event is open all the way through the day of the conference.

Our good friend, Mark Gediman of Alston & Bird, answers our Crystal Ball question by predicting how Law Schools and Law Firms will collaborate on business and competitive intelligence processes to help law students better prepare for the practice of law once they enter the profession.

• 2nd Annual LINKS Conference
• Book Your Ticket Here

Transcript:

Marlene Gebauer 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:10
And I’m Greg Lambert.

Marlene Gebauer 0:12
This Thursday, September 15, Greg and I are going to be the final act at the Legal Information and Knowledge Services conference or LINKS, sponsored by HBR Consulting, along with Don DiGilio, will give an overview of the day’s previous sessions. One of those sessions is a keynote presentation from today’s guest, Axelle Flemming.

Greg Lambert 0:30
So we asked Axelle Flemming to come on the show and give us a sprinkling of the secret sauce that she promises to discuss at Thursday’s event. We had a great discussion with her about what she describes as intentional leadership, as well as how that intentional leadership combines with wellness to create a more balanced approach to not only accepting and embracing change, but actually embodying change. So I really enjoy talking with Axelle and appreciate her actually letting me tell one of my dad jokes during this discussion as well.

Marlene Gebauer 1:05
Yeah.

Greg Lambert 1:07
But first up, we have another crystal ball answer from one of Marlene and my good friends Mark Gediman of Alston & Bird. So let’s take a listen to what Mr. Gediman sees in the next two to five years for the industry. And then we’ll jump right into our discussion with Axelle Flemming.

Mark Gediman 1:27
My name is Mark Gediman, and I’m with Alston & Bird, pulling out my well used crystal ball, I see a few things going on. I see a greater emphasis on support of business development activities within law firms on the part of the library. It’s simply because of the skill set that librarians bring, you don’t find those skills, often in marketing and business development groups. In addition to that, I’m seeing an increased interest from academic librarians who want to incorporate business development and competitive intelligence concepts in they’re prepared to practice business of law courses, and curriculum. Which I think is is is an interesting development, because I know a lot of the law school people we see fresh out of law school, are not conversant with what’s going to be expected of them when they hit the law firm. In terms of librarianship, I see that pipeline is problematic.

Greg Lambert 2:40
Of people coming into the industry?

Mark Gediman 2:42
Of people coming into the industry, whether it’s from library schools or law schools, neither one of them is promoting librarianship as an option. You know, in every industry, you have a group that ages out, and you need to have that new, fresh talent coming in to replace them. And if you don’t have that, there’s a huge gap. But I’m seeing that librarians even though over over the past, maybe about five years ago, they weren’t all that respected, well respected in law firms, they were the first to get cut during 2009, the ranks were decimated. Now I’m seeing that trend reversing, I’m seeing that there’s that librarians and firms are being held in high respect as a cost effective resource, and that those positions in those jobs are becoming more secure. And if that happens when people are retiring, we’re going to need people to fill those slots, because they will exist.

Greg Lambert 3:51
I wanted to go back to your comment on business development and being integrated into the law school curriculum. And people reaching out to you. What can law firm librarians be doing to maybe even be proactive and find out if at their local schools, something’s going on or maybe at their alma mater? And they could they could help or put that idea, maybe in someone’s head at the law school that this is this is a skill set that’s lacking from people coming in to be to be practice ready?

Mark Gediman 4:27
Well, you know, at the local level, you’ve got your local law librarian chapters, and those include law firm and academic and government librarians all in the single group. So when you go to those business meetings, when you’re having those conversations with people, bring it up, ask them what they have, and if they if you can help them with that task with that need. That’s been my process. In fact, today, I will was in a program and the person next to me, didn’t know she was. But that turns out she was a law librarian at a law school in Utah. And she had heard about the support that the Competitive Intelligence Group in AALL is offering to academic librarians and ask for more information more detail. If a local librarian would like to do that at the local level, they are more than welcome to reach out to the to the AALL CI Caucus, and we can support that we can provide them with materials and give them some advice on how to craft that program. And it’s not a big program, you’re you’re basically offering to come in and do an hour presentation, right?

Greg Lambert 5:52
Well, Mark Gediman, thank you very much for coming in.

Mark Gediman 5:54
Well, and thank you for having me. Mr. Lambert.

Greg Lambert 5:56
Absolutely. My pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 6:00
We’d like to welcome Axelle Flemming director, organizational development and training for HBr. Axel, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Axelle Flemming 6:07
Thank you so much. I’m excited to be with the both of you today.

Marlene Gebauer 6:11
We are excited to have you.

Greg Lambert 6:12
We are we are. So Marlene and I are going to be speaking at the second annual HBR legal information and knowledge services or LINKS conference. So we wanted to bring you on and cover some of the topics that are going to be covered at links and Axelle, if you don’t mind. Tell us a little bit about your involvement in the LINKS conference and what you’re going to be covering in your keynote speech?

Axelle Flemming 6:38
Absolutely. Well, it really is an honor to be on both links in this podcast. So I am very, very honored. So my involvement in LINKS, I have been in the legal consulting world for all of my professional career. And so my sweet spot has always been or the calling I like to call it because I am not a legal law librarian. I am not an attorney. But as a as a business consultant, I had been called into the legal space from the get go right out of business school. And through that journey over the last decade, plus, I worked within large law, both in the United States as well as globally and internationally around strategic change management. And so any sort of large, complex strategic change that a law firm wanted to do. That was my sweet spot. And why was it? Because I actually love the challenge of real sustainable change. And I also love to challenge and be alongside leaders that are embracing that change as intentional leaders. For Thursday at LINKS, I’ve been asked to talk about that shift that we’re in right now as not only in the legal industry, but the world at large from embracing change, where we accept change. Know change is supposed to happen. Know that we have to do it to embracing change, which is this element of real, we’re even now we are in we have to embody the change, not just embrace it. So we will unpack that together on Thursday. And I will engage the group on our own little change challenge, which will be exciting, at least for me.

Greg Lambert 8:24
Yeah, change, challenge, and law firms just go hand in hand.

Axelle Flemming 8:29
Maybe that’s where am I calling came from? Right?

Greg Lambert 8:33
That’s it. Any industry needed your help?

Axelle Flemming 8:38
And I’ve learned so much because of that, Greg, I think, you know, in reflection of when asked to speak, and really my purpose in what I do, not only HBR but for our clients is to a platform to develop to partner to coach leaders to be intentional leaders. Because with intention, change can happen. But change doesn’t just happen on its own. And so it is an intentional journey, which is a part of the ecosystem of how change actually happens.

Marlene Gebauer 9:15
So we’re going to talk a little bit more about intentional leadership later in the podcast, but right now, Axelle, I want to talk about you. So, you’ve described yourself as someone who was a hard charging business leader in your career, however, you found that the lifestyle has its downsides both mentally and physically. So can you give us a little bit of background on your career and what changes that you needed to make to make sure that you protected your well being in business and in your personal life as well?

Axelle Flemming 9:49
We’re going all in right all in.

Greg Lambert 9:52
There’s a lot to unpack there.

Marlene Gebauer 9:53
Yes, sir. So take your time.

Axelle Flemming 9:58
Deep breaths. So that hard charging business leader, like I already skimmed the surface in order for us to be an impact in the world in any sort of change. It does start with ourselves. And so my journey out of business school, into the consulting world, about 16 years now, was one that was very focused on end goals, results, hitting the mark and continuing to climb. And again, like I mentioned earlier, my passion around solving problems, complex ones, and working with people has never changed. That has always been why I entered consulting and why I continued to do what I do today. But through that journey, as I’m sure you both as well as all your listeners know, that’s called a about a 70, 80, 90 hour work week, that’s when we don’t sleep, we don’t take care of ourselves. On top of that, we may throw in some children, for some of us, right me, there’s three. We then throw in a ton of soccer practices, and a lot of school motherhood stuff, which is a ton of different titles, alongside the fact that we’re traveling because pre COVID That was the world we lived in, which was on a plane or in an airport, and constantly on the move. About six years now along my journey, and I’m going to cover the secret sauce of a lot of this on Thursday. I’m just gonna throw in that little teaser, because I don’t want to give it all here. But on Thursday to

Greg Lambert 11:35
Just sprinkle in a little spice.

Axelle Flemming 11:38
Yeah, about six ish years ago, I hit a wall both personally, emotionally, mentally, physically. And professionally, I hit that wall that told me that my trajectory was no longer sustainable. And oftentimes change happens when you do hit a wall either personally, or organizationally, when you no longer can move forward as a department because it’s just not working, right. And you can continue to try to ie we all continue to hit the wall a few times, if not 100 plus times before we say okay, something deeper has to happen here. And so I always like to the analogy of a headache, right? Because that’s, that’s a common thing. And so the first level of changes, let me pop a Tylenol, right, so let me pop a Tylenol. That hits the skin of the surface, the symptoms of something deeply rooted. And so maybe you get you know, yours in and that Tylenol is actually no longer working. So you start to investigate, okay, maybe it’s my water intake, right? Maybe it’s that water intake? Let me get it up to eight cups. 10 cups, oh, wait, no, no, it’s my weight. And my Oh, my goodness, I need to get out for a walk more. And oh, that helps a little bit. And so we continue to move down that change and reflection path. And again, that’s a personal one. It happens within organizations and teams as well. But six years ago, I did hit the wall. And and in that moment, as a true consultant, I said to myself, I can sit here and skim the surface, or I can go deep, because at that point, it did hit a point of critical life situation. And so I had to sit back in that and say, as a true consultant that I am, am I going to skim the surface and just simply cut costs, let’s say? Or am I going to get deeper to find where the inefficiencies are, where the true healing needs to happen, where the true clog in the whole system is, and I went deep, and I went deep, and that’s where wellness came apart of Axelle’s mantra. And where I do believe, as an intentional leader, that wellness not only plays an integral part of being a leader, but it is now more than ever before an essential foundation of how we show up as leaders. And so that’s my journey. That’s my journey. And here I am six years in it. through that journey, I became a certified leadership coach, I became a yoga mindfulness teacher. I then became I then got a ton of other certifications because of this desire to learn first about the root causes of where I was headed down an unsustainable path, and how I can recreate or realign my own life and that is why I do what I do today in the world of ODT, organizational development and training.

Marlene Gebauer 14:50
I want to just say thank you so much for sharing that story. Because as someone who who has hit that wall, I can really understand how hard it is to do that digging deep that you’re talking about. And I really looking forward to hearing your story at the conference.

Greg Lambert 15:06
Yeah, yeah. And I like how you took your experience consulting others to kind of consult yourself to really look at and understand there are some band aids we can put on this or we can start looking at what’s the core issue that we need to look at. So I want to go back to you, you started talking about intentional leadership, and want to dive a little deeper into that. So how do you advise professionals? And I imagine you do mostly with legal professionals now, when it comes to intentional leadership? And can you kind of describe exactly what you mean, when you say intentional leadership?

Axelle Flemming 15:52
Intentional leadership is a leader who owns their purpose, period. So when I say that, an intentional leader actually can be a college kid who owns the belief that creating community within their college is their purpose. So they’re going to create a club and initiatives and be that owner of that purpose. An intentional leader can be a mother, who owns that my first role is to provide a safe and loving home for my children, that’s my purpose. Or it can be a business executive that says My purpose is to ensure that this law firm is healthy and profitable, all at the same time. Right. And so the purpose is actually one level deeper than a goal. Because a goal can be profit, revenue clients, a goal is tactical. But when you get one level deeper to one, a leaders purpose, that purpose defines how they will get to that goal. And so an intentional leader is very clear on their purpose, not just for themselves as a leader, but for their organization for the team, they lead. For the department they manage. Because they own it. And a part of this definition for me, too, is throughout my career as a consultant. And working alongside some incredible leaders in the legal space on strategic change. What I noticed was that when a leader truly knew what the purpose was they were trying to achieve, they went to that level of execution. And so what do I mean by that? If a law firm wants to save money, and that’s their goal, and their purpose is profits, all the action, and their decisions revolve around that purpose. There is no right or wrong with purpose, it’s about being clear about it. And because when you’re clear about it, then your actions and your ownership over what you do day to day is not only consistent, it’s rooted in something deeper than that day to day pull of this world’s a million emails, fires to put out, children screaming, dogs barking, right? Because these are all things that pull our attention to other things that are grabbing our attention. And let me just drop in wellness for a moment here. Because in the state of well being how this ties together for me, and what I witnessed is when a leader or let me just step back for a moment when a human being, by the way, it’s our greatest asset in professional services, right? So our greatest asset is not the machine in the factory where we we oil up and keep well, it’s actually our people. And if that’s the case, then their well being is a part of their productivity, efficiency. The best way to have the best outcomes is through ensuring your people, or our people’s well being. So well being is is four prong it’s mind, body, heart and soul. So when a person’s mind, body, heart and soul is at its optimal and potential level, that means we got enough sleep, we ate and drank healthy foods. Our mind is clear and we can manage or at least minimize stress and anxiety which in this today’s world we are in 24 hour, seven days a week fight or flight mode, and in its simplest form, the parasympathetic nervous system is untapped when we’re in the fight or flight mode and in that state, we are unable to be creative, to be collaborative, to have conversation, and to be present because we got a fire to put out. And so this is how it ties into intentional leadership because without a leader being fully aware of their well being, it hinders or it empowers them in this area of a well being. That’s the tie there for what I’ve noticed at least.

Greg Lambert 20:26
So I want to take you back to where you were talking about the difference between setting your goals and knowing your purpose. One of the things that we talk a lot about in the business world and when we talk about goal setting, is to measure what matters is when you’re setting the goals that you have to set goals that you can keep numbers on you can measure your success, or how well or unwell you’re achieving those goals. do you advise your clients when it comes to purpose? Is that something that can be measured as well? Or is that something that’s a little more personal more something that you’re that you’re striving for, rather than then you want to measure?

Axelle Flemming 21:15
So in the business world, it’s about the purpose is very aligned with a mission statement, let’s call it for a second, right? And a mission statement, it is measured so and you hit it hit on goals as the SMART goals write specific, measurable, achievable, time bound, right. So goals, and mission or purpose, the critical thing here is the alignment of both, because you may have goals, you and so neither are, oh, let’s chalk goals, and let’s just have a mission or purpose, not so much. Because with just a purpose, you’re a visionary, with goals, you actually execute against your purpose, right and against your vision. And so those two coming together is what makes us leaders in what we do, because we do have to execute on that purpose or mission statement. So in terms of the legal world, it is about aligning those two, because with alignment, then you clearly know the path on how one and how you want your organization to get to that goal, that is very specific, that is time bound. That right that is measurable. And when you can measure your goal, you can always then tie it back to measuring your purpose because the purpose may be be the top five in the am law. 200. Right. The goals are over in the next five years, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, right. And then now those two align. That’s the differentiation of the two.

Marlene Gebauer 23:04
Axl, you know, you’re talking about intentional leadership as being purpose. And if you’re clear in your purpose, what you’re doing your goals and your actions are aligning with that purpose. But what happens in a situation where you’re looking at strategic change in a broader perspective, so you may be very clear with your purpose and your goals. But that is going to impact others who may or may not be clear and their purpose or their goals or may have different ideas about their purpose and their goals that maybe counteract what you’re trying to do. How do you say how do you talk about that in terms of strategic global change and empowerment, you know, how can that work?

Axelle Flemming 23:53
Well, going in for it, here we go. A part of being an intentional leader is having a clarity and ownership over the goal. Now, the other piece to balance this all out is also that level of constant self awareness as well as awareness of others, the organization, the other goals and other stakeholders in play. And how does this play into our ever evolving ever changing world because an intention and a purpose, that purpose may be consistent for for a time period. But how you evoke that purpose has its ebbs and flows, the levels of communication, the levels of collaboration, the awareness that other people have a different perspective, and how that plays into achieving the goals is a part of intentional leadership because as an intentional leader, there are some key criterias or competencies, which include the element of collaboration, growth mindset, awareness. So I’m gonna remove self because awareness is one of self and others. So that is being aware that my goal, my purpose is this, but what are the other people’s goals and purpose? And how do this align, so the alignment is collaboration, growth mindset is that openness to learn more that this idea that we don’t know it all today, although I know what my purpose is, tomorrow, I may get a different fact database information knowledge that helps me craft out how I’m gonna get there that I didn’t know yesterday. And so that growth mindset as an intentional leader is also critical and creates this wholeness of an intentional leader, because, and I love the call out here, because the call out is if we only focus on our purpose, but my purpose contradicts with the organization’s purpose, or the team’s purpose, or the business purpose. How does that even work as an organization, the holistic part of that is, as a leader, these foundational skills of I’m gonna throw in communication, collaboration, growth mindset. And that last one that just just just dropped out of my mind. awareness, awareness, there it is, that that that magic button of awareness enables a leader to own their purpose in this ever changing world, and this million different perspective and stakeholder world where you’ve got to shuttle yourself through with intention, and awareness. So that’s making that concept hold.

Marlene Gebauer 26:53
And okay, so I want to go back to the wellness discussion that we had a little bit earlier sort of wellness and intentional leadership. And it’s I guess, it’s similar to the last question in that, how do we know that we’re promoting the wellness that people need number one, and you know, what happens in these situations where we could be promoting an environment that recognizes wellness and embraces wellness, but maybe our people don’t know how to do that, you know, maybe that, you know, they’re coping mechanisms or ways that aren’t promoting wellness? So you have people that are working, working, working, working, working, I guess it’s kind of a change management question again, like how do we get people to focus on their wellness, if that’s not something that they naturally do?

Axelle Flemming 27:48
Through my journey? As a teacher? I learned that we are the greatest teacher. And so when I say that every change initiative begins with that leader saying to themselves, how am I showing up? How can I be better Am I Well, in my levels of stress, anxiety, and being pulled in a million direction, balanced because as a leader, and I am a student in this as well, because as

Marlene Gebauer 28:21
we are all students

Axelle Flemming 28:24
forever, until, until that very last breath, because as a type personalities who wants to conquer it all yesterday, we will always balance this battle of wellness ourselves first before we can actually be any beacon of hope for anybody else. And so that was my moment of realization as well, Marlene, in terms of six years ago, when I had been advocating for my team and take some time off and don’t work so hard. But who is actually the one that actually sent out emails at 10pm. Right? And who’s still up thinking about what’s what’s on tap for tomorrow. So our ability to evoke change in the world. And I you know, many years ago, I may have looked at this quote and had a little chuckle, but it means so much to me now than ever before, which is be the change we want to see in the world. Be The Change the first question to you know, when I am asked those questions, Marlene is first. How is your well being? How was your stress level? It’s that look in the mirror that I actually do to myself starting six years ago on a daily basis because it is a daily balance. And it is a daily challenge. It never becomes old just because oh axils a mindfulness guru and her mental health is editable Potential every day. I know I am challenged more now, every day because I’m aware of how imbalanced I am right? And so the ability to look ourselves in the mirror daily to say, what do I want to see in the world? Do I see it in this mirror first? And if not, what can I do about it, empowering the self to say, Okay, I want my team to be high performing, to be able to be efficient to collaborate, how am I creating that for myself? For others, for the community, for the team that I work in? And that’s really that magic question that we, as leaders really have to ask ourselves if we want to create the change in the world we want to see.

Greg Lambert 30:47
Yeah, I think that leads into my next question pretty well. And that I noticed on one of the blog posts that you did that you ended the post with a phrase that said, See you in the wellness gym, and I really liked that really kind of stood out to me how you equate wellness with an activity, rather than just wellness is kind of a thought process. Let’s talk about what you are working toward when, with wellness as an active process. What do you what do you mean as wellness as an activity,

Axelle Flemming 31:20
I love it, Greg, because the brain is a muscle and like every muscle in the body, we do have to work it out to get it to its peak position, state and all of that. And so when I say the wellness gym, I do mean the whole wellness being so very quickly, the mind goes into Oh, the 24 Hour Fitness, right like let let let’s go in and make sure we’re on the treadmill that is absolutely one pillar of wellness. And there is no disputing that, that if our bodies cannot physically get us up in the morning, get us to work allow us to sit for eight to 10 to 12 hours in a chair without our back hurting, we cannot perform at our highest potential. Now let’s go to the next level, which is our mind. So our brain is a muscle. And oftentimes we are not we in this world of Go Go Go and the human doing versus the human being, we are actually not working this mind muscle in its balanced state, we are working on one side of the brain, which is the fight or flight side, which is the side that says I need to do, I need to get this done, I need to hit this deadline. And what happens in that fight or flight state is a focus. And again, there is no good or bad in this it is about balanced when it comes to the mental well being. But the state of our you know legal industry is at critical levels of mental distress, mental distress, and illnesses. The critical level is unsustainable, and we use that word so lightly in our day, because we think we’re just going to keep pushing through, we’re going to keep hitting that wall and getting up. But the word unsustainable is that five to 10 years and I know we’ve got the crystal ball later, but five to 10 years from now, if something doesn’t change, it is unsustainable. And so the reality is that this mental workout this CEU in the wellness gym is about working both sides of the brain. Now we’ve got to rebalance the fact that we are 24/7 in the fight or flight mode, the brain was created for balance because the fight or flight was to protect us from a bear that was running after us so that we can run it shuts down our digestive system. It creates a tunnel vision which is away from the bear and creates an adrenaline rush so that your muscles can move as fast as possible. It numbs pain, all those things to provide safety and security. But let’s just tap into brain science for a second and say that element though in our brain was created to be turned on, let’s say, every month, once a month, we need to run from a bear. However, in today’s culture, we have created the bear as getting the kids to school. Getting on this meeting, managing a calendar that has way too many meetings, initiatives that are fires, and every single initiative we actually work on is a fire. And so now we have created the bear as everything in our day to day life. Have style. And so the mental the mental gym is to rebalance that and to work that side of the brain to work that muscle because when we don’t lift the weights, Greg, right when we don’t, when we don’t do the crunches, we aren’t going to have a six pack. If we don’t work that side of the brain that is that is very untapped in our society today. It gets weak. And now we’re imbalanced. And so we touched on the purpose side, which is the heart and soul of it, which is what makes us tick. And that also needs a workout. And we’ve touched on that on the intentional leadership side. But that’s the wellness gym that I’m talking about.

Marlene Gebauer 35:46
Well, now, of course, I’m thinking about how I get a six pack.

Greg Lambert 35:53
I was just thinking about how when you said all of the list of the of what the bear is today, I’m like, yeah, that yeah, check, check, check. I gotta look.

Marlene Gebauer 36:06
Now we have to decide whether they’re like Kodiak bears or grizzly bears, black bears, or teddy bears, you know, it’s like, what, what, what level? Is it? So I love

Axelle Flemming 36:15
that, right? How do we make our bears teddy bears so they’re nice and squishy, and we can hug them when we want to and we don’t have to fight them when we don’t want to that then becomes intention. So this is where wellness ties into intention. Because once we’re aware, we can intentionally choose it is always a choice. It is always our choice. And that part is that only part of the intentional leadership that we own what we believe to be the bear we want to fight today.

Greg Lambert 36:47
Yeah, okay. Okay. Now Now it’s time for my dad joke. Marlene. Sorry, sorry. Hey, go ahead. Go ahead. Because you know, because you because you mentioned what, what types of bears? So my one of my favorite dad jokes is, how do you tell the difference between a grizzly bear and a black bear? You climb a tree, if the bear comes up to the tree knocks it down and kills you. It’s a grizzly bear. If the bear climbs the tree and kills you, it’s a black bear.

So when you were saying what types of bears? I’m like, the Oak Hill Yeah.

Axelle Flemming 37:25
Yeah, that’s right. They’ll all kill you. Unless it’s a teddy bear, right?

Greg Lambert 37:31
Let’s make them teddy bears. Yeah, teddy bears hug them,

Marlene Gebauer 37:35
you know, it would be really interesting to sort of have either a session as a consultant and you know, in a firm, or, you know, sort of doing it as a workshop at a conference or something where people could voice you know, some of the challenges that they have, as well as some of the ways that they make their bears, teddy bears, because, and we don’t have enough time to do that here. But I always think about that, like, you know, we think we were doing things. But are there other things we could be doing? Are there other ideas that we might have? And you know, are we touching all of the wellness points? I may be working out every day. But you know, maybe I’m not taking time to sit back and reflect as much as I need to, and sort of being able to go through an exercise where you can kind of assess that in terms of like, where are my gaps? So anyway, that would be fun.

Greg Lambert 38:24
I’m betting X XL has some of that for the Lynx conference.

Marlene Gebauer 38:29
Maybe she

Axelle Flemming 38:32
does magic sauce like Yeah, yeah, because it is all about a visceral experience, that reflection that, that ability to do it as an exercise that creates the one the awareness, but also the shift in mindset. Because to your point, Marlene and Greg, you touched upon it as the bears as Check, check, check. Without that awareness that actually the bears that are triggering our anxiety, overwhelm, and stress levels is all those checked boxes, okay? Now, our awareness, it’s like those antennas went up. And that’s how powerful awareness I always say, in my coaching sessions, when those aha moments come in, like, you’re 50% there, because the minute the antennas go up, and you’re you’ve checked all the boxes to say, Holy crap, I’m, I’m, something’s running after me. And I gotta stop this right? Once you say that now your awareness is up and now you can act with intention. And so awareness gets us 50% there when it comes to change management. Yeah, yeah. And

Marlene Gebauer 39:45
I think I think that awareness because is necessary in order to facilitate the change moving forward, because yes, you’re checking all the boxes. And like, Okay, I’m checking the boxes, my, my stress level is down. I’m getting through it, but the Problem is, it’s the same thing over and over and over and over again, it’s a cycle and it doesn’t change unless you are mindful about making that change.

Axelle Flemming 40:10
Yeah, I see a hamster wheel when you said that, right? Because unless we get off the hamster wheel, it keeps going. And it actually goes quicker. And I’m going to cover a bit of that on Thursday as well of how the brain works in the same way as that hamster wheel. And that’s the cognitive cycle. Once we get on that hamster wheel, unless we intentionally take ourselves off, it will keep rolling down the hill pretty darn quickly, until again, we choose to get off or stay on until it hits rock bottom,

Marlene Gebauer 40:45
AXA, we ask all of our guests to pull out their crystal ball and peer into the future for us. What do you see as some of the changes and challenges for the legal industry and for knowledge workers specifically in the next three to five years?

Axelle Flemming 40:58
All right, well, the pressure is on over here, really Marlene?

Marlene Gebauer 41:04
Now, you knew this was coming?

Axelle Flemming 41:07
You guys that you were intentional about placing that into my consciousness. I’m going to be a true consultant. But I’m going to explain why. I’m going to say it depends. It depends because we are at a crucible moment here that it’s going to take a collective effort to shift the ship at this point, it’s going to take you i All the leaders that are listening in including all the leaders that aren’t listening in to decide whether it’s time to get off that hamster wheel or not. And collectively, we will have to decide, well, individually, we will have to decide which will affect the collective movement of this ship. Because it does take a village. And the fact of the matter is we are all interconnected and interdependent. Any leader that says they have done it all themselves. And they they they have made it to the top because of because of themselves alone is truly not a leader. And so as a leader, we know that it is a collective effort. So the answer of this crystal ball from this perspective of intentional leader and wellness, is that it’s going to depend. And the challenge is that we all question and ask ourselves, is this hamster wheel the wheel I want to be in for the next five years, 10 years? Or is it time to get off and reevaluate, to change some things to face some things that are difficult, because I cannot believe I didn’t call this out before change is not know of risk and discomfort. And until we’re willing for some sort of discomfort to get to the other side, which the one thing I know for sure, is that on the other side have some very dark days, the sun does rise again. And it rises much brighter, when you can see better breathe better here better. And that’s what I know for sure. And so five to 10 years from now. It rests on every single person listening in to this podcast. Are we going to change? Are we going to evolve and grow? Are we going to take the lessons in front of us right now and learn from them? Reflect on them, shift and change them for the better of ourselves and every single person around us whoever that might be? So that’s my answer.

Marlene Gebauer 44:09
Well, well, you heard it here, folks. It’s basically up to all of us to sort of shift our mindset and embrace change. So thank you, Axl, for the for the insights. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We’re looking forward to seeing you and the others at the links conference on September 15. Yeah, this Thursday.

Axelle Flemming 44:27
Yep. Can’t wait to see you guys. And thank you so much for inviting me and engaging on this challenge.

Greg Lambert 44:39
It was great having Axl on here and it kind of reminded me of a of a couple of previous episodes that we had when we were talking about mindfulness and being able to make sure you’re taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others and and I’m in as recently as last week show with Olga talk. about how she looks in the mirror every morning, and sets her intentions for the day to be your authentic self. We kind of paralleled that. And then it also made me think about when when Axelle was talking about the health of, you know, your personal health that you’ve got to kind of take care of yourself first, so that you can take care of others reminded me of our discussion with Jeff MA in Frank Danna, a few weeks back with the leading with love book. And so I think a lot of these stories that in that we’re being told by our guest over the past few months, kind of parallel each other, it’s kind of kind of fun to listen to all of these.

Marlene Gebauer 45:43
Yeah, it’s, it reminds me I’ll give you an example of this actually, at work. So are one of our former guests saying, Lee, she and I were talking and she recommended a book to me called the artists way. And it’s an old book. And it’s basically about releasing creativity. One of the exercises in the book is that you basically write three pages, right when you get up in the morning. And it can be anything you could write bla bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, for three pages, it doesn’t matter. And it really just kind of opens your mind and just sort of, I don’t know how to explain it, but it just relaxes you. And you’re just much more open to you know, whatever is going to come to you during the day. And I mean, I’ve recommended this to other people already, to like several people already. So that’s the type of thing I think we’re talking about here. It’s like, you know, what do you need to do to kind of prepare yourself for the day ahead?

Greg Lambert 46:36
Yeah, yeah. So I’m really looking forward to Thursday for the HBr Lynx conference. I know some of our listeners will be joining us for that. You and I and John de Giulio are going to be doing a recap toward the end of the day. So but I know we’ve got a couple of keynotes and some some specific topics that we’re talking about. I’ll have links on there. I think it’s not too late to sign up if anyone is looking to continue this conversation. And I know Axelle has a keynote. I think it’s at 130, Eastern or 230. Eastern one of those. So I’m looking forward to learning that secret sauce that she kept mentioning in in the interview.

Marlene Gebauer 47:23
Exactly right. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter,

Greg Lambert 47:39
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter.

Marlene Gebauer 47:42
Or you can leave us a voicemail on The Geek in Review Hotline at 713-487-7270. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thanks, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 47:53
Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will see you on Thursday.

Marlene Gebauer 47:56
All right, bye bye.

Marlene Gebauer 0:23
welcome to The Geek in Review, podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:30
And I’m Greg Lambert. So welcome back from ILTA, Marlene and I know you’ve had some some work trips. So I think this is our first episode in a couple of weeks.

Marlene Gebauer 0:40
Yes, it is. And I’m glad to be back. The trips were great. ilta was great fun. enjoyed my presentation with the net Schafer from traveling coaches. We had a blast, so Well, it’s

Greg Lambert 0:51
good to have you back.

Marlene Gebauer 0:52
Well, thank you. And speaking of having a blast, we have Olga Mack from Parley Pro at LexisNexis. today to talk about her recent merger with Lexis as well as her upcoming TED Talk and ABA book on visual IQ for lawyers. It’s always so much fun talking. Oh,

Greg Lambert 1:09
yes, it is. Yeah, she she definitely brings the entertainment. We’ll talk more about that.

Marlene Gebauer 1:14
Yes. But before we get started, let’s talk about your new podcast, Greg.

Greg Lambert 1:19
Yeah. So Joshua Lenon, from Clio and I had come up with an idea a few months ago as the new She-Hulk Attorney at Law show good show. Yeah, it’s great show. If you haven’t, haven’t caught it, catch it, we thought boy, it’d be really kind of cool to look at that show and other eventually, and other shows or comic books or pop culture references, and actually look at that and say, how does that kind of parallel to the big law, environment or to the legal environment, and we are I just dropped the third episode. And we’re just having a blast. I love the television show. And it’s the the law firm that she is working at. I mean, it’s there’s so much big law going on, you know, in the offices with the way everything is set up. And Joshua is just like me, super big geek when it comes to comic books. And so it’s really tugging on our on our heartstrings for a lot of things, both personally and professionally. And we’re just having a blast with it.

Marlene Gebauer 2:35
Yeah, we you can absolutely tell that you guys are having a lot of fun with it. And I know, you know, me and other people behind the scenes or just kind of what about this? What about this, and

Greg Lambert 2:47
there’s so much it’s funny, because we can, we can take a show. That’s really one of the complaints about the show is that the story is actually too short for each episode. Because it comes out to about 22 minutes or so we could do you know, two hours on that 22 minutes. So we have to, we have to really be careful on what we’re doing. But we’re getting a lot of really good feedback. And if the listeners of The Geek in Review, haven’t checked out the superhuman law division podcast, please check it out and let me know what you think. All right, but first up today, we have another one of our WWL crystal ball questions. And we just decided to make this a just a full on Lexis in the family episode. And we brought in Lloyd our back from Lexis. So we’ll hear from Loyd first, and then we’ll go right into our conversation with Olga Mack.

Loyd Auerbach 3:43
I’m Loyd Auerbach. I’m a knowledge and research consultant for LexisNexis. And I am looking into the future it’s always an interesting question, because we have to work our projections either are really psychic, oh, are you a weather guy and you’re miss all the time, or you’re really basing it on what you’ve seen over the years, and especially with a pandemic? I think there’s a couple of things that are gonna happen, one of which is there’s a lot of struggle back and forth. That’s happening right now. It’s going to continue with hybrid workplaces and with I’ve talked to librarians who just don’t want to go back to the office at all. And then I’ve talked to others who say, I do not want to be at home at all. I think they have kids. But it’s it’s This is happening all over the place. And of course, I’m also seeing that firms are shrinking their footprint, physical footprint

Greg Lambert 4:32
as well. Especially are you actually seeing firms do this. I’ve heard a number

Loyd Auerbach 4:36
of firms who have actually cut their leases or are planning on cutting back their space or even her couple librarians. They’ve talked about subleasing since they can’t get out of the releases and the

Greg Lambert 4:47
commercial. I was wondering if it’s come to that point yet, as I said, I’d heard rumor that it was on the horizon, but I hadn’t seen it yet.

Loyd Auerbach 4:54
It’s happening with a few firms that I’ve talked to you but it’s also um, it’s obviously happening in the commercial real estate market. Yeah, gen two So companies are just looking at that. Silicon Valley itself is having some sort of revolution. And there’s a lot of talk in the Bay Area since that’s where I’m from Silicon Valley kind of tanking a little bit since some of they are the people are moving away from there. Right. So that’s one area. I think that there’s a lot more concern with this particular community and other librarians outside the community. On social justice. Obviously, there’s more emphasis in that, and especially on what’s happening in libraries in general, with book burnings, essentially, you know, it’s just it’s getting to a point now, especially with a contentious Supreme Court and everything else, then, if this organization WWL and the ALA don’t get involved heavily, it’s going to really be a problem. I think the publishers are going to be coming in on this as well.

Greg Lambert 5:48
Make sense? Well, Lloyd, thank you very much for taking time to talk with You’re very welcome.

Marlene Gebauer 5:54
We are very happy to welcome back Olga Mack, Vice President and CEO of Parley Pro at LexisNexis. That bit about Lexis it’s new, Olga, welcome back to The Geek in Review.

Olga Mack 6:05
Hi, Marlene. Good to see.

Greg Lambert 6:09
So Olga, it’s been quite a year for you so far. And we want to congratulate you on your recent TEDx talk about law as a service for all and for being inducted in the ABA legal Technology Resource Center’s 2022 class of women of legal tech alongside Marlene this year. So congratulations. Tell us a little bit about how both of those experiences have impacted you this year.

Olga Mack 6:39
Oh, thank you, Greg. And I love being part of all of that because I get to share it with people like Marlene, there’s so many people who are doing exciting things. revolutionising the way we practice law and changing our relationship with law, that it’s, you know, the best part and this goes, I’m not dodging your question, I will answer it. The vast part of all of those, you know, shiny objects is that you get a chance to interact and learn from and do things with people like Marlon, because we I know for sure is that law is very important. There’s a lot of folks who are building something every day, and collaborating with them as an opportunity to take one plus one and make it much, much greater than two. To me, that’s the value of being part of the ABA initiative part of, frankly, anything I’ve done in LA,

Marlene Gebauer 7:40
yeah, it really gets you too to meet a bunch of very inspiring people. So agreed. Now, you’ve done a number of TEDx talks over the last few years. Why is TEDx so important for women to get out and speak publicly? You know, TEDx

Olga Mack 7:55
is a very recognized visible platform form, not only in the United States, but everywhere in the world. And if you have ideas worth spreading, that is the place to go. My ideas happen to be around technology and law, I think they’re very important, because they go to the heart of and core of civil society. And as someone who was born and raised outside of the country, where this is a norm, I value it deeply. So my core mission of innovating and building the future of law really speaks to that need to make sure that the values of civil society spread everywhere. And so the reason I like to speak at TEDx is because, you know, it’s an appropriate authority to spread ideas for like, elementary school kids, my kids in middle school, watch it, adults, professionals, like you and I, but also to folks outside of United States, the folks outside of Western Europe, just folks outside of places like Japan, in Asia. And I think it’s very important, because the the social good of civil society, the importance of it multiplies exponentially. The more folks are part of that network. And I think that’s a that’s a very important way to use TEDx to contribute to the spread of that of that social good.

Greg Lambert 9:44
I’m curious as to how did the process of getting invited or seeking the platform for TEDx, how did you go about getting yourself on that platform?

Olga Mack 9:58
So I’ve done three TEDx talks, two of them are publicly available. The third one is coming out soon.

Marlene Gebauer 10:07
I heard it here.

Olga Mack 10:10
And it’ll be a good one. It’s worth waiting for. Look, every one of those experiences have been, have been unplanned, and sort of caught me in the, in the point of time, the very first time I was invited to give one was a TEDx San Francisco, when I was I just joined web three company, and was building some applications and protocols on blockchain. And at the time, and we’re talking about like, three or four years ago, I’ve been asked to talk about smart contracts. And the organizers looked for somebody who is passionate, knowledgeable, and likes to speak and really wants to do it. And they had a hard time finding someone, they really had to look hard. And they found me shortly after I just joined the company. I said, Yeah, sure. I’m passionate, all right, I just got here. But they said, Don’t worry, the talk is going to be in the year. And they sort of provided a lot of training and encouragement. And by the time the year was over, I was actually really very much knee deep and ready for it. So I sort of declined, because that was not necessarily the topic I consider talking about. But they had a lot of vision for me. And somehow they were right, they, you know, they had the vision for me, right. And I lived up to it. And that experience of giving that talk about smart contracts, when technology was still very early and unknown. And then being part of like, next few years, people watching the talk and coming back to me and thanking me for grading them at the gate. That was really inspiring. And I really did focus at the time, kind of not just on the technology, but the application that we all as a society would benefit. And people really, that part really resonated with people that this is not just like another efficiency to this is not just sort of about, you know, someone making money, it’s about how we can sort of all be better off. And that experience of people coming back to me and thanking me for those examples and explaining that technology and human language was something to me that wasn’t really just just very enlightening. And so and I thought about, well, if I can do this for technology, I surely should be able to do it for law. Because I feel like sometimes what lawyers do, is deeply misunderstood. And we all have a broken relationship with law. I felt like if I can do this, for this new technology that very few people understand I surely should be able to do it for law. And so that’s the reason for TEDx Talk number two and three. And hopefully, I’ve accomplished some of that.

Greg Lambert 13:10
I like to the part of the story where in hopefully, I’m telling I’m retelling it correctly. But it sounds like they kind of gave you a topic that was just a little bit outside your comfort zone, but that they gave you the time to kind of rise to that challenge. And in the end, by taking that on something that at one point you were thinking about not doing, it actually kind of catapulted you and gave you the opportunity to do that TEDx number two and three, and also to, you know, to access a part of the community that you may not have been able to access without stepping out of that comfort zone is that

Olga Mack 13:54
Absolutely. That’s a great summary of what happened and you know, doing something that you wouldn’t you think just a little outside of your range forces you to grow. And that’s exactly what happened.

Marlene Gebauer 14:07
So Olga, your branding has been distinctly and wonderfully your own. Yes. Yeah, it is. So, so tell us how you came to the branding strategy you use? Because I think that that seems to be a hot topic now in terms of your brand, and like, you know, how do you figure out your brand? How do you and how do you promote your brand?

Olga Mack 14:30
Look, I mean, it’s really interesting. I sort of resent the word brand to describe it individual. I know that’s great.

Marlene Gebauer 14:41
But how would you describe it?

Olga Mack 14:43
I describe it as reputation. And that’s a very old school term that lawyers are familiar with. Your reputation, opens doors and closes doors. And your reputation allows you to do things that you haven’t done before and your past to propel you forward. And lawyers have been in reputation building. Now for a long, long time, I know the popular term is brand. To me, it’s a little bit like asking my height. It’s, it feels a little objectifying. I’m so much more than my brand. And to be completely honest with you, when I get up in the morning, I’m not thinking of Oh, God as a brand. What I’m thinking about is, how do I show up as myself what I value in life was getting up in the morning and showing up as older in my full colors. And, and I and that is important to me. And so, you know, it’s really interesting, you know, when people ask me, how do you build your brand, I mostly just get up in the morning, and ask myself, how I can show up as myself. And it turns out when you do it resonates with people, people can feel that you show up as yourself, they relate through that they if you share both your wins and your losses and how you grow through them, that is a very inherently human thing to do. And it’s sort of like having a conversation with your best friend, except here, you have one to many. And you get feedback in maybe not necessarily with, you know, an eye roll, or you know, some rumor, you get it through comments, or through some messages. Or maybe even sometimes, you know, which happens all the time, I’ll go now to a conference. And people wave at me knowingly, but I have no idea who they are. And that it’s really, you know, I now feel much more comfortable waving my Miss Universe hello to humans I’ve never met and asked them to tell me their story. And it turns out that, that they feel very comfortable sharing their experiences. And various things I’ve shared have been helpful to them and resonated. And it’s a very, very satisfying experience to not only show up as yourself, but that to be of use to other humans.

Marlene Gebauer 17:04
So just be you know, just Just be true to yourself be true. I mean, that’s really that’s really what the answer is.

Greg Lambert 17:09
And I like the idea and you know, being here in Houston, we use a lot of Brene Brown vernacular on vulnerability, but it sounds like in a way by being rather than, I wouldn’t say hiding behind a brand, but rather thinking of it as a brand and as you know, something that is a presentation for this online community or how how you’re presenting yourself that you’re actually being vulnerable by being your authentic self out there. And I think that that people are responding to that, but it is, it is putting yourself in a vulnerable position because you know, you’d hate for you to be out there like that and then get negative responses.

Olga Mack 17:56
Grad learning is a vulnerable place to be when you learned that by definition means you’re not an expert. And in my case, I never had the same job twice. So I am vulnerable pretty much 95% of the time and so I’m very comfortable with being vulnerable because to me that means I’m in a place of growth and learning and I value that very much and it’s funny I recently talked to somebody about how much I you know I value learning and this new uncomfortable situation is a learning opportunity. And this person who sort of known you for a long time you know, he said all the output you in any situation you will find the lesson probably would

Greg Lambert 18:44
Olga a few months ago, Parley Pro join forces with LexisNexis and is now part of the Lexis family. I know it’s a it’s a big deal. So you know what led you to decide to take your independent company and merge it with, you know, a well known legal corporation.

Olga Mack 19:04
I love that question. Fun fact, I was a LexisNexis rap for three years in law school,

Marlene Gebauer 19:15
didn’t know that.

Olga Mack 19:18
It is on my LinkedIn. At the very, very bottom it requires you to scroll and

Greg Lambert 19:26
view more.

Olga Mack 19:30
Listen, I’m LexisNexis and I love being a LexisNexis rap. Like I now have told the story that I almost dropped out of law school after first year actually before the first year was over. And I went to dinner T’s office hours and I said you know I’m just too different. This law school, not for me. And she will she continue typing she didn’t even me like she didn’t even look Have me she said, yeah, oh God, I know you’re different. What’s your point one needs different, go do your thing. And I just stood there. And then she like she saw that she didn’t get rid of me. She said, she’s like, Well, okay, if you need a motivation, get yourself an internship or something. And so that led me to numerous internships and, and LexisNexis was one of the jobs I got, I also got a job at Yahoo labs, I was part of the clinics, I was I joined Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, I did the California law revision Commission and the FTC, just to like really round it up. And what I loved about the LexisNexis experience is the technology. And I really this this part where like, as a lawyer, I enjoyed researching and they had this powerful tool, like it blew my mind, actually, no less than Yahoo’s acquisition of Flickr. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And for me, that was very inspiring, and I not only excelled in knowing LexisNexis I, you know, they had a good collect points, I collected enough points to get myself a Gucci bag, which I went to my mother and give it to her. And she said, Where did you get it, I said, I got it was, you know, LexisNexis point she’s at admire could use Gucci bag you know, so I, you know, I had really great experiences with Lexis and I appreciate the contribution they make to the community, both from technology and informational products. And I continued using it as a lawyer and all of that. So with, with all of that in mind, operating a technology company, especially a startup, you know, that technology companies, startups are temporary structures, you know, you either get acquired, you go public, or you you know, you die, you go through bankruptcy one way or another. And it when I look at the landscape of legal technology, and how to really best serve our customers, I realize the power you have by combining content, data and technology. So Parley Pro, has built an amazing technology. And LexisNexis has a lot of great data and content. And so I’m thinking, this is the best way I can serve the community, the customers and really make a huge contribution. So for me, that was a very easy decision. And I’m very flattered that we have been on the same page with LexisNexis. And

Marlene Gebauer 22:33
Olga as people who have never had their own company go through a merger. Explain the process to us. Did you court many companies? Or was Lexis really your focal point? And what are the factors for a small business owner to consider when undertaking this sort of endeavor?

Olga Mack 22:50
Remember, I’m not the founder of Parley Pro, I’m a lateral CEO. And I’m very proud of this fact, you know, there, I believe, to raise a successful company and releases into the wild, it takes much, much more than the two or one or three dedicated founders. And in fact, I think we’ve put undue burden on founders to be everything this company needs to succeed. I believe the foster parents, like lateral CEOs, and numerous other professionals, are even more important. And in fact, I think that correlates with the success of the company. So as someone who came to the company when the product has been built, who my biggest contribution has been one and refining the product to making sure that the market knows about it. And three onboarding almost every customer we have, I routinely asked myself a question. How do I make sure that all stakeholders walk away with a bucket of happiness? I am not asking it from the point of view of oldest ego. Remember, I’m not the initial founder, I am trying to do the right thing. And the right thing here means yes, by my founders, yes. By my employees, yes, by my customers, yes, by my investors, and yes, by me. And if you ask that question yourself enough times, the answer materializes. You know, and you know, in my case, it materialized in the form of LexisNexis. You asked another question, Have we considered other options? Absolutely. That is what my job as a lateral CEO to do is to consider every and all options available to me. And I have in fact, thoroughly consider them and I couldn’t find a partner that is as good or better than LexisNexis. So, I believe we optimize our exit and most importantly, we’ll continue serving our customers and adding value to this world of giving legal advice and improving relationship with law for all stakeholders.

Greg Lambert 24:55
During the merger process, were there any take ways that you can share with us, you know, anything that kind of you expected or anything that kind of caught you off guard during the process.

Marlene Gebauer 25:09
Any fun facts?

Olga Mack 25:14
Oh, you know, it’s a process. It really is, it’s not an event, any exit, whether it’s you know, I’ve been part of IPOs, I’ve been part of mergers. This is not for us this there’s those not events, those are processes. And, you know, just like a good marriage, you know, dating is important. Getting to know the other side to make sure that there is synergies on the personnel technology, commitment, philosophy is very important. So I took my time to get to know LexisNexis. And study all options. And it was important to go through that, as when you build important relationships for the benefits of numerous others, right, which is what happens here, it’s important to take time and share as much as possible to make sure that you start the life together on the right foot. And sometimes, you know, you share things that you know, you may not be sharing elsewhere. But seeing your partner’s ability to react and work through that is important, because that tells you how successful you will be after everything is signed. So, you know, I was very grateful, we had really great investors who were very supportive, and who really wanted to make sure that we find the right partner for us. What I really appreciated was my lead investor who kept asking me all day, can you imagine your future there? Many, many times. And I, you know, I never thought of investors of really deeply caring, you know, can only imagine her future there. But we, you know, I was really grateful that I had and, you know, a very active investor on my board who asked that question many times, and it was really, really helpful for me, and for the company to make the right decision. And, and I’m glad we went through the process of doing it.

Greg Lambert 27:18
Yeah, we’ll, just out of curiosity, how long a process was it? And did the pandemic either, did it have any effect on the amount of time?

Olga Mack 27:28
Well, the pandemic predominantly helped Parley Pro to grow, we are, you know, a product that allows collaboration with your contracts virtually. So I joined fun fact that joined a few months before the pandemic, I was a first time CEO, who joined a few months before the pandemic. So that put a little bit stress on on my adventure. So I am in many ways grateful for the pandemic, because it allowed me to double click on virtual conversations and show the value of virtual collaboration to the community that I deeply care about. We have been approached for acquisition since actually, I’ve joined. So it was a process that initially was not seriously considered considered only because that’s what CEOs supposed to do. But over time, became seriously considered because I realize how much faster we can go, how much more value we can create, and how powerful the combination of technology content and analytics is. But I think once you once you really realize that you are under serving your customers by not doing the marriage, then that decision becomes easier. Remember, it wasn’t about me being the founder who only imagines one exit, it was less about ego. It is more about being of service. And so I realized that that marriage was important in terms of technology, content, and analytics being under one roof.

Marlene Gebauer 29:09
So I’m going to switch gears here for a second. It seems like your iltacon schedule was similar to mine, you’re kind of in there for a day and out for a day. So how was the experience being back in person? And can you share some takeaways from your presentation?

Olga Mack 29:23
Oh, it’ll tie was fun. It was fun. It was fun. Fun fact, I caught up with many people I knew before but also fun fact, I met some of my colleagues from LexisNexis in person there for the first time. So thank God for it. It’s like It’s like Switzerland. It’s a neutral territory where you can make your colleagues and friends. I love virtual interactions that allows me to have conversations with you in Australia, Europe, Asia, and Latin America all in one day and still kiss my kids. My kids go Night. So I really value and grateful for that. But there is something about working and seeing, you know, my, my my friend, Noah, or Bob and saying hello and giving them a hug. And being interviewed by, you know folks who do podcasts right there. And then there’s there’s a value on seeing and having a tangible experience. And that was valuable. It was no more or less valuable to me, because my virtual experiences are very valuable to me too. But it was just different. And it led to different conversations and different ways to connect.

Greg Lambert 30:42
What about your presentation? What what did you present on?

Olga Mack 30:45
You know, this is one of the conferences where I was not the entertainment. I was entertained. And I love that. There are very few conferences that I you know, in fact, I joke that I, I only go to conferences where I’m the entertainment. But this was a conference that I was entertained. And it turns out, I love being entertained, even more than the the entertainment. And mean, I did talk to Ari and he recorded a podcast. So I did say maybe that

Marlene Gebauer 31:19
maybe that’s what I was thinking. I was like I could have sworn she did.

Olga Mack 31:23
I was walking with that RA and he leaped out of his seat. He’s an older, let me interview you. And I said, I’m here to be entertained. And he said it will be entertaining. And so that’s how I ended up doing it. It was fun. It was really great to catch up with Ari this way.

Greg Lambert 31:40
Yeah. All right. Ari Kaplan is definitely entertaining. So I can verify that. But even though on this this time, you were not the the entertainment. You know, no moss grows on Olga Mack at all, because you already have an ABA publication on the horizon for 2023 on visual IQ for lawyers. So can you tell us a little bit about this project and what the book is going to be about?

Olga Mack 32:12
Yeah, the book is, as you said, scheduled for early 2023. I think that when we go through law school and practice, we overemphasize our analytical, written mind, and ability to communicate this way. And if you observe the world, the trend is away from words, and towards pictures and visuals. And so that just means that we as lawyers, missing various critical skills, to understand the world around us to relate to our clients, and generally being effective. And I think visual intelligence is not something you’re born with. It’s like reading, writing and arguing. It’s something you learn, intentionally. And this book is, is an attempt to, one show the importance of visual intelligence in communications, and to give frameworks and basic concepts to allow legal professionals not just lawyers, to understand, relate, interpret, communicate in an increasingly visual world.

Greg Lambert 33:34
That sounds really interesting.

Marlene Gebauer 33:36
Yes, I think that’s great. So when that comes out, we may have to, we may have to reach out to you again. So I saw that you you posted on LinkedIn today about how mentoring goes two ways. And you know, we’re starting some episodes on older colleagues in the workforce. So this is particularly interesting and timely, at least for us. Why is having more and less experienced colleagues, you know, on the teams, why is that so important?

Olga Mack 34:05
Yeah, it’s really interesting to good question. We are at the point of time in history where we have more generations working side by side, five

Marlene Gebauer 34:16
generations working side by side by

Olga Mack 34:19
side, and we no longer live in the world that you’re we understand that your age and intelligence are not always highly correlated, and experiences right, that is, you know, that is to say that diversity is as important as the actual cumulative effect. And then because we are products of our environments, in addition to being products of how we have been born, you know, different generations have had different experiences, and sometimes they may be more valuable or less valuable depending on the goal. So the hierarchical system of, you know, more senior professionals, bestowing their wisdom is really data. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t reflect the realities of the world, it doesn’t reflect how knowledge is shared, it doesn’t reflect that the value of somebody’s narrow expertise, even if cumulative was smaller, may be super important. I think it’s very important to think of your interactions, especially at a workplace as learning experiences. And if you only gonna be thinking that you’re learning from people who are older than you, you will be missing out,

Marlene Gebauer 35:50
you’re going to stop learning eventually,

Olga Mack 35:53
eventually, just by definition, so you need to find a framework to move through life that is, you know, respectful of other people’s experiences, that allows you to continue working, and learning. And I do think that ability to be mentioned and learn from, you know, folks above and below is a way to do it. Because that really gives you a more 360 view of what’s happening in the world. And being a full participant. If you have been, you know, if you are just entering a field and you worry that you don’t have enough experiences, you talk to somebody who is more experienced, if you somehow worried that you are missing out on a technology skill, for whatever reason, age or something else, you talk to somebody who has that skill, and that person could be younger than you or older than you. And you have to have an open mind that you can learn from every experience. So I think it’s very important to to be able to move through live respectful in a way that you can learn from from every human.

Greg Lambert 37:00
Good advice. I think so. Absolutely. All right, I’ll go we’ve come to the part in the interview where we’re going to ask you our crystal ball questions. So I’m going to ask you to pull out your crystal ball and peer into the future for us. And given your experience here in the legal marketplace. What do you see is happening with within legal innovation, say in the next three to five years,

Olga Mack 37:26
so much.

Marlene Gebauer 37:27
The End.

Olga Mack 37:34
Look, I really believe that law is becoming of service, I think we owe gradually going toward the world, where a why, just like every every other industry has to serve. And that means improving relationship with law. For everyone, I think it’s very important for the civil society for us as humans. And we have technology to do that. So we’re definitely seeing that trend, and is that that’s happening. We also see related to that a lot of innovations in places we didn’t expect to see innovation, we see a lot of legal innovation, to be increasingly not called legal innovation. Someone is building HR software, they’re gonna build compliance by design, somebody’s building, you know, finance related software, or platform, they will have to build various legal components by design. So I think we’re moving away from the world of sort of legal innovation to sort of a broader world where legal innovation is built in, everything needs to have built in by design, some sort of compliance, some sort of nod to civil society, regulated by laws. And that’s in pretty much every aspect. And so I’m really excited about it. What I also see is a convergence of disruptive technologies, I see you know, things like AI, ML, blockchain, virtual reality, kind of converge in one place, and law will be affected by that as well. We’re gonna go from like, sort of two dimensional experience of just reading to very immersive three dimensional experiences in law, and hopefully that will help us really to create better understanding and relationship with law kind of a more three dimensional access to it. And finally, you know, in addition to various technologies convergence, we see the importance of technology, content, and data being under one roof I think that’s a very, very powerful combination, especially in the context of law, where as a lawyer, you’re you have a job, which is to take was in various content and synthesize it with the world facts. And we increasingly getting to a place where you can take technology content, analytics and facts and synthesize it in the most streamlined way. And to me, that’s a very exciting value that we can we can bring to the world to lawyers and their customers.

Greg Lambert 40:38
Alright, I like that. I like the idea of legal innovation is built in by design. I like that thought. So well, Olga Mack from Parley Pro at LexisNexis, we thank you so much for coming back and talking to us. And you’ve got an open offer that either when your new TEDx talk or your new book comes back comes out, you have to come back and talk to us.

Marlene Gebauer 41:03
Yes. Well, thank

Olga Mack 41:04
you, Merlin. Thank you, Greg. I’ll take you up on that. Fun fact, both the book and TEDx talk I talking about visual visuals and law. So we may just combine them it seems like semantically it makes sense.

Greg Lambert 41:19
Sounds like a great idea. All right. Thanks again, Olga. Thanks, Olga.

Marlene Gebauer 41:24
All right. So it’s always great to have Olga on the podcast. And you know, she just has so much going on right now. And she has so much to share with everyone. So I am glad that we got her on when we did. And looking forward to getting her on again.

Greg Lambert 41:41
Yeah, absolutely. It’s, uh, I, you know, there’s a couple of things that she did, or she mentioned. And that was one, I think that vulnerability of you know, it’s not, it’s not a brand. It’s my authentic self. And that’s who she is. And it really is, if you’ve ever met her, you know, this, what you see is what you get. And that’s really good. And I appreciate that. And then, and I’ll probably make this the title of this, and that is having legal innovation built in by design, on her projection for the crystal ball question. I think that that is so spot on, on what this industry is doing. And you see it in everywhere. There’s no longer these big, great releases of technology, it’s incremental, it’s built in is just expected that you’re going to see these advancements, and you’re not going to necessarily even know that they’re happening. It’s just the seamless transition of technology.

Marlene Gebauer 42:44
That’s it’s I think about when we talk about, oh, you know, having you know, smart lawyers is kind of table stakes and innovation would distinguish and I think you’re gonna get to the point where innovation like this is also table stakes.

Greg Lambert 42:57
Absolutely, absolutely. So it’s great to have Olga Mack back on on the show. And I think we probably got her lined up to do one. One more, at least one more, at least one more. So Thanks, Olga, for taking the time to talk with us. And of

Marlene Gebauer 43:12
course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter,

Greg Lambert 43:25
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter, or you

Marlene Gebauer 43:29
can leave us a voicemail on The Geek in Review Hotline at 713-487-7270 and as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you Jerry.

Greg Lambert 43:39
Thank you Jerry. Alright, Marlene will talk with you later.

Marlene Gebauer 43:43
Okay, bye bye Jackson Walker Fast Takes do back. Devils back home. Back

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

When you sign a huge new client at your firm, what do you do to celebrate? If you are Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, and you just signed Megan Thee Stallion… you dance!

How Do We Handle Parole Hearings for Supervillains?

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:19
Imagine running a superhuman law division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off this series today by reviewing the new She-Hulk Attorney at Law show on Disney+. Let’s dive into Episode Three: The People versus Emil Blonsky. I’m Greg Lambert, and alongside with me today is my superhuman law division co counsel, Joshua Lenon. Joshua, so what do you think of Episode Three?

Joshua Lenon 0:48
Greg, I really enjoyed it. I thought they finally started getting down to litigating super human issues. As a part of this episode. We had a lot of setup in the last two episodes, Jen becoming Hulk and learning how to control her transformation and powers. And in the second one, kind of the impact of that on her professional career, and how did she recover from that? And now we’re finally getting to see Jennifer Walters super human lawyer. And so I enjoyed those aspects coming out in this episode. How about you?

Greg Lambert 1:20
Yeah, I’m with you on this one. It’s, we’re finally getting into some of the GLK and H litigation parts of it. And seeing some of the structure internally on how the superhuman law division is set up. And, you know, we first start up where we left off on episode two, which is realizing that somewhere along the line, Emil Blonsky, had escaped prison and went into this kind of fight club with Wong.

Joshua Lenon 1:53
Yeah, Wong, the superhuman sorcerer. And I made a prediction last episode that it was going to be actually part of his court mandated therapy. And that turned out that prediction was wrong.

Greg Lambert 2:06
Well, hold I would hold up on whether or not that was wrong just yet. Because I think there was something that, and we’ll get to this in a minute, there was something that Wong said that made me wonder if maybe eventually you won’t be right on that. So but it was, it was kind of funny, because Blonsky talks about his escape. And it’s actually not an escape. He says he was forced to leave the prison by Wong, who transported him to do these fights, and that he came back of his own free will.

Joshua Lenon 2:45
That’s true. And so it was used as evidence of reformative nature. If you look at the history of the US prison system, it’s often been juggling between rehabilitation and some type of revenge upon the criminal. Parole is definitely an instance where we look more towards the rehabilitative nature of prison. And so Emile Bronski, in front of the parole board is attempting to show two or three things. The first is remorse for his actions. A second is rehabilitation, an understanding and awareness of why they happened, and to demonstrate that he has both kind of the physical and developmental control to prevent that situation from happening again in the future. And then the last one, which is, I think, somewhat unique to the super hero realm is that his powers aren’t going to be a factor if he gave teens parole, and so we often see the idea of recidivism, are you going to go out and just commit the same crime again? And here Blonsky is attempting to prove that just because he has superpowers does not mean he will be a recidivist?

Greg Lambert 4:01
Yeah. And it was one of the things that and I don’t know that we mentioned it on the last episode. But one of the things that Jennifer Walters was doing was coming up with reasons why he shouldn’t be in prison. That’s not going to come up at all. In a parole hearing Parole Hearings are not about our re arguing the facts of the trial or proving innocence. It’s about that. Are you reformed? Are you going to be a productive citizen out there if we let you go? So I thought it was a little interesting that she was arguing the facts of the case, which would not be an issue at a parole hearing.

Joshua Lenon 4:44
That’s absolutely true. And as we saw on the hearing, the witnesses and testimonies weren’t about the previous behavior that landed Blonsky in jail, but rather how he was conducting himself during the course of his incarceration. And so there were There were several witnesses, like a prison guard who testified about how a meal was helping him with his own personal relationships. There was a librarian who talked about how Blonsky was actually helping other prisoners rehabilitate.

Greg Lambert 5:15
My favorite quote of that one was, he made the library more than just a place to quietly shift someone.

Joshua Lenon 5:24
No, sorry, I, I laughed at that one too.

Greg Lambert 5:28
So and then, there was also the counselor, they talked about how he created a yoga or is in type class and helped the other prisoners. The other inmates? Yeah. So I mean, it was it was very good. But really, the whole thing was dependent upon Wong and his role in this. Let’s go back to where Wong is introduced, and Jennifer calls Nikki, her paralegal on the phone and asked her to basically do a little due diligence on Wong and find out more about him and Nikki did what a lot of us do, which was Googled him and pulled up his Google his LinkedIn page. Did you get a look at what jobs long held and

Joshua Lenon 6:21
Wha The only one that jumps out was library? Yeah,

Greg Lambert 6:24
so he’s had himself as his current job as Sorcerer Supreme. But he spent multiple years as the librarian at common Tosh, and he was connected to Bruce Banner through his LinkedIn, I didn’t notice that. But I thought it was funny because Nikki was tasked with actually reaching out and having him return the message, whether it’s email or phone call, or somehow get him into the office. And, and so if you were, if you look closely at the court room style drawings, at the end, like he said that, don’t worry, I sent him a thirst trap of me holding books. And of course, you know, nothing attracts a librarian more than someone holding books, right?

Joshua Lenon 7:16
That’s absolutely true. The first thing they look at is the spines to see what you’re reading.

Greg Lambert 7:21
Yeah. And that’s, that’s me, actually. But that is something that that you do ask paralegals, your your assistants. There are people at your firm whose job is to do some background investigation to look at people’s online accounts to reach out to them if necessary to find out, will they come in? Will they come in and testify? Will they go through a deposition will they just actually talk to you will return your phone calls. And then sometimes you want to do that anonymously. And you don’t want them to know that you’re trying to look at them and their online profile, as well. So I thought they did a good job of quickly going through that on how they were going to reach out and get wanting to come in. So long does eventually show up. But before we get to that, we had a news break scene where we were looking at some social media some YouTube videos were one, the news ticker mentioned Titania again and said that the super powered influencer Titania speaks out about latest legal trouble is confident her legal team will make it go away. That tells me one Titania, again has had legal trouble in the past probably not just traffic court that she was in and that she has her own legal team. I wonder if her legal team and the G Okay. And H legal team will butt heads before too long.

Joshua Lenon 8:59
I definitely predict a reunion and a future episode.

Greg Lambert 9:03
And then in the same clip Jennifer’s qualifications as a lawyer gets questioned. Yeah, mostly because of two reasons. One, she’s a super powered individual who is also a lawyer, and two and probably the biggest reason is she’s a woman. And there is a just a list of misogynistic tweets and comments that get in a very short period of time get shown on there, such as you know, the me to movement and now all the male superheroes are now female superheroes what has happened and there’s a team he hulk out there but but it’s been one of the things we we’ve kind of skirted around this issue. It’s shown up and all three episodes is There is this misogynistic storyline that that’s kind of an undercurrent that’s going on in this. And, you know, quite honestly, and it’s something that I’ve covered a lot on my my other podcast with with Marlene Gebauer is that, you know, law firms are present a law firms are really good at hiring women lawyers. They’re terrible at retention. And a number of reasons why that’s going on. It’s a huge issue in the industry. And it’s one that I mean, we we could have an entire podcast that just talks about that. But there’s a number of things that we see in this show that really kind of mirror real life. Some of its a little over dramatized, I think, such as Dennis Bacau, skis, comment in the bar last week, which you know, I think is way over the top, but not necessarily something that wouldn’t happen. You know, it’s, there’s a lot of issues with sexism in the legal and in the legal profession. Yeah. And we’re seeing it. So yes, some of it may be, you know, over the top, but not too far over the top.

Joshua Lenon 11:24
No, if we look at the history of the legal profession, it’s actually been fairly exclusionary to women and people of color. For a long time, people just were not allowed to attend law school or sit for the bar despite other very admirable qualifications. And, unfortunately, that continues to be a legacy to this day, in certain statistics, we know that over half of most law students now are women. And yet they only account for about 23% of equity partners at major law firms. And so we see that women are mostly represented in solo and small law firms, where they find that the larger law firms are not supportive of women practicing law or balancing all the aspects of their lives that are necessary for many women in order to have at all and allowing for time off reintegration back into the law firm credit for parental leave. None of these things are really supported. When when the rubber hits the road, a lot of these law firms and so women, rightly so viewed as a hostile environment and go out and make their own way. It shouldn’t have to be that way. But that’s very much the case. I see you in the legal profession

Greg Lambert 12:44
Totally agree. One of the things that is a constant recommendation for advancing not not just women, but also for people of color is that the more that women and people of color are in positions of power within the firm, whether that’s on committees, as practice group leaders, etc. One example is the best way to make sure that women are paid in equity with their male counterparts, is to make sure that there are more women on the compensation committee at law firms. Yeah, it’s almost a one to one correlation between the more number of women that are on that committee, the more equity they have in pay with their male counterparts. So representation matters. Yeah, so let’s let’s keep an eye out on this and future episodes, if we see committees, and I know we saw last episode when they were walking past one of the conference rooms, that entire conference room was filled with nothing but men. Yeah,

Joshua Lenon 13:51
we have not seen any partners, a GL and K who are female or represent anyone have diversity? Yep. And it’ll be interesting to see how that comes about. Maybe if Jen herself is considered for a partnership.

Greg Lambert 14:04
Now, we will come back to this throughout this. Throughout this podcast, I am sure I did want to talk I want to talk one more thing about Jen’s new office. And so we kind of get a better look at it this episode. And I can tell you that there is no UCLA mugs or banners, any kind of personality that we saw in her prosecutors office that we’re seeing here is a very sterile office. For some and for some especially, you know, white shoe, upper, you know, top law firms. You get that kind of clean that we want every office to kind of look

Joshua Lenon 14:48
the same. Yeah, signer offices. Yeah, yep. So

Greg Lambert 14:52
very little color in the office. Even the paintings were mostly kind of black and white or uted the logbooks were just you know, old leather bound logbooks that were there

Joshua Lenon 15:06
and clearly not gents, right? Yeah, yeah. Not

Greg Lambert 15:10
not hers.

Joshua Lenon 15:11
She just started there. Why would she have these old logbooks? Yeah, she looks

Greg Lambert 15:15
like maybe we can chalk it up that she hasn’t had time to put her personal stamp on the office yet. But we move over to Halloween, his office. And his is kind of the same way. I mean, his paintings have a little more color, and, but he has like old leather bound books that you can tell are not for use. They’re just for looks. And then he does have one of those beautiful little model, wooden run about ski boats. That’s behind his desk, those things, those things are great. I had a friend growing up whose dad had one out there just crazy in super expensive. But Holloway does have a bar setup in his office. So I noticed that

Joshua Lenon 15:59
I didn’t I didn’t catch that. That’s interesting.

Greg Lambert 16:02
Anything else in the office that popped out at you? Well, one

Joshua Lenon 16:06
of the things that jumped out to me was we never see where Nikki, the paralegal is working. And in most of these, most of these larger office environments, the paralegal doesn’t work in their attorney’s office. And remember, Jen specifically requested Nikki being hired alongside her. So there should be some type of open work area cubicle area, where Nikki is actually doing her job. And we haven’t seen that yet. And it is interesting to see how there’s a dichotomy between lawyers and non lawyers in law firms and how they’re treated. But the other thing that jumped out to me is, while we’re seeing this kind of white shoe law firm, what the reality is for a lot of law firms lately is they are shifting more towards a more open office environment, a lot of co working spaces. They’re having lounges rather than conference rooms. And the offices themselves are oftentimes no longer somebody’s personal office, but instead, just an office that you kind of check in check out as you need to be there. And none of those trends have been reflected in this episode yet. So it’ll be interesting to see if they pop up later. And GL and K keeping with the times. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 17:26
I did notice that there was kind of an open space looks like it’s mostly secretarial space. Open, as well, as you see the reception. space there. Typically paralegals have internal offices or or cubicle areas. My guess is at some point, we may see more internal space, but we didn’t see it here. We did see, however, it mentioned that that we haven’t seen any women lawyers, yet. We actually did see one we saw Mallory book.

Joshua Lenon 18:01
She’s not a partner yet. Yeah. Yeah. But she is. Yeah, I think our first female lawyer that we’ve been introduced to, and

Greg Lambert 18:08
that’s the first one we’ve been introduced to, and I know that in the comic book that Jen and Mallory are rivals. They just don’t get along at all. I think we’re probably set up to have some some rivalry amongst the firm, especially, you know, Jen coming in being the new person and getting to lead the superhuman law division. Mallory may think that that was that’s a job that that she was lined up for. So we’ll see how that goes. But it’s always, always good to have a little little bit of attention on these types of TV shows. And you know, in reality, not everyone gets along. So we’ll see how that’s handled.

Joshua Lenon 18:54
Yeah, law firms have their own internal politics, just like any other organization.

Greg Lambert 18:58
Yeah. Do you want to talk about why they were in? Holloway is Office which was the Dennis Bukowski case?

Joshua Lenon 19:05
Absolutely. This is. This is another superhuman law case that came it came to GL K and H. And it is Dennis Bukowski, who was a lawyer that worked with Jennifer Walters back when she was with the prosecuting attorney’s office. And he is not coming across Well, in this episode at all. So his legal trouble is that he has been defrauded by a con artist. And in four color superhero comic book world. The con artist is actually a shapeshifter. They described her as a light elf.

Greg Lambert 19:43
Is that right? Yeah, her name is Runa. Yeah, yeah,

Joshua Lenon 19:46
to change her identity and she’s part of the whole background from the Thor Asgard side of the Marvel Universe. And she apparently has been impersonating a very famous rapstar Megan Thee Stallion.

Greg Lambert 20:01
from Houston, Texas, my hometown. Yeah.

Joshua Lenon 20:05
Dennis Bukowski believed that he was dating Megan Thee Stallion. Well, that’s his claim, as part of this case, was lavishly spending on her, only to find out that it was not a famous rapper he was dating but instead this light elf. So he has come to the law firm, seeking to sue in a civil suit for fraud. And he wants to recover the money he spent, too on his Paramore due to fraud. But interestingly, when Jennifer Walters is brought in to take the case, as part of the superhuman law division, he immediately rejects her as a female lawyer. Not that she is a Hulk, but that she is female, and he doesn’t want to confess his embarrassing secrets to a female lawyer.

Greg Lambert 20:55
He also rejects Mallery book for the same reason. That’s right.

Joshua Lenon 20:59
Yeah. So he ends up with pug. I can’t ever pronounce his last name. It’s Italian pulito. Puggly SSC. Only essay, thank you. Yeah, who everybody calls pug?

Greg Lambert 21:11
Well, we’ll just call them pug. Yeah,

Joshua Lenon 21:13
who ends up taking the case. And I gotta say, if you have to go up against somebody in a court, having somebody who acts like Runa is such a benefit. When you have just this unruly defendant, who doesn’t listen to the judge who interrupts and then at one point, impersonates the judge in what she thinks is an hilarious practical joke, but it’s really quite frankly, a serious violation of several laws around impersonating a an officer of the court. And so if I were, I would just let that defendant just run, just let her run. Yeah, it only helped our case.

Greg Lambert 21:58
Yeah, there was the one of the defenses that they brought up for Rona was that she is the daughter of a new Asgardian diplomat. But he’s a diplomat for new Asgard. Not from new Asgard for the state. So she’s not a diplomat’s daughter, here in California, but rather the diplomats daughter in new Asgard. So I think for that reason that the judge does not allow that defense and allows it to go to trial.

Joshua Lenon 22:34
Yep. So it’s interesting, you look at diplomatic immunity, just because your home country designate you a diplomat does not mean you automatically have diplomatic immunity. Your credentials have to be recognized by the state, the country where you’ve been assigned, and they can always revoke your credentials and kick you out of the country. And that’s something that happens quite often in international diplomacy. Were kind of one of the first ratchety moves when you have conflict between two nation states is they start kicking people out and revoking credentials, as a way of forcing some type of confrontation and recognition of displeasure in a way that’s that’s really my minorly discomforting, which when it comes to like member states fighting that’s really the level you want it to be at discomfort not all out war.

Greg Lambert 23:32
Exactly. Exactly. So the judge kind of and I found this a little interesting and of course you have to condense these trials especially when when you’ve got a you know, a 30 minute TV show that that’s going Yeah, but he basically told pug what he would have to prove in order to win his case. And that was whether or not any rational man would believe that he was actually dating Megan Thee Stallion.

Joshua Lenon 24:03
Yeah. And the reasonable person standard unfortunately exists right oftentimes in law are like what a reasonable person think this and then we go on to kind of define what is a reasonable person when you are Dennis Bukowski.

Greg Lambert 24:20
So in order to prove that Dennis was not a reasonable man, pug gets the idea after talking with Nikki and Jen at the at the bar on Dennis is previous behavior at the prosecutor’s office to put Jen on the stand as basically I guess as a character,

Joshua Lenon 24:42
character witness Yeah, but the character she’s attesting to is not that it’s unreasonable that he’s dating the real Megan the stallion right, but instead it would be unreasonable for Ben to think anything else, Dennis that he So are Dennis sorry sorry that he is so entitled in his just personal nature that it would never occur to him that he he was being defrauded along the way by this impersonator? Yeah.

Greg Lambert 25:11
In fact, I love how she says it. It says that Dennis is an almost pathologically entitled man, so much so that he would absolutely believe he was dating Megan Thee Stallion. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that’s, that’s bad for Dennis’s ego. But he does win the case. And he gets $175,000 in damages. Rona also gets bleep 60 days in jail for her little trick of impersonating the judge. So justice served,

Joshua Lenon 25:49
that was a contempt charge. So judges don’t just get to throw people in jail for anything, right. And so in that case, the judge was exercising its plenary power of contempt and putting her in jail. Otherwise, he would have to wait for charges to be filed against her.

Greg Lambert 26:08
Yeah, that was one of the things I wanted to make sure you clarify on this. She’s off

Joshua Lenon 26:12
to jail. Now whether or not they can keep her there is the next question.

Greg Lambert 26:17
Yeah, her shapeshifting is going to be interesting. I don’t. I wonder if we’ll see her again in the show or maybe some of the other other shows along along the line. But she was fun. Well,

Joshua Lenon 26:29
yeah, if we look at the dance lot run for She Hulk, they actually had a process server who was a shapeshifter. And so maybe that’s how this comes back.

Greg Lambert 26:40
That would be good that that’s what you want in your process servers, someone that could get into places and

Joshua Lenon 26:48
get close. And yeah, get those documents into the other side’s hands.

Greg Lambert 26:52
All right. Well, let’s let’s jump over to Wong’s arrival and his testimony at blonde skis parole hearing. So first, when long shows up, he tells and he says something really interesting. And that is that all of the story that Blonsky has told Jennifer is factual. And that’s yeah, it almost reminds me of the well, it depends on what what the meaning of is,

Joshua Lenon 27:21
is, is yeah, the old Bill Clinton quote, yeah. And

Greg Lambert 27:25
so that, you know, that’s why a lot of times people don’t get in trouble for the crime they get, or for the action, they get in trouble for the cover up, cover up. And so I feel like there’s a little bit of a cover up going on here with with the way Wong is trying to phrase things.

Joshua Lenon 27:46
I agree with you, I feel like it would be a misuse of a great character like Wong if the story as as told is all there is. And, and his kind of rationalization for why he kicked out Blonsky and threw him into a public Fight Club, is to better train himself to be the Sorcerer Supreme. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 28:08
And to prove himself as a source of supreme that the problem is, is he is already the sorcerer supreme, when this fight took place. Absolutely. You’ve never have to remember the truth. And you always have to remember your lies. And so that’s one one of the things I think we’re running into here is that, yeah, may be factual. But I think there’s, you know, there’s more going on under underneath here. That’s why I was saying, Hold on to your thoughts about whether or not it was actually Wong training, the abomination to gather control of himself. So, so get to the parole hearing itself. We’ve already talked about the librarian, the guard and the counselor, Wong finally shows up late to testify. Or actually, let’s back up one more piece when he was talking to Jin, as he actually give some suggestions or some things that he will do and he won’t do with the sources. Sources supreme power. Yeah. Which is he probably he’s he will not wipe everyone’s memory memory, like, again, like they did in Spider Man. Yeah, yeah, that

Joshua Lenon 29:22
was a good call out.

Greg Lambert 29:23
He does offer the either send Blonsky to the mirror dimension or the shadow dimension, which Jen immediately says, No, that’s an unethical thing, then, you know, we can’t do that. We have to rely upon the rule of law in order to do that. And then another thing that happens quite often with lawyers, especially when you’re dealing with criminal behavior, is long says, Okay, well, we’ll keep the sorceress stuff as Plan B, and N taps his nose. No, she’s like, please don’t tap your nose. Just

Joshua Lenon 30:00
please don’t tap your nose. Yeah, so this is coaching of witnesses. And that happens a lot. If you’re gonna bring somebody in into a courtroom to testify on your behalf, you want to make sure they know how to testify. Right? And and simple things that we do in everyday conversation, like make a joke, like tap your nose, right, should really be taken out of context and and negatively hurt the chances of your client. And so what we probably didn’t see was Jen, asking likely questions that the parole board would ask right? Helping Wong with his responses to make sure that he keeps them like really on target, answer the question that is asked, answer the question that is asked, right. You don’t need to add a lot, right. And it’s actually something that’s very tough for people to get comfortable with, is being able to tell a coherent story and answer while still operating under some pretty stifling conditions. Yeah, but that’s what’s necessary when you are a witness at a trial.

Greg Lambert 31:03
Yeah, in fact, we see that exact problem happening with Blonsky, who is way over volunteering information at his hearing. In fact, you see Jen, on more than one occasion telling him to stop or no or interrupt or now and, and so, you know, moving on. That’s another thing that you see a lot, both on television and in real life is that, you know, once somebody gets to talking, sometimes it’s best just to shut up in and only again, answer the questions as being asked. Anything else on the the hearing part you want to cover?

Joshua Lenon 31:43
Well, there’s the outcome. Yeah. And the outcome is that the abomination is granted parole. Now they give conditions as a part of that parole, the first, which is that he is not not allowed to transform into the abomination. Doing so would be immediate revocation of his parole. What might be interesting in a future episode, is they’ve demonstrated that he can transform when he chooses, but not necessarily that he’s always in control of transforming, right. So we know there are instances where hulks transformed due to fear or pain or anger, woods, such a situation in the future, where the abomination transforms be necessarily a revocation. If it’s uncontrollable, right? Or white, there be other extenuating circumstances, like he’s doing so out of self defense. And so we’ll see that another thing they talked about is that there is some type of inhibitor and one of the things that I would have wanted to see from the beginning is Jennifer Walters actually offering up concessions, like, agrees to wear an inhibitor as a part of preparing for the parole hearing, such the we’re not just discovering these things at the end, but prepping your client, and also seeding the types of conditions that we would want to abide by in a successful parole grant. So I was a bit disappointed to hear that at the end, rather than it being part of the strategy. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 33:19
I think it was kind of implied because Denis mentions that Runa is just going to be given a slap on the wrist and that the real punishment would be to take away her powers. Yes, I think that was what she gave to the parole board. I don’t know, when she was able to do that if she was able to file some paperwork while they were still deliberating. So it would have been interesting, but I think that was just a quick way that she had come up with that idea. In fact, she breaks the fourth wall was saying that, Dennis, just give me a great idea. We’ll just keep that between us.

Joshua Lenon 33:59
Yeah. And such conditions are not unheard of in parole. When we look at certain famous hacking cases. We’ll see that some some parolees are actually forbidden from using a computer at all. Yeah, for several years. And part of accepting parole is you you agree to these conditions and the ability of the state to follow up on those conditions like you don’t need a warrant for a parole officer to search a parolees home. They’ve already consented to it by accepting the parole agreement.

Greg Lambert 34:30
Yeah. And that’s that’s one of the things I think a lot of people don’t understand about parole, and why some people are granted parole instead of just having to serve their full sentence. One of the things about being on parole is that you are subject to this monitoring. If you serve your entire sentence, the state has no more power over you. You have served your sentence it would need a warrant in order to serve to serve or any of your belonging.

Joshua Lenon 34:57
Yeah, a parole search can find nothing meaning that you violated your parole but evidence of other crimes that you could then be charged with. So it is a bit of a risk to accept parole sometimes.

Greg Lambert 35:09
Alright, so Blonsky is free. If you notice that the again with the the end credits Yeah, you know you see the seven soulmates who apparently are not nefarious, just people he found in the pin pals system.

Joshua Lenon 35:25
isn’t somebody gullible? Yep and any appears to abandon them

Greg Lambert 35:28
it does look that way doesn’t it? Yeah. So so we’ll see how that how that goes Has

Joshua Lenon 35:35
he really rehabilitated?

Greg Lambert 35:37
I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the abomination and in fact it kind of brings up the next scene which Jennifer arrives back at her home later that evening and is attacked by what we know as the Wrecking Crew. Yeah, hoo hoo. Apparently, as she says, Did you guys Rob and as guardian construction worker, because they show up in hard hat or when it’s got a hard hat. One’s got a mace and they’ve got a

Joshua Lenon 36:11
crowbar? Yeah, such a ball on a chain. Right? Yeah. And all of them are inscribed with glowing symbols. Yes, yes. And they and they seem to feel like they can attack and take a hawk as what they think these will enable them to do.

Greg Lambert 36:27
Yeah, I do. I thought it was it was funny and pure Marvel Comics in that briefly, she forgot that she could turn into the She Hulk. And so when they grab her, then she panics and then all of a sudden she’s like, Oh, wait, and then she turns into the She Hulk and quickly dispenses with the Wrecking Crew. But we find out it’s there’s something else that they’re looking for, other than just fight She Hulk. And that is that they attempt to take some of her blood.

Joshua Lenon 36:59
But now they want a blood sample. Yeah. And we don’t know why or who for they are taking the sample.

Greg Lambert 37:05
I’ve got somebody as you want to hear. Yeah, absolutely. So word on the street is that this is one of two they talked about the boss is not going to be happy that they couldn’t get the blood from Xi Hawke. The boss is either the leader, which is you, you see briefly the origin story in the 2008 Hulk movie with Edward Norton. And we’ve never seen since or it’s the kitten pen. And since we know that there’s going to be a certain other superhero lawyer that shows up later. Whose enemy is the king pen, his arch villain. Yeah, probably going to be the king panel, though everyone is really hoping that we can see the leader at some point which the leader just for everyone that doesn’t know, just as the abomination got his powers through using the blood of the Hulk. The leader is also someone who got the blood of the Hulk, but instead of turning into a large kind of brainless character, like the original Hulk was, he actually turns into someone who is super smart and has a very enlarged brain. Yeah. So.

Joshua Lenon 38:27
So the antithesis of the original Hall.

Greg Lambert 38:30
Yeah, exactly. So it’s going to be interesting to see who it is. My guess is probably King pan, but um, who knows? Maybe we’ll get both.

Joshua Lenon 38:37
The leader was my hunch. But honestly, I didn’t recall that from the Norton movie. So thank you. That’s that I think further supports it. Yeah. If we’re bringing the abomination back from that, that continuity, then the leader is just as likely Yep.

Greg Lambert 38:52
Yep. That is, that movie is canon now. So. Yeah. All right. So let’s, let’s get to the mid credit scene where and I love this because it would go back to the law office. So we’re talking long in one of the things that lawyers love to do, and that is to sign new clients. And in this case, we end up with Megan Thee Stallion as Jennifer’s first client to sign in to GLK and H. That’s

Joshua Lenon 39:20
absolutely right. And so there are a couple of things that I think are really important here. One, Jen is becoming a rainmaker. She’s bringing in clients and her previous role as a government lawyer. That’s not something she had to do. Right, right. So she’s picking up a new skill, but it also demonstrates value to the law firm outside of her just kind of media persona of She Hulk. She’s now bringing money in and that’s one of the factors that a law firm will be considering when they’re bringing people on as a partner and not just a lawyer. That’s a part of the staff. So Jen Rainmaker, second, I think it’s interesting because it’s showing how real life concerns can also be reflected in the superhero law stories. One of the things that Megan Thee Stallion will need to be able to do is to protect her likeness going forward. And in the real world, we know that Megan Thee Stallion, that’s not actually her real name, but instead is a trademarked name that she has filed with the Patent and Trademark Office in the United States that she actually applies it to a wide variety of products. And when you have people going around publishing their own YouTube videos pretending to be her, right and pulling pranks on people like Runa did in one scene, that’s a violation of Megan’s trademark rights. Yeah. And so Jen is now moving into IP law, as well as criminal law with a parole hearing. And so it’ll be interesting to see how they pull that going forward. Yep. And then lastly, there’s the celebratory scene after she signs her new client. What were your thoughts on that?

Greg Lambert 41:03
Well, I thought it was it was fun. Because, in fact, it’s gotten a lot of play out on the interwebs this week as well. So after Megan signs the client agreement, which is super important, because you want to make sure that are you representing Megan Thee Stallion, the entertainer, are you representing the on a personal level? Are you representing a business of hers, it’s one of the things that gets law firms into trouble is not knowing exactly who your client is and which interest you are of work you’re doing for the family. So setting, setting that scope in the in the client agreement is super important. But once everything signed, it’s time to celebrate. And if you’re bringing on a big client, especially one like Meghan the stallion, who’s an entertainer, they start breaking into a dance and in fact, Megan Thee Stallion is so impressed and says straight up that you are so much more fun than my last lawyer. And in fact, we see Mr. Holloway walking through and I thought this was actually good and kind of counters the naysayers out on out on Twitter this week. And that he walks by he sees this torquing going on and just says, Huh, and then walks off. Doesn’t look disappointed. Doesn’t you know, he looks like well, okay, well, that’s interesting. And then yeah, who’s on? So I think if you were pug and you signed Meghan the stallion and pug tried to torque. That’s just different. I

Joshua Lenon 42:43
think it just sounds a little out of place. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 42:45
I think this was Jennifer’s true personality. And you know, and it’s okay to have your own personality at a law firm and especially if that fits. It should be okay.

Joshua Lenon 42:57
Yeah, yeah. She’s bringing in business. Let’s let her dance. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 43:02
Although Jen does walk up to the line with with even Megan Thee Stallion by saying, I will kill for you Megan Thee Stallion. And then Megan sets up those boundaries right there and says, Alright, dial it back. Yeah, we know where it’s too far too far. But I thought it was great. I thought I loved the episode. I love the interaction. I saw an outtake where of that scene where they actually Tatyana The actress was up on a platform dancing, doing that with all of the special effects your hairs on her. So really kind of fun. I think everyone had a blast making that episode. Like Megan Thee Stallion on it.

Joshua Lenon 43:48
So, one of the fun details I’ve noticed is that when Tatiana is going around in her Jen Walters persona, she’s wearing oversized clothes. Yes. Yeah. All the time now. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was just a nice bit of costuming to add for Miss le tude. Yeah, to this. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 44:06
Although she has to remember to take off her shoes. Yeah,

Joshua Lenon 44:09
yeah. So some designers somewhere it’s gonna get really famous by creating like stretchy shoes. Exactly.

Greg Lambert 44:14
Yes. Yeah. So any other things you want to cover on the episode?

Joshua Lenon 44:20
No, I think we’ve really started to hit the stride with this one. And I’m eager to see what the cases are for the next episode, so that we can see what legal issues are being explored by She-Hulk. Attorney at Law.

Greg Lambert 44:34
All right. Well, that wraps up episode three this week. We thank everyone for listening. If you have questions or you want to reach out to us, you can hit me up on Twitter at G Lambert. Org Lambert. How about you Joshua.

Joshua Lenon 44:48
I’m at Joshua Lenon, l e n o n

Greg Lambert 44:52
and we also have the podcast Twitter account at superhuman pod. And so if you want to reach out They’re a follow in we’ll pass along some more information so until next week I’ll we’ll see you later

Joshua Lenon 45:06
It’s always a blast Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Transcript:

Greg Lambert  0:19

So imagine running a superhuman law division of a law firm. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about here. And we’re going to start off the series by reviewing the new She Hulk Attorney at Law on Disney+. So let’s dive into episode two of superhuman law division. I’m Greg Lambert, and alongside with my superhuman law division co counsel, Joshua Lenon. Joshua, it’s good to see you.

Joshua Lenon  0:45

It is good to be here. Greg, thank you so much for having me.

Greg Lambert  0:48

So while you’re… I mean, this is as much yours as it is mine is just I get to talk first, I guess. So, speaking of first, last week, we both made a few projections on some things that we thought were gonna happen on the show. And it turned out I was completely wrong. And you knocked it out of the park, at least on one thing, which was, you said the case that Jennifer Walters was prosecuting would result in a mistrial. And I think you are right, you want to want to just start us off there.

Joshua Lenon  1:18

Absolutely. So at the end of the last episode, we saw that superhuman influencer, Tatiana, Tatiana, Tatiana, and

Greg Lambert  1:29

Titania,

Joshua Lenon  1:29

Titania, thank you, yeah, had burst into the courtroom, in a fit of rage was about to crush the jury. And so Jen Walters transformed into her She-Hulk persona, and saved everyone yay. At which point, the her opposing counsel behind the scenes went and filed for a mistrial, saying that the very fact that she saved the lives of the jury would have undue influence on them. Such they couldn’t separate the arguments of the trial from the fact that one lawyer saved their life. And while this seems like a bit of a stretch, mistrials happen every day, it’s a procedural event that happens when something outside of the courts influence is having an impact. And it could be, for example, that your jury is reading social media about your trial when they’ve been explicitly warned not to, or that there’s some type of contact, improper contact between the parties and the jury. And so anytime you have something like that, there’s a procedural rule where a one side can say, hey, this isn’t a fair trial anymore. And the judge agrees a mistrial is declared. What’s interesting about it is winning the mistrial motion doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve won the trial. It just means that you now get a second trial, a new trial with a new jury without that undue influence. And that’s what’s going to happen to this company. The benefit to them is, with a mistrial motion, that they now kind of get a second chance, right, they get to see what arguments were brought out by Jen Walters side, they get to see if they thought those arguments were persuasive to the jury, and maybe come up with a new approach. Although there are some things that won’t change. There are certain bits of evidence that they won’t get to bring in because they might have already been excluded by order in the prior trial. So it’s all gamesmanship, and we’ll see that a lot, I think in this series.  But it was definitely one that was just immediately apparent. Once we saw that in the first episode.

Greg Lambert  3:40

Yeah, definitely a lot of gamesmanship from especially from the GLK&H. Lawyers. That seems to to be their MO for how they represent their clients. And

Joshua Lenon  3:53

Yeah, win on the technicalities.

Greg Lambert  3:55

Well, they’re definitely if you’re on trial, those are the guys you want in your corner.

Joshua Lenon  3:59

Yeah.

Greg Lambert  4:01

So one of the first things that I noticed the show was that there was a bar, an attorney themed bar called Legal Ease. And so what did you think of the bar there?

Joshua Lenon  4:16

First, it was a great pun. So legalease, is how we talk about the fancy formal language that lawyers often use, especially in written form.

Greg Lambert  4:27

Heretofore.

Joshua Lenon  4:29

yeah, exactly. But sometimes, sometimes that language is important, not all the time. And then the bar itself was named Legal…  Ease as in like, take it easy. I found that it would be a great pun. There are kind of often locations where lawyers might congregate, and those tend to be around courthouses. They’re the center of many towns, but they’re also the center of a lot of the legal proceedings that happen. If you’re not in your office, you’re in the courthouse. And so we do often see businesses related to lawyers around courthouses. It could be a bar like the legal ease, it could be supply stores, like in Canada, for example, lawyers have a very specific dress code, they appear wearing a certain type of robe. And so there are stores around the courthouse here in Vancouver that actually cater to lawyer clothing and other lawyer paraphernalia that is required as a part of the rules up here.

Greg Lambert  5:34

I was joking with some folks around here that if I were to open up a Legal Ease type bar, it would have to also be a karaoke bar. Because I don’t know if the lawyers you work with, but all the ones I work with seem to flock to the karaoke bars, so drinks and karaoke

Joshua Lenon  5:53

litigators love attention. There used to being kind of front and center on stage.

Greg Lambert  5:57

That is true, I guess I hadn’t thought about that. But anytime you can give them a microphone, they will take it right. So while at the bar, there was a common thing that you hear from a lot of, especially younger lawyers, and that was Jennifer notes that she racked up some six figures in student loans. And you know, one of the articles I’ve read recently was the announcement that I think it was Columbia Law School in New York, is now over $100,000 a year for tuition and expenses. So it’s not just in not just private schools, my alma mater, which is a public school at University of Oklahoma, when I started, it was the 28 years ago in 1994. Law school was $100 per credit hour. And currently, I found out it’s something like eight and a half times that amount. So law school is pricey.

Joshua Lenon  7:00

Law school is very, very expensive. If we look at the ABA’s Model of the Legal Profession, we see that most law students are coming out with six figure law school debt, the 100k tuition you’re talking about for Columbia, that doesn’t include living expenses. Yeah. And most law schools actually do not allow law students to work for at least their first year of law school. So we see that a lot of law students end up with a huge amount of debt. And so things that popped out later in the episode to me about that was the disparity. In the types of law firms that we saw just little tiny glimpses of, and how a lot of them do not have the jobs and compensation that supports a six figure student loan debt. So it’s actually a real problem that we have lawyers are struggling under debt load, and an industry that’s not really set up to carry that debt load for the requirements that we’re imposing on law students, every every class every year.

Greg Lambert  8:07

So because of the mistrial, poor Jennifer gets fired as a prosecutor, which I think was completely unfair, is it she said, Was I supposed to deal with that table crushed the the jury? But and you mentioned that in the subsequent interviews that she did, in trying to find new employment, that you just slowly see the type of law firm the style go down? And

yeah

There was something that I had a few weeks ago, we did an interview with Kerry Benn from Law360. And she talked about the summer associates and just the amount of pay range that they have, which some actually volunteer and some get the equivalent of like, $200,000 a year for their time. So there’s a big disparity in what lawyers can make a year. And I think the average here in Texas is something like 90k.

Joshua Lenon  9:08

Wow, just for a summer associate for three months? That’s amazing.

Greg Lambert  9:12

No, I’m talking about a salary for a full time lawyer, on average in Texas is $90,000 a year. So it’s, it’s not necessarily the job to go into if you think you’re going to be, you know, super rich.

Joshua Lenon  9:26

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, there’s a huge disparity. We call it the bimodal distribution of salaries for lawyers, were lawyers in big law, which is what we call like, the biggest law firms is oftentimes hundreds of thousands of dollars even before you make partner. And then there are the lawyers in small solo and smaller firms where the average salary is closer to $60,000. And those polls and salary distribution is something that not a lot of people know about lawyers and it does impact that type of services that you can get from a lawyer where they are on those salaries. And so as Jennifer is interviewing for a new job, we see she’s in the white shoe law firm with a big office and all the fancy art on the wall. And then it, it kind of has some signals that you can see that she’s moving maybe a little bit down the income stream, where now they have a bunch of law books. Still, they’ve got a library, right, but they’re looking good. And then it jumps to a wall behind her of file cabinets. So they don’t even have the space in their law firm to have their own file cabinet room. It’s in the lawyer’s office. And then they jump below that, and it’s very clear that she’s in someplace that that might be struggling a little bit, the lighting looks bad.

Greg Lambert  10:49

Looks kind of like a basement.

Joshua Lenon  10:51

Yeah, it looks kind of like a basement in terms of the lighting and the wall. And there are loose papers and banker boxes Ever. Which I gotta be honest, every law firm is going to have that it’s just whether or not you can hide it. And so just watching those those subtle signals, as she was interviewing was apparent to me that these people do know that different law firms exist. They operate in a whole different classes of income streams and the people they service. And they were trying to bring that out in the subtlest of ways.

Greg Lambert  11:23

So she does end up going back to the Legal Ease bar by herself after being fired and, and then being told that she can’t get a job because she’s a super human, and they don’t need that distraction. And then, lo and behold, she runs into Mr. Holliway from GLK and H and is offered a job, specifically because she is a superhuman. So I guess if you can’t find them, join them. Right?

Joshua Lenon  11:53

Yeah. And the offer itself is really interesting. We definitely know that Holliway has a very interesting approach to employee management. He does not seem to be empathetic to Jennifer’s dire straits with their student loans and not having a job and clearly has designs on utilizing her for his own benefit. She she’s a tool that he plans to use. And so there are certain things that he’s actually doing to her, that might be indicative of a big law partner. Big law partners make their money often by leveraging younger attorneys. And then the younger attorneys work is charged at a certain hundreds of dollars per hour. Some of that is pocketed by the partner. We call that profit per partner. It’s a really important metric in big law firms. Then some of it’s used to pay like the salary of the younger lawyer, etc, etc. But it oftentimes creates this view, from law firm partners, that junior associates, those younger lawyers are tools, they’re disposable. There’s always a class of lawyers that you can hire, right? Coming out of law school. And it definitely creates an odd power dynamic that oftentimes can be really toxic. And so it’s interesting to see how that plays out. When you have a lawyer with Jennifer’s really unique abilities that you’re trying to leverage, right? Is she going to be somebody who is so talented, so unique, so media friendly, that she could just walk? Yeah. And will that change the dynamic in the future? There are a couple of requirements that are being imposed on Jennifer Walters as a part of this job. The first of which is they want her to be in her She Hulk persona. As a part of this. Legally speaking, I was trying to figure out like, what’s at play here? And one of the the interesting things about this narrative of She Hulk is that she is in part a Hulk because of her unique genetic background. She’s the cousin of Bruce Banner, the Hulk, they have some apparently some similar unique genetic traits that enable them to hulk out. So are we running into the genetic information privacy issues that exist within the United States? And then you can’t require the disclosement of that there are certain storage requirements around that? Does it feed into the Americans with Disabilities Act, and there are certain things about a person’s health that you aren’t allowed to ask or make conditional as a part of offering somebody a job? Well, at the same time, medical conditions can be a legitimate reason for somebody not to be hired, right? If a job for example, requires standing for several hours a day the ability to lift a certain amount of weight, and somebody unfortunately cannot do that, it could be that they’re not the right fit for a job, there’s no way to reasonably accommodate them. I can’t think of a lawyer role that requires you to be like seven foot tall, green and can benchpress a boulder. But if anybody can come up with it, I bet it’s Holliway.

Greg Lambert  15:17

Yeah, the only the only parallel that I could even kind of come up with was, let’s say somebody can either use crutches or a wheelchair. And being told, while you’re here, you can only use crutches because we want you stand and we want you standing, we want we want you to present in a different way. And so that’s that’s kind of what I was drawing a parallel to. But I don’t know that. I mean, a good lawyer could shoot a big hole right through that. I’m sure.

Joshua Lenon  15:50

There’s there’s definitely that there’s another one that we could take a look at. And that’s jobs that have an imposed dress code. Hmm, true. And so there’s a lot of case law on like retail industries, restaurants, for example, that have a dress code for their employees. And it’s part of the branding for the restaurant, right? We have either our servers dressed in a certain costume. You can think of them being done in like a fancy level or also being done somewhat exploitive level, right. But the case law is very clear if we are consistent on imposing the dress code across employees. It’s not necessarily exploitative. Now, the problem we’re seeing with Jen Walters is there’s only one She Hulk. So imposing a dress code of big and green on her. Is that something that’s been done consistently throughout the law firm? That might be an issue that she could exploit at some point in determining whether or not she just wants to be that way all the time?

Greg Lambert  16:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, as they were walking through and and as Mr. Holliway was apparently saying something that is probably going to come back and bite Jennifer in her green rump later in the season. As they were walking through, did you see the research library? That was there?

Joshua Lenon  17:18

I saw it, I knew that you would bring this up.

Greg Lambert  17:22

I love that. So yeah, immediately, just like I did with the bookshelf last week, where I went through and I looked and tried to identify as many things as I could. Same thing. I did a screenshot as they walked past the Law Library, which, which actually is referenced a lot in the comic books, is that their research/Law Library is actually made up of comic books, because in the Marvel Universe, comic books are actual kind of historical representation of things that have happened with superhumans.

Joshua Lenon  17:59

They’re licensed material, right? So they’re kind of like mini autobiographies.

Greg Lambert  18:03

Exactly. Exactly. So if you saw into the spider verse, there was a little bit of it there. Where is one Spider Man was was coming yet coming out, there was the Spider Man comic books that basically paralleled what he was going through. And so there were a lot of people that were also looking at that collection, and you see a number of things from, it’s really a lot of the things that you would expect, because with the MCU, they’re very good about keeping a storyline going. So apparently, there were things that lots of Scarlet Witch So Wanda was there, Captain America, Iron Man Thor, I believe there was a Moon Knight issue. So it basically just parallels the only thing and I couldn’t make it out myself. But someone pointed out or thought that they saw up on the top shelf of that was a Squirrel Girl comic book, which is not a character that’s been out yet. But is is a good friend of Ms. Marvel In the comics storylines. Yeah, comic storylines. So it would make sense that down the road and Phase Five or six that we will see Squirrel Girl, which is a fun character.

Joshua Lenon  19:24

Yeah, definitely a lighthearted romp, and all of her different storylines. So and and that’s actually one of the things that I enjoy about these these four color comic universes, as you can tell. He’s like amazing expansive tales, right. alien invasions in New York. And then you can have these lighthearted romps where somebody has the proportionate strength of a squirrel and a tail, and how does she get through her day?

Greg Lambert  19:51

Love it.

Joshua Lenon  19:52

There’s room for all of those stories and and She-Hulk is kind of where they come together in one place.

Greg Lambert  19:57

Yeah, yeah. So as we’re walking through, we See Jennifer’s office,

Joshua Lenon  20:02

Yeah,

Greg Lambert  20:03

Oh, man, there would be people that I know that would kill to have that corner office because that’s something that well, I guess she is, quote unquote, the practice group leader of the superhuman law division. So practice group leaders tend to get corner offices. Was there anything in the office that popped up to you,

Joshua Lenon  20:22

you know, a lot of it was just space to be perfectly honest. Space is at a premium. When it comes to law firms, they actually spend more per employee for space than almost every other professional industry. And so the stats are pretty staggering. Something like $900 per square foot in an office space, which is anybody who follows corporate real estate is like, wow, that is way too much. And yet, for law firms operating in the GLK/H environment, right, the presentation is often part of the service. It gives a sense of prestige to your client, it gives a sense of well being to know that they’ve hired these high price attorneys on behalf of them. And so we talk about game theory and gamesmanship a lot, but we’re gonna see that a lot of the practice of law both in the courtroom and outside of it is how do you handle yourself? And I think that’s going to continue there. Yeah. What did you see in there that jumped out at you?

Greg Lambert  21:31

So that one was, yeah, same with you the the size of it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone that has a cooler in their office that doesn’t have some kind of liquor in it instead of just the spring water that that was there that may that may be Disney+ kind of thing.

Joshua Lenon  21:53

Could be a Disney influence. It could be that there. Jen has her own budget with which to stock Yeah, and it hasn’t been done yet. For right.

Greg Lambert  22:02

True. Speaking of budget, she did talk about because she is she has to be in She Hulk form. She has to budget now for a whole new wardrobe. So but Nikki, her paralegal who she got to come over with her, that was one of her. And in fact, it may have been the only demand that she had in taking the job, which Holliway said he could care less who her paralegal was another instance of his management style. He’s, he’s what some people would call the big picture leader that he’s he doesn’t care about the little stuff. He cares about the big stuff.

Get it on my desk.

Exactly. But the fact that he had had on the phone had fired one person and then reassigned another person to Minneapolis, because they hate the cold also shows you what kind of what kind of leader he is.

Joshua Lenon  22:55

Not a lot of empathy.

Greg Lambert  22:57

Yeah, I think he’s a throwback to the pre 2008 Law Firm leaders. And so the so when we had the big recession, in 2008, there was a push for a, you know, a gentler hand in leadership in large law firms than had been to that point. And so and I think, I think you’re seeing that in leadership now.

Joshua Lenon  23:26

I think so it’s actually a bit of a self own. But what we saw in 2008, is a lot of law firms just did some some pretty indiscriminate firing of lower level positions. And what happened was, there was nobody then kind of rising through the ranks of experience, to become the next generation of replacement partners. And law firms really do operate on this cycle of bringing in fresh blood, some of them become rainmakers, they create business, and those rainmakers then kind of carry the rest of the law firms to the partners who are sucking up that profit. When we hit the point a couple years later, after the Great Recession, where there was nobody coming up into partner because they had fired all their young lawyers, law firms really had to start thinking about how do we create a law firm that can continue. And so we’re seeing changes in office use, we’re seeing changes in mentorship and training, and we’re seeing changes in hiring practices. And all of those things have been carried forward now into the pandemic era where work from home now became a part of law firm operations, and we’re going to keep seeing it.

Greg Lambert  24:39

So before we leave the office, I wanted to point out the gifts that pug, their fellow attorney and the superhuman law division brings them a gift basket for the office. Now one of them is either a real gift or it’s just a common thing that litigators have, which is the See you later litigator mug shows back up in that gift basket, I’m going to step out on a ledge here. And the thing I really want to talk about is the map to the best bathrooms to poop in. So

Joshua Lenon  25:16

yeah, that jumped out at me is a really odd thing to give, like a new colleague.

Greg Lambert  25:21

Yeah. Well, and especially to women, I, you know, coming from a man to women, it’s not something I would do. Yeah, I totally, it’s one of those things where if you have to ask if this is appropriate, then it’s not and don’t do it, which is, you know, words to live by in a law firm. If you have to ask somebody if this is appropriate, just don’t do it. Just yeah. But since he did, let’s talk about it. And so here’s my thoughts on that. And that is, for someone who has worked in large law firms for the for almost 20 years. Now, this is a high stress environment. And when you need to go poop, you don’t want people around you. So my guess is, this is the quiet bathroom off in the corner somewhere that clients don’t go to. So I think, you know, there’s, there’s certain things you just don’t want clients to hear.

Joshua Lenon  26:18

I can understand that maybe far away from the partners you’re interacting with as well. Right. And so you’re less likely to have an awkward conversation to or from your place of business.

Greg Lambert  26:28

Yep. And you don’t want somebody recognizing your shoes later.

Joshua Lenon  26:32

So exactly.

Greg Lambert  26:34

So what were your thoughts on that? Was there anything that popped up?

Joshua Lenon  26:38

Oh, well, I was wondering if they were actually trying to set the new colleague up as somebody who does have issues with social grace, maybe right, and what might be the reason behind that, and then we get to discuss a different type of diversity within law firm environments. So because it’s such an odd, standout moment of communication that really felt like they were trying to set something up for later with that new colleague.

Greg Lambert  27:06

Yeah, it was really interesting at how appreciative that Jen and Nikki looked for having that map.

Joshua Lenon  27:12

Yeah, yeah. Which, admittedly, a new office. Yeah, you’re gonna need to know where to go. When it’s time to go.

Greg Lambert  27:19

There are just certain internal politics and functions that you that you want to know about. So hopefully, we didn’t we didn’t cross a TMI line there. But I thought it would be kind of fun to talk about that. Do you want to jump into the Emil Blonsky case? The Abomination. Absolutely.

Joshua Lenon  27:36

Yeah. So it does seem like they are sending up she hoped to be like a continuing procedural. So it’s not going to be the case of the week, but some ongoing cases, this person was starting out as Emil Blonsky, which is interestingly, a callback to character from a much earlier Marvel movie, kind of before they set up the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah. And so the fact that they’re kind of bringing in or retconning, this character into the current continuity, was kind of fun. And so this character is a gamma irradiated, super powered individual, just like Hulk and She Hulk. And in his case, his super name is the abomination. He has been incarcerated in a very strict prison environment for I’m not sure the number of years that they’ve mentioned. And he’s now looking for parole. So to be released under his own recognizance. And there are a couple of issues that popped up as a part of this one. Can Jennifer Walters represents someone who is in jail, in part because they attacked a family member of hers? Is this a conflict of interest? So technically, this is not a conflict of interest under the ethical rules, she does not necessarily have information about the interaction that led to the incarceration. She could write, she could have had like backroom discussions with her cousin, the hawk on what happened and why it happened. But we don’t have that background. But what was interesting is they brought up the the issue of conflict waiver, and this does exist, and that is a client who knows that a lawyer or a law firm has a conflict of interest, can choose to waive their objections to that conflict of interest. So importantly, and this is what they didn’t include, is oftentimes it’s recommended that that client get a second opinion from an independent lawyer in order to ensure that they are informed when giving consent to this conflict waiver. We don’t necessarily see that happening. And so it could still be an issue in the future is Emile Blonsky waiving the conflict of interest without giving informed consent, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think there’s a reason all of these individuals are coming together. And we’ve yet to see it emerge within the story itself. But I think they want Jen Walters there for a reason, beyond the conflict of interest. And so they’re just gonna ignore that whole point. Yeah.

Greg Lambert  30:27

And since I deal with conflicts in my day to day job, one of the things that is interesting here that you don’t get normally in a large law firm environment is usually there’s an opposing side. So I’m talking about conflicts, the conflicts tend to be one side against the other, either, we’ve represented both sides, and we need to get both sides to agree to waive that, if they think it’s in their best interest. But here, there’s just one party, and the conflict is internal with the lawyer themselves. And so Jennifer brings it up, which she should lawyers, whenever they have a conflict, they have the legal duty to identify that conflict, and do whatever it is that they need to do, whether that’s creating an ethical wall that bars them from knowing anything about that if their firm represents them, or it’s doing anything that would relieve the parties involved to understand one, there’s a conflict, here’s what we’re here’s what we’re gonna do about it. And of course, the parties themselves, just like with most things in America, you can contract your way into anything. And basically, by signing a waiver, you sign a contract with the other parties that says, We understand that and we are waiving our right to bring this up as an issue later on. It’s something that’s very common in large law firms, just because we represent so many clients that we have entire teams dedicated to the conflicts process for us is both looking at the clients themselves, and the matters that they’re bringing. And then one other thing that we do with conflicts here is whenever we hire somebody, we also run conflicts, because when you bring somebody in, you bring everything with them. Well, their conflicts. Yeah, exactly. Just conflict sounds mundane and boring. But it can be very interesting at times.

Joshua Lenon  32:30

Whole bunch of paperwork. Every time. Yes. Yeah.

Greg Lambert  32:35

So the matter itself is a again, you mentioned that it is a parole hearing. Yeah, I found it interesting that some of the advice that Jennifer gave one, I think she implied please don’t read the haikus to the parole board that that he created. Although it was it was mentioned by Bruce Banner or smart hope that he actually appreciated those kind haikus.

Joshua Lenon  33:03

He appreciated. Yeah, so the parole hearing is going to take a look at do we see evidence of rehabilitation on the part of the convicted individual? And also, are they going to be a harm to themselves and others outside of the prison environment? And what is the likelihood of recidivism? How likely are they to engage in crime again, and all of these will be metrics that’ll be weighed on Emil Blonsky. If he does get a parole hearing, which is one of the things we haven’t established yet, but they did leave with a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, where it looks like there is evidence of Emil Blonsky, having escaped prison at some point. And they included a scene from the Shang chi movie. I know I’m mispronouncing that, where there was Wong the character from the Doctor Strange movies in a kind of fight club s tournament, yes, against the abomination. And he we’re used to seeing that movie, which is a great movie I highly recommend. It also knows that there’s a little bit more going on in the relationship between Wong and Emile Blonsky. And I think my prediction for the upcoming episode is that we’re actually going to see that this is part of the rehabilitation process for Emil Blonsky. It might be his court mandated therapy. That is taking the unusual superhuman approach that only happens at a four color universe.

Greg Lambert  34:36

Yes, yes, I you know, I hadn’t even thought of that. So I’m gonna be interested in watching the next episode to see if that comes to fruition or not. I also want to find out who is Blonsky seven soulmates that he’s found through the pen pal system in prison. I wonder if there’s something there as well.

Joshua Lenon  34:55

I totally agree with you. I think the the fact that it’s a highly specific number seven soul Moment makes me wonder whom they’re setting up for that. And isn’t going to be like some future supervillain club that we don’t know about yet.

Greg Lambert  35:10

Well, definitely, I think a lot coming to us over the next. I think this is a is this a 10? episode series?

Joshua Lenon  35:19

So I think it’s eight. Oh, is it? Okay, but I’m looking forward to however many are left. Yeah,

Greg Lambert  35:24

absolutely. So we’re still looking for some advice from the listeners out there. Maybe you can give us some suggestions on some real life superhuman lawyers that are out there. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be anyone extremely notable that people would know off the top of their heads. But if you’ve had interactions with with someone who you think has gone above and beyond and just let us know. And Joshua, I know you mentioned gamma radiation earlier again. Yeah, I did have one listener, reach out to me and say that gamma radiation is real. There is such a thing as gamma radiation. So that’s noted. But he also did point out that it will not turn you into a giant, seven foot tall Green person.

Joshua Lenon  36:13

what they describe as gamma radiation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, clearly does not conform with the laws of physics in our real world. And so I do think we have to we have to describe it as separate than actual gamma radiation. Exactly,

Greg Lambert  36:29

exactly. Well, I am looking forward to watching episode three. If anyone wants to reach out to us I can be reached at G Lambert or @glambert on Twitter, and Joshua, what about you?

Joshua Lenon  36:44

My Twitter handle is @JoshuaLenon, l e n o n,

Greg Lambert  36:48

and we actually have a podcast, Twitter account to its @SuperHumanPod. So just reach out to us at any of those three locations and we’ll talk to everybody next week.

Joshua Lenon  37:00

Stay super everyone.

How exactly would a world that contains people with super human powers maintain law and order over those individuals? More specifically, how could a law firm position its attorneys to represent those superhumans, and make some money off of them at the same time? These are some of the questions that Clio’s Lawyer in Residence, Joshua Lenon, and AmLaw 200 firm’s Chief Knowledge Services Officer, Greg Lambert prepare to answer. Starting off with Disney+/MCU’s newest show, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

The series is about how a top-tier Los Angeles law firm, GLK/H has created a new practice group called SuperHuman Law Division. This division is designed to represent those with superhuman abilities against the criminal and civil law suits that they face. Everyone deserves competent legal representation and GLK/H’s high-dollar attorneys plan to do just that.

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts |  Spotify

This podcast focuses on the legal issues we spot in the episodes. Some of them may be obvious, some may be ignored, but not by us. Whether it is simple assault, kidnapping, property damages, corporate espionage, or even murder, we’re here to call it out and discuss what the law should do about it.

We’ll also take our unique experiences in working in the legal industry to talk about the dynamics of what it takes to run a law firm with such specialized and unique clients.

So strap into your hoverjet and sit back as we launch the SuperHuman Law Division Podcast.

Follow on Twitter at @superhumanpod

Transcript

Greg Lambert  0:19

So imagine running a superhuman law division of a law firm. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here. As we start going over the series, she hooked Attorney at Law now on Disney plus, first, let’s

Joshua Lenon  0:33

introduce ourselves and claim why we decided to begin this journey by looking at the legal issues in comics, TV, movies and pop culture.

Greg Lambert  0:40

So Joshua, we’ll start off with you can you give us a little bit of background on yourself and what inspired you to want to start this podcast with me?

Joshua Lenon  0:48

I’m Joshua Lenon. I’m CLIO’s Lawyer in Residence. I’m an attorney admitted into New York and I’m a certified privacy professional. My job title Lawyer in Residence is a made up title to encompass the jack of all trades role that I inhabit at an amazing legal technology company. My day to day includes researching Privacy and Technology law, the current and future impact of technology on lawyers and the practice of law, and swooping in to cause problems for well-meaning software developers who just want to code, dammit. The great thing about this role is it really gives me the opportunity to get to know lawyers and the things that are important to lawyers. And that includes our portrayal in the media.

Greg Lambert  1:33

So I’ll take this time. Hi, everyone. I’m Greg Lambert, and my day job is the Chief Knowledge Services Officer at a 450 plus attorney law firm in Texas. And that title is fancy for being the person who oversees the library and research teams for the firm, as well as looking over the client, matter, and lateral conflicts processes here. I’m going to use my experiences in both of these roles to take a look at how a SuperHuman Law practice area would need to prepare for the issues as well as exactly what kind of clients can a firm take on without actually causing any practical issues with representing your other clients or those clients who you want to bring in? My other podcast is The Geek in Review podcast that I co-host with Marlene Gebauer.

Joshua Lenon  2:30

That’s a phenomenal podcast. I recommend everybody check it out.

Greg Lambert  2:33

Thanks, Joshua. So we’re going to start off with talking shop about the MCU Disney plus TV series. She-Hulk Attorney at Law. So Joshua, what do you know about She-Hulk Prior to this new TV show?

Joshua Lenon  2:48

So I was comics collector when I was younger. And as a teen I did gravitate towards the Marvel Comics universe. And so anybody who grew up in the 90s knew about the X-Men, and the huge bust in boom cycle of comics at that time. And so I was familiar with she held through a lot of their crossover events that comics have people who watch the movies now will know that you have kind of the superhero movie on their own, like the IronMan movie or the Captain America movie. And then you’ll have the Avengers movies where they all get together. And comic books are very much like that as well only on an even grander scale. Because you can just pack every person onto a page, so long as you don’t care about the poor artists that draws them. And so I was familiar with She Hulk as a character all the way back then, but really became invested in her as a character in a run done by Dan Slott in 2004. And the original run was called A Single Green Female, if I remember correctly, which was actually a riff on the Ally McBeal show that had swept pop culture. So you had single female lawyer, and here we’ve got single green female lawyer for her. And what was important about this run and interest me was it looked at how being a lawyer impacted the type of super heroine that She-Hulk did, and vice versa, how being a superhero impacted her legal career. And I found that juxtaposition to be just incredibly fascinating. And I really enjoyed it. It made me look forward to this TV series that we’re now seeing when it was announced. I’m like, Oh, I really hope they focus on some of those stories as well. How about you, Dan, how did you become familiar? I did it again. I called you Dan.

Greg Lambert  4:51

That’s alright.

Joshua Lenon  4:51

How about you, Greg. What made you interested in She-Hulk?

Greg Lambert  4:56

Well Dan Slott’s a very powerful writers. So I’m glad you got us confused.

Joshua Lenon  5:00

Influential!

Greg Lambert  5:02

Yes. I actually collected, She-Hulk, the very original 25 comic book run that came out, I believe, I think it actually came out in late 1979 or early 1980. And so I was like 11 at the time. And, you know, I actually still have that run and one of my long storage boxes in my room somewhere, but I really kind of dropped out of collecting comics after I became kind of a late teenager, I joined the Army and moved off and it really wasn’t room or money to collect comic books at that time. But that whole run there was pretty amazing. There was a John Byrne run that came just a few years later. And that’s the one where she breaks the fourth wall in the comic books itself. So long before Deadpool was out there. She was breaking the fourth wall in comics, and that was kind of a John Byrne thing.

Joshua Lenon  6:00

It was really unconventional run at the time, right?

Greg Lambert  6:03

Yeah, yeah.  And Byrne is such a great, he was such a great influence at that time, because he’s the one that did the Uncanny X Men, he did Superman. He kind of revived the Fantastic Four. And then he took a shot at She Hulk. And it was a really fun run. Just like you, it was more that Dan Slott run where she became a lawyer. That was the focus. I believe she pretty much maintained her. She-Hulk character, most of the time not wanting to get back into the gin Walters persona, because she could party. And I think we’ll kind of touch on this later, that that became kind of an issue with her practicing law and partying at the same time, which, you know, unfortunately, a lot of lawyers find out throughout their career at some point.

Joshua Lenon  6:55

Yeah, it’s tough to divorce the professional and the personal for a lawyer, maybe not for the lawyer themselves, but in the people’s perceptions of the lawyer. Yeah, it’s something you got to watch for.

Greg Lambert  7:05

Yeah. That whole run there as I was, as I was kind of refining comic books over the past couple of years, that really just intrigued me with all of the legal issues that they dealt with that they were dealing with a, you know, a large multi attorney law firm. It was just fascinating, having been on the operation side of law firms for so many years to see the fact that they had a library that it was made up of mostly comic books. But they you know, they had a law library, you know, and there was a number of legal issues that they touched on, which I hope they kind of bring in some of those into the TV series. But there’s always these legal issues that go on in pop culture and comics and movies, that as somebody who deals with it in the real world, you see things like, well, who’s going to pay for all this damage that you know Thor did by throwing his hammer in midtown Manhattan and taking down you know, an entire floor of a building out? So I mean, it’s just things like that just nerdy things sticking in my head, and I’m sure they do yours as well.

Joshua Lenon  8:12

100% do and Well, I think that’s actually somewhat interesting. He’s many times you can’t divorce the law from comics, either. It’s something that’s been explored within the pages themselves, or the history of comics are just filled with a whole host of legal issues. Trials, backstabbing, depending on your point of view, within those trials and the contracts around them. So we, as lawyers, oftentimes, maybe get a little bit more out of comics than I think a lot of people who enjoy just a good fight scene, right? In an action movie, we oftentimes are seeing, like the issues that are either leading to how the story is being portrayed, or what’s available to be on the screen itself. All of these things happen because of the law. And so being a lawyer interacting with comics is actually a really fun hobby.

Greg Lambert  9:13

And then even in real life, comic books just kind of spur their own legal issues. Because you are talking about intellectual property, you’re talking about, you know, millions of dollars of content, billions of dollars of content in some cases, and you have historical legal issues where, for example, you know, Jack Kirby’s issue with Stan Lee, and whether or not Jack Kirby, who created all of the drawings of all of these amazing characters, and co-created all of these, but then was ruled to be a work for hire under intellectual property laws. So he had no rights to these things that he had essentially created. And so I know there’s a you know, there’s a whole number of issues that Bill Finger with Batman having some similar problems on that. And so it’s you know, you can’t divorce real life from fiction it seems.

Joshua Lenon  10:11

100% Even in what we have today, right? audience might not know this, but I live in Canada. And so the access I have to content is different than what you have based on just the licensing and distribution agreements related to these studios and what they produce. And we’ve even seen that impact like big blockbuster pictures like The Avengers themselves, where Spider Man was originally licensed to Fox Studios, a long, long time ago. And so the fact that you had Spider Man, now appearing alongside the Avengers, who were now owned by Disney, right was this huge contract negotiation and potential lawsuit nightmare, just to have a guy who jumps between buildings and swings on webs appear in a movie has just massive, massive legal spend around it, we’re still seeing that everywhere,

Greg Lambert  11:14

Brings up the bankruptcy issues from the 90s when Marvel filed for bankruptcy and split, the X Men slash mutants went to Fox, Spider-Man went to and maybe Fantastic Four went to Sony and, and then Disney got basically the superhero batch as well. So we are seeing that kind of tighten up a little bit and seeing more of the crossover in that. But again, that was nearly you know, 25 years ago that all of these deals were cut.

Joshua Lenon  11:48

Yeah, bankruptcy, contract law, all of these things impacting how these media empires have been built and run since. It’s tough to believe, but the Avengers characters were not considered the high value property for Marvel in the 90s. And so when Marvel Studios said we’re going to do The Avengers, I was like, Really? that’s it, that’s what you’re gonna build your cinematic universe on? And now it’s this bedrock of pop culture. But in the 90s, everybody thought it was going to be X Men, everybody thought it was gonna be Fantastic Four they sold those rights off, because they were desperate. And years later, now, Disney is bought Marvel. Marvel has created the Avengers and Disney has now bought Fox licensed out a lot of Sony’s properties. The law impacts all of these things. And so behind the scenes, just it’s very fascinating for lawyers.

Greg Lambert  12:44

Yeah, it’s crazy.

Joshua Lenon  12:46

But let’s pull it now to their latest creation, She Hulk

Greg Lambert  12:49

Joshua, it’s nice with you being in Canada and me being in the US that they actually allow this to be released on the same day so that we don’t have to wait for one of us to see it when the other hasn’t had a chance. So what are your thoughts on the first episode?

Joshua Lenon  13:05

I enjoyed it. So I think it hit the ground running, which was great. It pulled, I think a lot of the source material, or at least it’s set up that it’s going to pull a lot of the source material that you and I both like from the Slott run, where being a lawyer is a part of Jennifer’s story, not just a job title that gets tossed in the background, as we then have adventures in outer space or something. All right. I do think the first episode was obviously a lot of kind of origin story background stuff. But interestingly, it doesn’t like the whole series is going to be an origin story. We got a lot of that out of the way and now it’s still going to be young, young-ish superhero career. But that’s going to be balanced out by what could be a young-ish lawyer career, I think it’s gonna be a very engaging story. What did you think of the first episode?

Greg Lambert  14:01

Yeah, so first of all, I absolutely loved it. So that first scene where she is practicing her closing argument, that was just a great way to start it off. But I have to say that I was immediately hooked because as they’re scanning the camera back from that scene, I spot a bunch of things on the wall and I spot that bookcase. If I may take a minute just to kind of go through some of the things that were that were on that bookshelf because I spent a lot of time looking those over and I took a snapshot of it and sent it to some law library friends of mine to have them helped me identify some of the things that that were on there. The first that I noticed was on the wall there were two degrees from UCLA. One was a law degree and I’m assuming the other one was a undergraduate degree. But on the bookshelf itself and Joshua you probably know this that for like TV shows like Law and Order, companies like, Lexis or Thomson Reuters will actually pay them to place their product on those bookshelves. And so you’ll see a beautiful set of national reporters the beige and perfectly numbered.

Joshua Lenon  15:15

Yeah. With the little red blocks along that. Yeah,

Greg Lambert  15:18

Yeah, exactly. Those are paid placements, usually. What it showed me on this one was there must not have been a paid placement because they had something from everyone that is relevant in the legal world. So they had the California Reporters from Thomson Reuters West Publishing.

Joshua Lenon  15:36

Nice.

Greg Lambert  15:37

They had some Understanding titles from Lexis and Carolina Press. They had ABA, the American Bar Association had some of their titles up there. The Business of Law from Barron’s was up there. So you know, so they covered a lot there. And I was joking with someone that, you know, unless some of those books just fell off the shelf, they will, they will never be open. Those are not for reading. Those are just for looking.

Joshua Lenon  16:03

Nice.

Greg Lambert  16:03

There’s tons of UCLA figurines that are there, which makes sense. She has two bobble head dolls, one’s Michelle Obama, and one is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And then she also has a Kamala Harris doll there. She has a “See you later, Litigator” cup on the shelf there, which is for a litigator, we would love to have something like that. Tons of beer steins. I’m not sure if there’s, maybe there’s a story behind having all these beer steins. But there were four or five beer steins on there. And then the last thing that I that I noticed, that I could identify was that she did have a plaque that says “I’m not arguing I’m just explaining why I’m right.”

Joshua Lenon  16:49

It’s something every litigator has said at least once to their spouse.

Greg Lambert  16:53

Exactly, exactly. So I did, I did notice that there were a few things that I would have expected and a and a litigators office that weren’t there, such as a lot of either yellow or white legal pads to write on. There were no big red welds, which are those accordion files that we put things in. And then the one thing that’s missing, I walked this afternoon across and looked in on a bunch of my attorneys bookshelves, and every one of them has an old CLE class binder that they’ve taken. So those things are there. I don’t know if Jennifer’s taken CLEs or not. So

Joshua Lenon  17:35

Yeah, it’s set in California. We kind of established that. And so that’s a mandatory CLE state she would need to hit those CLE hours?

Greg Lambert  17:43

I would think so.

Joshua Lenon  17:44

I think she’s kind of portrayed as, as earlier in her legal career. She’s not a prosecuting attorney. Yet. The trial that shown in the episode is her first time being a first chair in the trial. And people who aren’t litigators might not know. But just like in the orchestra, you have a first chair and a second chair. And those would be the lead attorney, the person who’s really driving both the strategy and the production of the trial. And then there’ll be second or third chairs. And those will be kind of the junior attorneys who are helping and doing a lot of the work and maybe sometimes addressing the court. But oftentimes, they’re in support roles. And so this is her first time as First Chair, which I think makes her a younger attorney.

Greg Lambert  18:32

Yeah. And my guess was in I may be wrong here. But I was thinking she’s probably close to an eighth year, what we would call an eighth year associate, because she announces that she just got an office. So she’s been there for a while, but she just now has an office. She just now is first chair, but she had veto power over the other attorney on the case who wanted to give the closing argument. And she quickly shut that down. So like I said, it may be off but I’m thinking probably an eighth year.

Joshua Lenon  19:07

Okay, which is still relatively young for a lawyer.

Greg Lambert  19:09

Absolutely.

Joshua Lenon  19:10

But it is surprising that there was one other book that you point out are two other books that you pointed out that were missing that most lawyers have sitting on their desk,

Greg Lambert  19:18

so I thought she should have a Black’s Law Dictionary that’s up there. That’s usually pretty standard. A maybe a blue book for citing and or her briefs. Yeah. And so I think those were two things that were missing from the collection.

Joshua Lenon  19:34

Yeah, we need to get Bryan A. Garner on that.

Greg Lambert  19:36

Exactly.

Joshua Lenon  19:37

He’ll get her Black’s Law.

Greg Lambert  19:37

If you know, you know

Joshua Lenon  19:41

Yeah. So you were looking at like kind of the law firm or lawyer lifestyle accoutrements there and I was watching the episode, actually for issue spotting, what legal problems were becoming a part of the episode and they didn’t spend a lot of time on being a lawyer. But there were some legal issues that I think came to the forefront. The first was one that was actually excluded, which is part of her origin story. So in the original comic books, Bruce Banner, her cousin, who is the original Hulk ends up giving his cousin an emergency blood transfusion. And there are a whole host of issues around that from a legal perspective, did he have to, under Good Samaritan laws provide lifesaving treatment? Did he have a form of assault in exposing his cousin to blood that he knew contains a dangerous substance? And in this case, it’s the fictional version of radiation that they call gamma radiation. And that’s what transforms a mild mannered Jennifer Walters from a lawyer to She-Hulk.

Greg Lambert  20:53

The Savage She-Hulk!

Joshua Lenon  20:55

Yeah. And they, I think, thankfully excluded that he intentionally gave her irradiated blood and instead it’s a she was actually trying to help him after an accident, and was just happened to be exposed to the blood in the course of helping her own cousin during a car wreck. And I think that thankfully avoided those issues. But then after she was exposed to became the She Hulk, there’s a scene where she is confronted by some unsavory individuals, and she Hulks out and attacks them. And while I’m not defending the people whom she attacked, I think there are legitimate legal issues around culpability. Was she acting in self-defense? Did she have a reasonable fear that a jury might interpret? Could she be held liable for those actions given that she was operating under an altered state? That was not her own doing? Right? So there’s innkeeper liability law, for example, where her cousin, the Hulk, might now be responsible for that assault, because he’s the one who exposed her to the mind altering substances that are now in her blood. Whereas she might not be liable because she was for an all essence drugged. And then after she becomes the She Hulk, her cousin, absconds her and takes her to his secret lair, which happens to be in Mexico. So now we’re not just kidnapping, we’re trafficking right across foreign borders. And then, after she kind of regains her faculties and decides that she’s done with all of this craziness, just hops in a jeep and drives back from Mexico to LA. Without a passport. So yeah, there are all kinds of immigration issues involved in this episode. None of these things are touched at all. I’m curious to see if they may come back in later episodes. And then there’s one very obvious legal issue that’s been set up as part of the conclusion in this episode. And so we have Jennifer Walters participating as for sharing a trial giving her closing statement. And this is the point where everybody listening should have watched the episode, because definite spoilers,

Greg Lambert  23:15

Definitely

Joshua Lenon  23:15

The closing arguments are interrupted by a superhuman attack. And Jen Walters transforms into she hauled to save everybody in the courtroom. And I think they’re very clearly setting up a mistrial as a part of this now, interesting. No. And so that’ll be a legal issue that I think will be the core of the next episode.

Greg Lambert  23:36

Yeah. Now, I know the trial itself, apparently, from what I’m reading, it’s Roxxon Corporation, which is always the big bad in the in the MCU. As far as the evil corporation that’s out there. They’re being charged with apparently some wrongful deaths of multiple people with due to some kind of business expansion project. And the rumor is that it may be experiments that they were doing, and the superpowered person who breaks in at the end of the of the episode into the courtroom, the rumor is that she is one of those experiments, that Roxxon did.

Joshua Lenon  24:18

She is the product of some type of potentially criminally negligent action by this corporation, Roxxon. And it’ll be interesting, because in the comic books, the resolutions that She Hulk finds, oftentimes, are different than what we see in kind of the traditional punch everybody solutions that we see like Superman or Batman take. So I am curious to see how they move forward on that. And very curious to see how court procedure is a part of the superhero story.

Greg Lambert  24:50

I know if you’re not a lawyer, especially if you’re not on the criminal defense side. If you listen to the closing argument that the Roxxon’s defense lawyer or had, you may think, wow, this guy is really not a very good lawyer. But I think Joshua, you may have a different spin on what that lawyer was trying to do in his closing argument.

Joshua Lenon  25:12

Yeah, I mean, they’re definitely portraying the defense here as sleazy. Right. But it’s not outside of the bounds of what a defense counsel might be doing in a criminal trial. The burden of proof for the state is beyond a reasonable doubt. So many times what you’re seeing in a criminal trial is they’re just throwing anything and everything in front of the jury to create some type of reasonable doubt. Probably the most famous historical example of that is the defense of OJ Simpson. And when he was charged with murder.

Greg Lambert  25:43

If it doesn’t fit you must acquit.

Joshua Lenon  25:44

That’s right. Yeah. Yes. Try the gloves on if they don’t fit. Clearly. He’s innocent, right? You can’t murder somebody in ill-fitting gloves. But that’s neither here nor there.

Greg Lambert  25:54

Exactly, exactly.

Joshua Lenon  25:55

But the fact that that’s a legitimate tactic in the gamesmanship of criminal trials, I think, is accurate.

Greg Lambert  26:04

So Joshua, what should listeners expect from this podcast going forward on what we’re going to cover? I think, obviously, we’re going to we’re going to cover this She Hulk first on this, I think I’m really looking forward to this. Because as Jennifer was saying, this is a fun lawyer show. And from the people I’ve talked to that have caught the first four episodes, they said, it definitely gets more into the lawyer parts of it. So I’m excited to that. But beyond this, what other stuff would you like to get into?

Joshua Lenon  26:38

I definitely think we can go back and take a look at the Daredevil series, which again, another fictional lawyer, Matt Murdock, is the Daredevil, but he also runs his own legal practice. And we do see conflict between those two sides of this person’s identity, using the legal system versus being a vigilante. And I think that would be a fun one to go back and review. There’s also some weird issue spotting that can be done in like 90s X Men movies? Where is it 90s? Or am I dating myself? Where,

Greg Lambert  27:13

Let’s say 2000s,

Joshua Lenon  27:15

Early 2000s? I’ll I feel younger already. Yeah. Where you see the interaction of legislative policymaking? And how that is impacting the superheroes within those stories, and how they’re trying to navigate that with what was the phrase I used earlier, extreme lobbying, when they like, appear the president’s office and frightened him.

Greg Lambert  27:41

Xtreme with an X

Joshua Lenon  27:43

with an X. So there’s lots of areas where the law overlaps with comics, and we should be taking a look at those. They’re probably our safest avenue to explore some of these issues, rather than unfortunately, approaching them blind in real life.

Greg Lambert  28:00

Yeah. Well, Joshua, I’m really excited to dive into some of these issues with you over the next few weeks. I think this is just gonna be a lot of fun.

Joshua Lenon  28:09

Yeah. And before we wrap up, I do want to point out that while it’s great watching lawyers throw giant rocks through the air and leap tall buildings in a single bound, real lawyers are handling the impossible every day. I want to highlight a real life superhuman lawyer that’s in the news right now. And that’s Tony Gonzalez, who was the US attorney who is probably not familiar with for you, but you’re definitely familiar with the case that he’s handling and that’s the search warrant for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, he is having to deal with an impossible unprecedented situation, and is given it as all and I can’t think of a lawyer better suited for this former state’s attorney, who prosecuted money laundering and RICO cases. Former drug trafficking prosecuting attorney on behalf of the US government, and now handling this type of action at a scrutiny that is just unparalleled. And so, real life superhuman lawyers handling the impossible every day. If you’ve got a recommendation for another superhuman lawyer, I’d like to hear it.

Greg Lambert  29:18

Well. I think that wraps up our first ever practice group meeting of the superhuman law division here. If you want to get on the agenda for the next meeting, or suggest a super lawyer that you know, to be highlighted, you can follow us at @superhumanpod on Twitter. So Joshua Lenon, and I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun going through this show and more superhuman law issues on this podcast. So thank you very much for bringing me along on this ride.

Joshua Lenon  29:46

Thank you. It’s amazing, Greg, thanks for doing this with me.