The ALPS In Brief Podcast

 ALPS CEO David Bell discusses navigating the 2020 pandemic, embracing change, fostering a resilient company culture, and exciting future initiatives in an insightful conversation with Rio Laine. This is the first in our new quarterly thought leadership series, ALPS In Brief: The Deep Think.   — Transcript:  Rio Laine:  Hello and welcome. I'm Rio Laine, the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS Insurance. And today I have a chance to sit down with our CEO and fearless leader, David Bell, and we'll be talking about what's happening at ALPS, how the last year has gone, our vision moving forward, and also talk about how far we've come since the 2020 pandemic. Hello, David. Welcome.  David Bell:  Thank you, Rio, for having me on.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, thanks for joining me. It's always a pleasure to get a chance to sit down and talk with you.  David Bell:  For me too. I look forward to the conversation.  Rio Laine:  100%. Fabulous. So do you want to take a minute, David, to just tell the audience a bit about yourself, how you came to be at ALPS, a little bit about your background.  David Bell:  Sure. Well, I've been in the insurance industry my entire career since college. I joined Chubb Insurance and was with Chubb for a number of years. And then in the wake of 9/11, Chubb AIG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners formed a joint venture, and I went with Chubb's Capital to help start at an organization called Allied World, AWAC. And so over the course of a decade living in Bermuda, we built that business up, ultimately took it public.  And then skipping a few chapters of this book, ultimately, my wife and I decided to come back to Montana where we first met three decades ago, where she is originally from and where we both went to college. And coming back to Montana, I had the opportunity to take the helm at ALPS. And it has been a true blessing for a dozen years to work alongside the men and women at ALPS and doing what we're going to talk about today.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so you've been at the helm of ALPS for about 12 years now. And during that time it seems that you've steered the company through a lot of really exciting changes and transitions and also perhaps some uncertainty, probably most notably like the 2020 pandemic. I think we can all agree that was a very interesting time all around.  So I'd like to start with talking about the years since the pandemic and the last time we sat down with you, which was in 2020. Now, obviously ALPS is still here and thriving, but I'm curious to know what is something that you feel that you could point to that was the most important factor in helping us navigate that time and also what was something that helped our insureds navigate that time as well?  David Bell:  The pandemic time?  Rio Laine:  Yes.  David Bell:  Certainly just solidarity. I think as a country we came together, as a world, in a lot of cases, we came together. And at ALPS, that was particularly true. To be fair, ALPS has employees in a dozen states, but the nucleus of the organization is in the home office in Missoula, Montana. And Montana did not have a number of the challenges that the larger cities had, particularly with population density.  When you have a global pandemic and airborne transmittable viruses, not having the same type of population density did help us. But everybody at ALPS really rose to the occasion. Our technology was ready to allow people to be working remotely. We were also able to bring people back into the office much, much earlier than I think larger cities were able to do.  But most importantly, I think people rose to the occasion. They understood that they had the need to balance the challenges and the opportunities that they had confronted at home, and then also the responsibilities that we continued to have at the office. And I was so proud of everybody. It was week by week.  We were intensely communicative, always together, always talking about what our objectives were, people socializing what some of their challenges were, whether they were uniquely related to the pandemic or just in general. And I think we worked through those, and I think we taught ourselves a lot of valuable lessons during the time of the pandemic that have proven very useful in the months and years that have followed.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. What is a lesson that comes to mind that you feel was maybe an important one for you as CEO of ALPS? Was there something that you learned that maybe you didn't expect to learn or that really helped you guide the company through?  David Bell:  Sure. Well, I think one of the most critical ingredients for any organization is for it to evolve and improve. And that requires change. And people, humans are just change resistant. It's in our nature. We love what we're familiar with. And what the pandemic did was it forced all of us into a period of change. And so as we were able to adjust to those changes and in many cases, adopt new technologies and processes, I think it opened people's minds to doing things differently.  And we were able to leverage that in the years that have followed the pandemic to constantly revisit the way we do things, to bring more and more efficiencies, to make the customer experience better, easier, faster, to make the experience of being an employee better and the experience of being an employer from a managerial and overall organizational perspective better as well.  And so the pandemic was incredibly difficult. But like most tragedies, most challenges, there are silver linings. And I think there were a number of silver linings for us coming out of the pandemic that have allowed ALPS to succeed even more than we would have frankly, had we not all endured that challenging time together.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that time really inspired people to become very resilient and push themselves to do things and accept realities that maybe they couldn't have been able to before or were less willing to, particularly with adopting new technologies and things. So do you think that our ability to adjust and adopt that change supported our insureds through that time as well?  David Bell:  I do, yes. I think by committing ourselves to allowing our insureds to keep their policies and keep them timely and seamless, and also our insureds were having a lot of structural changes forced upon them from the pandemic. They were generally not working in the office. And so the exercise that they had historically gone through for years related to their malpractice and other insurance coverages was done in the office and through a certain process in the office.  That needed to be overnight and without warning changed to being done from home. Some of them relocated, some permanently, some of them went on the move and started to become a mobile lawyer. And so we needed to adopt our processes to accommodate all of the various iterations that our policyholders had to undertake. And I think by doing that, it also prepared us to just be more adaptable in general and things unrelated to COVID contingency plans.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I feel like that's a really good thing for us to carry forward is that adaptability.  David Bell:  Yes. And as you said, I think resiliency was a critical ingredient. I think a lot of us, and this is probably a general observation as well, the pandemic acquainted us with fear in ways that I think a lot of people had not really been acquainted with before. And it taught us a lot about ourselves, some great and some not so great, but we all learned from the experiences no matter which side of the ledger it rests.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that was a very shared collective experience, feeling that fear and uncertainty. And despite there being a lot of maybe tension at times, I think we all came through that having experienced something that, I mean, arguably changed us, but also made us stronger as a result.  David Bell:  And when a team endures a challenge together, whether that team is a company or a country or humanity, we do come out the other end of it with a better sense of resiliency and camaraderie. And so there's a lot of things to worry about in the future, but there's also a lot of things to celebrate and take comfort in.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, I've been at ALPS now for about a year and a half, and I will say that the camaraderie and that kind of team element that I feel at the company, it's very obvious that everybody is really, I guess, happy to be working together and it has maybe come through a difficult thing and are stronger because of it. And so I feel like that really permeates and is very obvious too when I think about working at ALPS and also how our customers see our dynamic and how we approach things now.  David Bell:  Absolutely. I mean, in my role playing a part of the equation of trying to create and help foster a certain type of intentional company culture, making sure that people feel safe and heard is really the only path to give people that will allow them to unleash their own sense of creativity. If they don't feel valued and heard and they don't feel safe as though...  In some organizations, unfortunately, people are constantly not sharing their thoughts and their ideas for fear that they will be rejected or that it will put somebody off or whatever. I think one thing that we've really tried to do, and we're not perfect in this or anything else, but I think we have been largely successful is assuring people that as a company and that for the people around everyone else, we are for you and we want you to participate in helping make us better.  And you're heard. It doesn't mean that we adopt everybody's ideas. That's not realistic. But if people feel they've genuinely been heard and that their idea has been genuinely considered, there's a real sense of teamwork that goes into that.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that has certainly been my experience. It's quite refreshing actually to be able to be given the space to have an idea and also to be wrong and it's not the end of the world, right? It's like, yeah, because you tried and it could be great, and maybe it's not, but the fact is that there's space to try. It's an important part of culture, I think.  David Bell:  Absolutely. And culturally, we're a risk-taking organization. Any organization should be comfortable permitting people to experiment with ideas, spend time, spend money, and make mistakes. And what we do is try to make our mistakes original and not repetitive, but only through those iterative processes of trying, failing, trying again, improving do we come out with some of the great ideas.  Almost none of the cool things that we have going on at ALPS right now were top-down edicts. They were bottom-up, organically drawn ideas that started out with experiments. They were in the company of a bunch that ended up in the dustbin, but the good ones emerge. And that's I think how an organization thrives and I'm really proud to just be a part of that kind of ecosystem.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. So let's shift our focus and talk about some of those cool things that are happening at ALPS. So what are some of the initiatives that are going on that you are excited about personally for the next upcoming year or two?  David Bell:  Sure. Well, we've transitioned our positioning. It's less of a transition of what we do and more of a transition of how we are intentionally portraying ourselves to our customer base. Traditionally, ALPS has been known as the largest direct lawyers malpractice carrier in the country. And we were and are and will remain that. But what we also are is the largest retail broker for solo practitioners and one of the largest retail brokers for law firms in general in the country.  And that makes us a more holistic solution provider, both to place the lawyers malpractice policy many times very often with ALPS, sometimes for various reasons not with ALPS, but we have the capacity to place it with whatever carrier is the best fit for whatever reason, even if that's not ALPS.  And then there are also a lot of other coverages that law firms need, some of which they currently buy and are increasingly interested in buying through us, workers' compensation, general liability, non-owned auto, BOPs, business insurance policies. And so those are all coverage lines that we can help place for them, thereby becoming the holistic solution provider for all risk transfer products for a small firm.  It can seem subtle, but it's not really how we've branded ourselves externally for the more than three decades that we have been a direct carrier. So I think that is a really exciting evolution that makes us much more of a comprehensive partner for our firms. There's a lot of things that I'm excited about, but that's one of the most important structural evolutions that are occurring right now.  Rio Laine:  Right. And can you just tell me a little bit about how being able to be that holistic provider is a good thing for our insureds? How is that really supporting them in running their law firms?  David Bell:  Sure. Well, first and foremost, there are lots of great insurance agents and brokers all around the country. The vast majority of them, they do a whole bunch of different type of industries and a whole myriad of different types of coverages. And a lot of them are jack of all trades and master of none. And that's not a bad thing because they serve a lot of different industry verticals.  This is all we do. All we do is law firms and small ones in particular, but really firms in general. Nobody knows the needs, the challenges, what's on the horizon for law firms like ALPS does. One of the value propositions that we bring is a really deep understanding to what type of risk transfer, risk mitigation tactics and insurance policies they need.  What we find oftentimes is as we discuss with a firm, whether it's a solo practitioner or a five or 10 person firm, when we discuss with them what type of insurance needs they should consider based on the very specific profile of where they are, how large they are, the type of coverages, type of areas of practice that they're engaging in, it's oftentimes revealed that what they have is not ideally what they should have, and it's not what their peer group is generally buying.  And so that helps inform them to make the decision on whether or not or to what extent they want to expand it. And then we bring not just the institutional expertise of this profession, of this industry, but we bring a steadfast commitment to ease. Our mantra is easy. We want to take the unnecessary friction out of the insurance purchasing process.  The operational process of buying an insurance policy has been largely unchanged for a hundred years, save PDF emails that might be a little bit more recent, but those are all deeply in need of evolving. And we've brought some of the most technologically sophisticated processes to our customers that helps them appreciate that we understand that time is literally money for small firms. And any hour spent working on this is one less billable hour they can spend serving their own customers. So we are committed to that approach.  Rio Laine:  And it sounds like we're really well-placed to support particularly solo and small firms because they obviously have limited resources, but that we're really well-placed to be able to advise them on the type of coverage they need so then they can in fact just step away and it's covered. They don't have to worry. If there's an issue, it will be dealt with. But otherwise, they can focus on running their practice.  David Bell:  That's right. I think one mistake that many brokers and agents make is an overgeneralization of solo practitioners. They see a solo as a solo as a solo. And we see if we've met one solo, we've met one solo. They're very different. And with those differences really necessitates different types of approaches to a certain type of insurance and different types of insurance that they should consider.  It doesn't have to be a complicated process, but you really need a partner who understands and can simplify that for you. And that's the value that we bring, which is why we ensure so many thousands, so many tens of thousands of solos all across the country from coast to coast.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. And I suspect they all really appreciate that viewing them as unique individuals. I mean, I don't know, I like to say that law firms are kind of like snowflakes. They're all unique. And it's very nuanced. Their needs are all different. So yeah, I think that's a really excellent way that we're able to support them.  David Bell:  Absolutely. And there are profiles of solo practitioners and firms in general that inform the type of risk experiences that other firms from all around the country have had. And when you have a company like ALPS that only does law firms and focuses so steadfastly on solos, we can help a lot of firms see around the corner by sharing experiences that their contemporaries have had locally or in states far away that can help them mitigate the risk that they might have by learning from the experiences that other firms have had in other places. You can only do that if you have a pretty significant portfolio of the same type of risk that can arm us to share that information.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. Again, I feel like any leg up is a good thing for a solo. Absolutely. Okay, we've talked about some of the exciting things that have been going on or shift to being more of an agency model. Let's switch it up and talk about some of the challenges that maybe we've had in the past year or so.  David Bell:  Sure. I'd say for us, the biggest challenge that we have is a byproduct of the biggest opportunity that we have. We are America's solo solution. We are America's solo insurance company. There is a other edge of the sword for an insurance company as it relates to solo practitioners, and it's really as follows. If you go to medical school, you're probably going to be a doctor.  And when you end that lengthy expensive experience, you're probably going to employ, probably, that medical degree to become a physician, and that will be your profession for your career. A law degree is much more versatile. It's highly portable into areas that are very different from the private practice of law. And so what we find, and this is particularly true in the solo practitioner community, nowhere else more true than the solo practitioner community, is what we label the leading private practice.  People who are solos and for one reason or another elect to no longer be a private practice solo practitioner. They join a school board. We have lots of our policyholders become judges, interestingly enough. There's a lot of different places that they go. None of them are bad. But for the broader insurance index, you can lose a piece of business because they retire or because a competitor has taken them. Just to put some data behind it, at least on a historical basis, our loss business for a policyholder having left private practice is two and a half times the rate of retirements.  Rio Laine:  Oh, wow!  David Bell:  Now, that has started to compress a little bit over the past year or two as the baby boomer generation moves further and further along. But the transient nature of solo practitioners is a significant operational challenge because these policies are low premium, and so they're very operationally intensive.  And our need to bring ease to the customer experience also is a need for us to bring operational efficiency into the approaches. So that is a significant challenge. We spent a lot of time, we spent a lot of money, we built a lot of technology to try to wrestle with that dynamic in this profession.  Rio Laine:  Yes, absolutely. That's a really interesting challenge because it seems like it's made up of a lot of different factors too that influence that and how much of a challenge it can be.  David Bell:  That's right. Being a solo practitioner is hard, and it's not for everyone. And it's not uncommon for folks to go into the profession and then go out. But what we can also do in having journeyed with so many different solos through that experience, we can help share best practices that will better empower a solo to be successful and to take some of the challenge and risk out of that experience. And if we can help tamp down the transient nature of people leaving the profession even just a little bit, then it's a win for us.  Rio Laine:  Well, absolutely. And if anything, it's also a win for not just the legal profession, but consumers, people needing legal services, because there is a major gap in access to justice and a lot of that has to do with people leaving private practice in rural communities, et cetera. So yeah, I do agree with you. I mean, being able to provide that kind of support, particularly to a solo who we know tend to be quite isolated, they tend to feel quite alone in their struggles and their challenges, I think that's a win for everybody really it seems like.  David Bell:  Absolutely.  Rio Laine:  So we've reflected on the past five years, we've talked about this year what our challenges were, what some of the things we're excited about. So is there anything else in this coming year that you are particularly looking forward to that you feel is going to be an interesting challenge for us to navigate? Tell me what your thoughts are for the next couple of years where you see things going, where you'd like them to go even.  David Bell:  Sure. Well, we have grown the business doing what we've done historically, but doing it better and better each year. It's really been satisfying to be a part of a team as you're refining your skill and you're trying to be better. And in the process of being better, you're becoming more successful. And being more successful, at least as I measure it, is in the terms of the role that I have in the organization and the success measurement for the organization overall.  There are external metrics for that. I mean, we have new endorsements that have come online that are exciting. Because when an endorsement comes, then those endorsements are leveraged for success in the future, whether it's the Federal Bar endorsement, whether it's GIRL ATTORNEY, a 37,000 strong network of female legal practitioners, and those aren't the only ones.  Those are just recent endorsements to add to the repertoire of so many state and regional endorsements that we enjoy from state bars all over the country, regional bars, affiliate bars. So I think those create an exciting environment. And they also double down on external validation of the ALPS value proposition because bars that endorse us generally don't unendorse us.  And they aren't endorsing us for the money, they're endorsing us for the partnership and because we're mutually aligned. Also, one of the external validations that I think is so critical is our Trustpilot reviews. Trustpilot as a disinterested third party that sends a survey inquiring about the experience and is trusted nationwide and not just in this industry, in certainly all industries. And we have at this point, thousands of Trustpilot reviews.  And one of the favorite parts of my job is to see the... It's not just the rating. So many of our policyholders take the time to specifically comment, call out the name of their account manager or their business development representative, and reflect on how easy they made this experience and how refreshing it is, particularly for our new customers to have moved from the experience that they had been having into the ease of the experience and the knowledge and the experience that they're having with us.  That's great. The other side is internal validation because we serve customers, prospects, and we especially serve policyholders, but we also serve employees because we are an employer. In 2024, we won again a statewide employer of choice, Employer of the Year Award, that is not industry specific. It's across all line. We've won those from an industry perspective nationally.  We've won them from a local community perspective, and now we've won it from a state process. Again, those are done through anonymous surveys of staff. They do really provide a pretty accurate metric of how your staff feels and how they feel valued and how much they trust and enjoy the experience that they have working for the company. I think that's validating and it helps prepare us to launch into the success for 2025 as well.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like it must feel good for you to see that feedback and know that you're on the right track because employees are happy and coming up with good solutions for customers. I feel like that would be a good thing to see.  David Bell:  Absolutely. I mean, culture building, culture maintenance is beyond just ensuring the financial health of the organization, and that we have the financial strength to fulfill the promises that we're making. I mean, that's one of certainly my core responsibilities, but a very... I don't know if I call it close second. It's probably an even because you can't do any of that well unless you have a vibrant, healthy culture.  People ask about corporate culture. It's almost kind of a cliche at this point because it's bantered about so much. And I say to a lot of people, you can have statements about the ethos or the company cultures, values, and those are great, and we have those. And it's important to have them, and it's important to constantly remind yourself and others what they are, but they can lull you into a false sense of security if they're not being practiced.  Rio Laine:  Absolutely.  David Bell:  And so what I tell folks is, if you want to really get a sense of the company culture at ALPS, just walk around the office, observe how people are engaging with one another. You can tell whether two people are talking purely business. You can tell in the inflection in their voice and their way that they're carrying themselves that there's trust between the two people.  You can tell whether they enjoy being around one another. I think you can have a better, more successful professional experience from your employees if you create an environment where they enjoy being around the people who they work with, they trust the people who they work with, and they trust the leadership who they work for and the messages that they're hearing.  If there's one key ingredient to how we've been as successful as we've been, it's that. Because all of the other stuff, including the financial success, flows downriver from that. That is, I think, the headwaters of our success and I think organization success in general.  Rio Laine:  Well said, David. I would agree with you. Well, this has been a fantastic chat. So is there anything as we wrap up that you would like to share you'd like our audience to know? Any parting words of advice you'd like to offer?  David Bell:  I think you asked about solos in particular, and we serve law firms of all shapes and sizes, but we are America's solo solution provider. And I think what's interesting is we really understand solos in what might broadly be called their three stages of life. The dawn of the solo. It's amazing how many calls we field from people who are in a multi-member firm and considering going out on their own or with somebody else to be a one or two person firm, and they just don't know.  They've had an office manager who is taking care of them out practice. They have no idea what it costs. They have no idea some of the basic elements of setting up a law firm, from law practice management software to renting space. We've become very consultative to that group of folks. Because if you don't know how to be a solo, even if you've been an incredibly successful member of a multi-attorney firm, we can help do that. That's kind of like the dawn of the solo.  And then when solo is in its prime, that's where we're providing that expertise and ease to make sure that you have not only your malpractice, but all of your other business insurance coverages in there. And then there is the twilight of a professional life, and we are seeing that more and more as the baby boomers increasingly transition towards retirement. I mean, the demographics of the legal profession is not unlike the broader labor force demographics.  And there are a lot of people who are at and approaching retirement age and how a small firm or solo practitioner winds down their practice is really important. And so we're here for the entire life cycle of a solo practitioner, and I think that's one of the things that makes us so uniquely focused as being America's choice for solo practitioners.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful. Thanks so much, David. That was really great to sit down and chat with you and get to learn about all the great things we have going on at ALPS. And yeah, I hope that our audience enjoys the rest of their day and enjoyed our conversation.  David Bell:  Thank you, Rio. I appreciate the questions. I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. Look forward to another one.  Rio Laine:  Yes, absolutely. Me too.   

In this mini episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar & Affinity Partner Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Angela Armstrong, Executive Director at the Maine State Bar to discuss the importance of bar partnerships, how they create value for members, and the pivotal role bars play in the legal community. — Transcript:  Rio Lane:  Hello everybody. Welcome to this installment, a mini- installment, of the ALPS in Brief Podcast. I am your host, Rio Lane, and I am here today with Angela Armstrong, who is the Executive Director of the Maine State Bar. Hello.  Angela Armstrong:  Hello. Good afternoon.  Rio Lane:  Thank you for joining us.  Angela Armstrong:  Thank you.  Rio Lane:  I'm very happy we got this chance so we're going to sit down and chat and, yeah, I'm excited to learn more about the bar and the impact that partnerships have had on it. Why don't we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself, so what's your background, how did you end up at the bar?  Angela Armstrong:  So I am originally from Maine. I did all my schooling there, and then I went to college in New York, at the United States Military Academy, which then after that I owed five years in the Army. That's the minimum, that's what you owe for going there. And I did that but then near the end I had my first child and my husband was also military and we wanted someone around, that we weren't both getting deployed. So I got out of the military and I got to stay home with my daughter for a year and a half, but then I decided that I needed to go back to work.  Rio Lane:  Oh, weird, awesome.  Angela Armstrong:  Yeah, that's a familiar story. So I got a job at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, in the chancellor's office, and I was his special assistant, which I could like it to being like kind of his chief of staff. I did that for about four years, and then my husband got out of the military and we moved back to Maine. He's not from Maine but we moved back to Maine to raise our girls. As I was looking for a job, there was an opening at the Maine State Bar Association for the Deputy Executive Director, and the reason I had heard about that was because my dad was an attorney in Maine and he heard about it in the Bar Journal. And so, I wrote to the executive director and said I'd really like to interview for this job. And shortly thereafter, I got the job as deputy. That was back in 2004, so I'm about to celebrate my 20th year this October with the Bar Association. I became the executive director in July, just celebrated my 11-year anniversary in July of 2013, I became the executive director.  Rio Lane:  Oh, awesome, congratulations.  Angela Armstrong:  Yeah, thanks.  Rio Lane:  So you're not a lawyer.  Angela Armstrong:  I am not a lawyer.  Rio Lane:  No, I love it. I love that when I meet executive directors who aren't lawyers by trade, I feel it brings a really unique perspective to the Bar Association. It's really interesting.  Angela Armstrong:  There's a lot of talk about whether you should be or shouldn't be. I think a lot of times you'll find with bar associations that are mandatory, a lot of them tend to be attorneys because of the types of things that happen in a mandatory bar. The Maine State Bar Association is a voluntary bar association, and so you're really running a business. You don't need a law degree to do that and, in fact, sometimes lawyers, they're great lawyers but they're not necessarily great business people. I have my Master's in business administration so it worked out. And I happened to do some reception work at my dad's law firm when I was in high school. I'm sure that helped me.  Rio Lane:  I bet it did. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, yeah, interesting. Yeah, that is interesting and that's a really good point, it is like running a business, it is a business, yeah, especially for a voluntary bar.  Angela Armstrong:  Correct.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. So in addition to being voluntary, can you tell us a little bit more about the bar?  Angela Armstrong:  Sure. So our bar association that is voluntary is approximately 2,800 members. We've been staying steady around the 3,000 mark for several years now. This year we've seen a little bit of a decline. I think that all the different terms, silver tsunami, whatever you want to call it, aging of the bar ...  Rio Lane:  Silver tsunami?  Angela Armstrong:  Aging of the bar, has really ... I was having this discussion with Chris Neubold actually the other day and it's like we knew it was coming, we've been talking about it for years. But then, COVID kind of stretched things out because people couldn't retire, people are working longer generally. And so, I think we're finally really starting to see that. Plus, in Maine, we are a very old state. If we're not the oldest, we're right up there. And so, we have about 2,800 members. We are currently slotted for a staff of 10. I have seven on staff right now and one that's about to retire so I'm hiring for four positions. My staff is amazing and they work really hard, and they have for the last few years because we've had a lot of long-term employees, and that's really great, until they all start retiring.  Rio Lane:  Yes.  Angela Armstrong:  And then, you're stuck without having anybody and it's really hard to replace those positions. We are one of those states that has a lot of rural areas so we're part of that grouping of states that has issues getting attorneys into the legal desert ...  Rio Lane:  Legal desert, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  The southern half of our state, basically Portland and south. And then, up the coast is pretty well off but anything north of where I'm from, and Augusta where I live, in the Augusta area, is a lot less. There's a concentration in the Bangor area but majority of our members, at least half, are in the southern half of the state.  Rio Lane:  Wow, got it. Is that one of the biggest challenges you think that the bar is going to have to navigate coming up, is that?  Angela Armstrong:  I think two of our biggest are the amount of retiring attorneys we're going to be having over the next several years, and the rural attorneys because our lawyer referral program is struggling because we can't provide referrals to people in those areas. Now, think times have changed because we can do a lot more through Zoom and through other types of media, but sometimes you just want to be looking at your attorney in the face and talking to them. As I said, we're older.  One of the things that might help us is we're getting a lot of folks that are coming into Maine that are already attorneys, so that may help us fill that gap a little bit, but we're not getting the younger folks staying, and if they are staying, they're still in the southern part of the state. I think those are going to be two really big issues. The other huge issue that Maine is dealing with generally is the indigent defense.  Rio Lane:  Oh, yes.  Angela Armstrong:  It's mandated but we do not have the attorneys to do the work. Several years ago, we, whoever, the royal we, were telling people don't go to law school, we have too many lawyers, there's just too many of you. And you get this debt, and now we're paying for it because we do not have ... There's plenty of work, we just don't have the attorneys.  Rio Lane:  Don't have attorneys, yeah. That's interesting. Do you think there's any type of solution or anything that would help encourage young folks to go to law school? I know Project Rural Practice offers debt forgiveness in exchange. Is that something that you think would work or could be?  Angela Armstrong:  Well, I think, like a lot of states, we're not a very rich state so to speak. We have a lot of people that have homes in Maine but don't live in Maine, and the people that do live in Maine don't have a lot of money. When you live in Maine, you know that you're not going to make as much as somebody in another state doing the same job.  Rio Lane:  Got it, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  That being said, our legislature doesn't have a lot of money to play with you, and so we have a couple of tax incentives, but it's not for a lot of money if they go into a rural area, and it's not loan forgiveness or anything like that. We just don't have the programs in place in the legislature for that as of right now. I mean, we're struggling enough to deal with the indigent defense issue so I don't foresee that happening anytime soon. And then, as I think with a lot of folks that have these rural counties, even if you can get the attorney to go there, the spouse or the significant other doesn't want to go there because aren't jobs for them. Or if it's a single, they don't have the nightlife, they don't have the chance to meet other people their age or do things. And so, most of the time we see people that were already living in those areas go to school and then come back.  Rio Lane:  Okay, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  But that's not enough.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah, so absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely a pretty widely spread issue, which is, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  More and more states are facing it, I think.  Rio Lane:  Hopefully, someone will come up with a creative cost-effective way to help because ...  Angela Armstrong:  And the law school debt, it's hard, you got to go somewhere where you can make money.  Rio Lane:  It's incredible. Yeah, it kind of blows my mind. I mean, even law school in Canada where I live, it's considered expensive but it's nothing like America, it's a staggering amount of debt that people get saddled with.  Angela Armstrong:  We only have one law school in Maine.  Rio Lane:  Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Let's shift focus a little bit.  Angela Armstrong:  Okay, I know, it's too much of a downer.  Rio Lane:  As much as I would like to keep talking about it but I think ...  Angela Armstrong:  I'd love to solve all the problems.  Rio Lane:  Yes, if only. So yeah, I did want to shift focus and talk about, what are some of the partnerships that you have? I know that, like many bars, you have a member benefits program, you partner with different vendors and organizations. I'm curious to know what are your thoughts, I guess number one, on a member benefits program? Do you think that's something that is of value to your members?  Angela Armstrong:  I do. That's why we try to poll our members and ask them what is useful for them. It doesn't help us if we're providing a benefit that we think they want but they don't want. And so, for a voluntary bar association it's very important because that's what we have to offer. They don't have to belong to us. We have to show them value for their membership and we're going to show them value by providing them resources, and tools, and discounts that help them in their practice of law. And so, our relationships with, for example, ALPS or our legal research partner, Decisis. There several that are out there. Those are intended to help them with their practice of law and hopefully save them some money and some time. And we want to do the research for them.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, right, absolutely.  Angela Armstrong:  That's what a lot of it is, doing the research for them so that when you say, "Okay, this is what we can offer you," there's choices, but these ones we believe in, these ones we feel like we have a good partnership with. We trust this company, you can too.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I do think ... I mean, obviously I'm biased because I do partnerships as well. But I have heard from a lot of lawyers often, especially for solos and small firms, something that really is difficult for them is taking that time to vet different providers, different products, different things.  Angela Armstrong:  Huge.  Rio Lane:  It is time-consuming, and especially if you're not used to doing it, it can be difficult to even know where to begin so I think it's definitely something that is appreciated. Yeah. What kind of things do you look for in a partner?  Angela Armstrong:  Communication.  Rio Lane:  Yay.  Angela Armstrong:  And we have those ones that I haven't been in communication with recently and it makes me wonder what are we getting out of this?  Rio Lane:  Exactly, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  I can't articulate to my members what they're getting if I don't have a good communication with the partner. In recent years, we've started an audit and a lot of it is, I don't even have the right contact information for them because they have turnover just like all of us. And so, if the new person that's coming in, or if they don't get a new person, doesn't contact us, we don't know. And so, sometimes you find out by accident, so communication is key. Trust. Trust that they're going to follow through with what they've promised us and our customers. And customer support, customer support of our members. I've noticed our relationship with Decisis is fairly new, we haven't had that long, and they've been so responsive.  Now that's a lot of technology and so people are struggling. It might be that the Wi-Fi's just not working, but they are willing to talk to them. I know ALPS is the same way. I know our members can call ALPS and talk to somebody. That's huge. I mean, it's great if there's the other pieces where either the partnership provides a discount or something to the member, or if they don't do that but they offer sponsorship dollars for us to help keep our costs lower. Generally, those are always great as well because then we have money to market and do all that stuff. But when you're talking about the intangibles, that's the bigger piece I think, people feel like they're taken care of.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, yeah, which is important.  Angela Armstrong:  Well, that's why you belong to something.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So what has your partnership with ALPS been like? Do you feel that we can we communicate?  Angela Armstrong:  Yes. Oh, absolutely. ALPS is really, I think, unique. I mean, obviously unique because of your actual product that you offer, your products, your service that you offer, and I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to come to the ALPS offices and see how things work and meet the people. And you know that they genuinely care. They care about providing service. They care about our members. They don't want to just take the money for the product. They don't want to just say, "We're going to give you coverage but it's about the money." It isn't, it's about the relationships and I think that's one of the hugest benefits that ALPS brings to the table, the biggest benefits, is that it's about relationships. Because, again, it falls back to what I just said, people want to feel like they're being taken care of, our members do. That's why they belong to us because they don't have to belong to us.  Rio Lane:  Yes.  Angela Armstrong:  And so, Maine has endorsed ALPS for years. I mean, it was endorsed maybe around the time I came on board so I've spent probably close to 20 years, if not 20 years, maybe a little more.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. That's a nice long partnership.  Angela Armstrong:  It is a nice long partnership.  Rio Lane:  It is, yeah.  Angela Armstrong:  I know we're small, we are not bringing in tons of money for ALPS or all that, but I think we have a good relationship with ALPS.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, I think so too.  Angela Armstrong:  Yeah, it's been really good.  Rio Lane:  Well, good. I'm happy to hear that because I personally think it's very important that, I mean, as a partner, regardless of your size, size doesn't matter.  Angela Armstrong:  No, it doesn't. I mean, there are big states and small states, all of our attorneys need assistance.  Rio Lane:  Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and I totally agree. I think at the end of the day it is so important for your members to ultimately feel that they have someone who has their back.  Angela Armstrong:  Correct. Which is what ALPS has always said, we want to have your back.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Which is, yeah, awesome. Well, good. Yeah. Well, good. I'm really glad that we have been a good partner for you and we will continue to be a good partner for you.  Angela Armstrong:  You guys have great communication too ...  Rio Lane:  Oh, thank you.  Angela Armstrong:  Great communication.  Rio Lane:  Thank you. Awesome. So I'm going to wrap up by, I think, just asking, is there anything that you see coming down the pipeline for the bar that you're excited about or have in the works or anything like that?  Angela Armstrong:  Just generally or with ALPS?  Rio Lane:  ALPS generally, either one.  Angela Armstrong:  Well, like I said, I've been doing this for 20 years now and there's a great deal of benefit for having employees that have been in places for a long time, but there's also benefit of getting some new folks in. Like I said, I'm hiring for four positions and we also, on top of that, just have a brand new membership director so I'm going to have some new ideas coming in, some new energy. That's helpful to me too because when you have been doing something for 20 years there are ups and downs.  And so, that is buoying me and I'm very pleased to say that during this visit with ALPS I've learned about the business insurance manager now offering these other things that I think is going to help our members more and give us some opportunity to let them know that there are a lot more options out there in terms of the outside of things. That excites me because when I have something new I can take back to my members, that's great. It's more touch points, it's more information, and it's more of a benefit for them, so I'm very excited about that.  Rio Lane:  Awesome. Well, fantastic. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.  Angela Armstrong:  Of course, I appreciate the opportunity.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, thank you. It was really great having you out here in Missoula as well.  Angela Armstrong:  I love it out here, I love it out here.  Rio Lane:  It is pretty fantastic.  Angela Armstrong:  I mean, I miss my ocean, like my ocean, but I love it. And my husband, who got to come with me, said if I didn't live in Maine I would live in Montana because he absolutely adores it out here, it's just so much fun.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, that's how I feel. If I didn't live in Canada I'd live in Missoula.  Angela Armstrong:  Yeah, that's great.  Rio Lane:  Awesome. Well, thank you so much, and thank you everybody. We will be back again with probably a longer episode of In Brief next time. But, in the meantime, take care and we will catch you on the flip side. Thank you.   

In this mini episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar & Affinity Partner Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Mary Jane Pickens, Executive Director at the West Virginia State Bar to discuss the importance of bar partnerships, how they create value for members, and the pivotal role bars play in the legal community. — Transcript:  Rio Lane:  All right. Hello everybody. We are back for another mini-installment of the ALPS in Brief podcast. I am your host, Rio Lane, and I am talking today with Mary Jane Pickens, who's the executive director of the West Virginia Bar. Hi.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Hey, how are you?  Rio Lane:  I'm good. How are you doing?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Wonderful. Very, very happy to be back in Montana. It's a beautiful, beautiful place.  Rio Lane:  Wonderful. Yes. Thank you for joining us. I'm happy you're here too. I love Missoula. It's such a lovely city.  Mary Jane Pickens:  It is. It's fun. We went out and just took a quick walk this morning, and it's a wonderful little place. Lots of good stuff here.  Rio Lane:  It is. It absolutely is. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself, Mary Jane. What's your background, and how did you come to the Bar Association?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Well, I've done a lot of different things. When I first became an executive director, I went to one of the ABA annual meetings, and they had us a boot camp for brand new executive directors, and you had to pick out a song. It was an icebreaker thing, and they would play your song and you were supposed to jump up and say, "That's my song." And my song was Long and Winding Road by the Beatles.  Rio Lane:  Oh, nice.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Because I felt like I had had a rather long and winding road to get to the bar. I graduated from law school. I went to Ohio Northern University, so I did not go to law school in West Virginia. Came back to West Virginia because it's my home, and went into private practice in a small firm, kind of a little boutiquey... We mostly did bankruptcy work. And did that for about 15 years and decided I needed a change and had an opportunity to go to the Insurance Commissioner's office in the state of West Virginia. And shortly thereafter, became general counsel for the West Virginia Insurance Commissioner. And I was there for about 11 or 12 years. And then I went to a large firm, did mostly government relations and lobbying mostly around the insurance industry.  Rio Lane:  Yeah.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Did that for about three years. And then because I love public service, it's where my heart is, I had a chance to go back to the state and be the executive director of the West Virginia Board of Risk and Insurance Management, which provides all of the property and liability insurance for the state of West Virginia, and also simultaneously be the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for the Department of Administration, which provides all the back office-y stuff and services for the rest of government.  Rio Lane:  Oh, wow.  Mary Jane Pickens:  And I was able to be acting cabinet secretary during 2016 during Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's last year, and then had a chance to go to the state bar, and that's where I am now. So it's kind of a long and winding road.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. And you've been at the bar for two years?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Yes. I hit my two-year official mark on July 1.  Rio Lane:  Oh, congratulations. Congratulations.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Thank you.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. How are you liking it? Do you find it's a lot different than what you were doing before?  Mary Jane Pickens:  It is a lot different. It's still considered a state agency, but it's in the judicial branch. I've always been in the executive branch, so there's a lot of differences there. But it still is that public service feeling like you have constituents, you have customers, and you're there to help folks. And so that's what I love about it.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, that's fantastic. How do you find working with a board? Because I know you've got a board of folks that helps guide things. Yeah. Do you find that to be helpful, or do you find it's different than...  Mary Jane Pickens:  Well, we had a board at the Board of Risk and Insurance Management, but they were very different. They were rather hands-off.  Rio Lane:  Oh, okay.  Mary Jane Pickens:  So this board is a lot more engaged, which I think is a good thing.  Rio Lane:  Yeah.  Mary Jane Pickens:  We only have four quarterly meetings, but we have very, very involved officers and a very evolved executive committee. So I like it a lot. I think it's... We run the office and we do the day-to-day, but the president of the state bar speaks for the bar. So there's a little bit of separation that I enjoy, and so I feel like I have a lot of really good guidance and support and feedback from the board. I enjoyed it a lot.  Rio Lane:  That's fantastic. You find the board helpful in identifying things that the bar needs to be focusing on like new challenges that might be coming up, things that need to be anticipated?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Yeah, I do. We're on the ground, kind of on the front lines with our members, so we hear a lot and get a lot of those ideas. But our board is elected from 16 different districts all over the state.  Rio Lane:  Got it.  Mary Jane Pickens:  So they come together, and so they're bringing ideas and concerns from the lawyers in their areas because West Virginia is an oddly-shaped state. It can be... When you go to the eastern panhandle, you're almost in Washington DC, and then at Ohio and Kentucky on the other side. So the interests and concerns can be different in those different parts. So the board, I think, is very good at gathering that intel and bringing it back to Charleston and helping out with what we do in the office.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. It sounds like a good working relationship.  Mary Jane Pickens:  It is. It's very good. We have a really good board.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. So what are some of the things that maybe your members or the board has brought to your attention that are challenges that you find you're having to navigate this year and the next couple years?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Sure. We here... And I don't think this is uncommon among states. We have a lot of rural areas. We have basically a few... What we consider by West Virginia standards to be decent-sized cities. But there are a whole lot of areas that are what we would consider to be legal deserts. And I think a lot of states have the same issue. So the issues around the rural practitioner, the solo practitioner that's just out in a county where there's not that many people, we need to provide more support to those folks.  And we have put together a rural practice committee, and we're trying to address some of those things, ideally in conjunction with the law school, because the law school at West Virginia University is there to produce lawyers for the state of West Virginia, and elsewhere, but we love it when they stay. And so we're hoping to come up with some ideas to support those lawyers more that are out there actually helping the people. Another big issue, and this is huge right now in West Virginia, and I don't know how this is in other states, but we have a desperate need for lawyers to do guardian ad litem work and abuse and neglect proceedings.  Rio Lane:  Okay.  Mary Jane Pickens:  And a lot of this does come out of unfortunate circumstances around drug use and abuse and families that are really struggling. And we have a lot of children in foster care. And last year... We do regional meetings. We go all around the state in the fall, and we had judges come to all of those regional meetings and speak on pretty much whatever they wanted to talk about. Every single one of them made a desperate plea to the lawyers in the audience to consider taking on guardian ad litem work or doing abuse and neglect legal services because it's such a big need.  Rio Lane:  Oh, wow. And is that something that is funded by the state, those services? Or is it...  Mary Jane Pickens:  It can be through the Public Defender Services Agency, which is an agency I'm very familiar with because it's part of the Department of Administration. So yes, there are public defender corporations around the state that they kind of have some interaction with. And also they just handle appointed work in the public defender system. So they're involved in a lot of that, but it's not enough to meet the need. And you get into these rural counties, and a lot of times the lawyers that are in those counties are the judge, the prosecutor, and the public defender. They're the ones that are there, and you need some others out there. So it all kind of comes together. The challenges kind of overlap.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And do you find that you having a membership that's aging out as well? Is that also something that you're navigating?  Mary Jane Pickens:  A little bit. We're an old state. I mean, generally speaking. Virginia's rather old, and I don't know that it's really getting any younger. So that is a concern. One of the things that... We're planning our annual meeting for 2025, and one of our speakers that we've lined up is going to talk about generational differences and the fact that law firms and lawyers who are more seasoned need to be a little bit more open-minded about younger lawyers and what their expectations are and how to meet their needs and keep them in the state of West Virginia.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Do you find that something that the bar is having to navigate too, is new members, younger lawyers coming in and navigating their expectations and how they want to engage with the bar?  Mary Jane Pickens:  I think so, and that's something that I would like to be able to spend more time on. I don't know that we've gotten very far on that. We do have a young lawyer section, and it has its own board, and so they're kind of on the front lines of that addressing the needs of younger lawyers. But it's something that I think we do need to work on, and I think I probably need to spend more time on that.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. And it's challenging too, as technology shifts, trends shift, needs shift, etc. I mean, I think we could all safely say that upcoming generations do not engage in the same way that past older generations do. I mean, even for myself, I grew up with... I didn't have a computer until I think I was in my 20s. So yeah, it's definitely a new challenge I think that I'm hearing quite a bit about, actually, is how to navigate that. Yeah. What's your membership size? How many...  Mary Jane Pickens:  We have probably, if you counted every single type of member, we would have probably between 8,000 and 9,000, which sounds like a lot. Active in-state lawyers is probably closer to 44, 4,500.  Rio Lane:  Got it.  Mary Jane Pickens:  So we have inactives, active, not practicing. There's all kinds of different membership statuses. But the actual lawyers that are on the ground in the state of West Virginia licensed and practicing is about 4,400 probably.  Rio Lane:  Got it. Got it. Okay. And do you know how many of those are older, how many skew younger, and what that break down is? It's okay-  Mary Jane Pickens:  No, not off the top of my head, although there is a lot of interest in that kind of data, and our IT director has put that type of information together for our Supreme Court and others who have asked for it. So I think it's safe to say, even without having the numbers in front of me, that it's an older group.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I want to shift a little bit, talk about partnerships. And so the bar obviously has partnerships with different kinds of organizations, sometimes vendors, sometimes different groups. What are some of the things you look for in a partner that wants to work with the bar?  Mary Jane Pickens:  I think the most important... The thing that makes the relationship, I think, the most valuable and work the best is having a really good understanding of what each other do, or each other does, I guess.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Do, does. Yeah.  Mary Jane Pickens:  And I think just using ALPS as an example, I mean, it's purely kind of by accident, but it's fortunate that I do have the insurance background. It helps a lot because I think I understand certainly the regulatory environment and what an insurance company has to do and the things that they focus on and things. And risk management. At BRIM, we were the risk manager for the state of West Virginia, so I have that mindset, so I think that helps. I think it also helps for your partner to have a good understanding of what you do as a bar, not just selling a product to your members, but understanding, again, what your challenges are, what your members need, what their expectations are. I think it's really helpful to have a partnership with an entity that understands what we do. Strategically, what our goals are, what our mission is, that sort of thing.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, absolutely. I think that kind of helps too when it comes to helping then support your members, and able to provide content or information where maybe there's gaps or that you need a little boost in.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Yeah, absolutely.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I always like to think about partnership as a much more dynamic... Just much more beyond, well, tell them that we're great and we'll sell to them.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Right. Right.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, it's definitely a team effort, and it's important that values and ideas align.  Mary Jane Pickens:  It sure is. And actually just last week, I got a call from a lawyer in Raleigh County, West Virginia, and he was an older gentleman, and he was closing up his practice. And so he was just looking around for guidance on, what do I do? And the state bar is an agency under our Supreme Court of Appeals, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel is there and the Board of Law Examiners also. We're separate agencies, but all combined, regulate the practice of law on behalf of the Supreme Court. So I said, "Well, why don't you call ODC, the Office of Disciplinary counsel? I'm sure they've got some guidance. I know they've got some information on succession planning on their website," but I didn't have at my fingertips specific information to give him. So I reached out to Mark Bassingthwaighte.  Rio Lane:  Yeah.  Mary Jane Pickens:  He very kindly, and less than 24 hours later, sent me some checklists and a client letter sample and that sort of thing. So I was able to very quickly turn that around and send it to our member in Raleigh County, which I think was probably very helpful. I think it was exactly what he's looking for.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that Mark was able to help with that.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's great.  Rio Lane:  He is. He's fantastic. Yeah, he's an incredible resource. I think we're all very lucky to have him.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Yeah.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. So would it be safe to say that your experience with ALPS as a partner has been a positive one?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Oh, it sure has. ALPS helps support our regional meetings, which are very important to us. That's our chance to actually get out of Charleston and go to these places and meet these lawyers where they are. Those are really important to us, and I think our membership really enjoys that, and ALPS helps us in that area. Chris Newbold was able to help us with our strategic planning session last fall, and we were real happy how that turned out because it's doable. I mean, we ended up with a one page, which we loved, because the one before was several pages, and it was very colorful and it had graphs and it had arrows, and it was great looking. But we ended up with something short that really, really, really focused on the things that were achievable over a reasonable period of time, and that we enjoyed that experience. So it's just all kinds of things like that as part of the whole partnership that we've enjoyed.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Oh, I'm really happy to hear that. It's very important to me that a partnership is a good working relationship, and then we're both supporting each other in success because it's not a zero-sum game. It's like, yeah, support the members, support the profession, support each other. Yeah, that's good. So I'm really glad to hear that we're doing that. Yeah. That's fantastic. So I think we've got just a couple more minutes, but I wanted to ask you, what are some, not necessarily challenges, but things that you see kind of coming up on the horizon that you predict maybe the bar or the profession has to... Will have to navigate?  Mary Jane Pickens:  Well, one of the things that is kind of swirling around out there, we're a mandatory bar.  Rio Lane:  Right, yes.  Mary Jane Pickens:  So we're not a voluntary bar. We're mandatory. You have got to be a member of the West Virginia State Bar to practice law in West Virginia. So there are the issues around mandatory bars that you all are probably familiar with. And we try very, very hard to stay on the right side of that line where what we do is germane to the regulatory job of what we do.  Rio Lane:  Yes.  Mary Jane Pickens:  But I think that there's a constant pull because we also want to do charitable events, and we want to support all of our members regardless of their backgrounds and where they come from. And some of those areas can get a little... Have been blurry in other jurisdictions and have resulted in some lawsuits and things. So I think that's a challenge for us is a mandatory bar. And we're always watching out for that because we want to serve our members and do what we're supposed to do, but we also want to make sure that we're on the right side of that doing what we're supposed to do line. So I mean, that's one of them. Some of the others, I think we've kind of mentioned the generational stuff.  Rio Lane:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that either. There's been numerous instances the last few years when a mandatory bar has run afoul of certain things and was deunified, so yeah. Yeah. And that's definitely a challenge, but yeah. Okay. Well, awesome. I think that's really all we got, all we have to chat about, and I really appreciate you coming and just chatting with me, and hearing about the bar and about the partnership and everything. Yeah. So thank you so much.  Mary Jane Pickens:  Oh, I appreciate it. This was a great opportunity. Thank you so much for asking me.  Rio Lane:  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Happy to have you. And at some point, folks, I will be back with another little mini episode of In Brief. But in the meantime, enjoy your day.   

In this mini episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar & Affinity Partner Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Bob Paolini, Executive Director at the Vermont Bar Association to discuss the importance of bar partnerships, how they create value for members, and the pivotal role bars play in the legal community. — Transcript: Rio Laine:  All right. Hello, everybody. This is Rio Laine here, coming to you from ALPS for this installment of kind of a mini In Brief episode that we are doing. And so I am here today with Bob Paolini from the Vermont Bar Association. Hello, Bob. Thanks for joining us.  Bob Paolini:  Good morning, Rio. Thanks for having me.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, it's great to have you here. So you are the executive director of the Vermont Bar Association?  Bob Paolini:  I am,  Rio Laine:  Yeah. Want to tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up at the bar?  Bob Paolini:  Sure. Well, I'm a lawyer. I practiced in Vermont. I was admitted to the bar in 1973.  Rio Laine:  Wow. Yeah.  Bob Paolini:  I became executive director of the bar in February of 1996.  Rio Laine:  Wow. Yeah.  Bob Paolini:  So I've been in practice for 22 years. During that time, I served in the Vermont House of Representatives for a couple of terms, and then left that position, just went back to practice. And then I saw that this position of ED of the Vermont Bar opened up, and one of the pieces of the qualifications that they were looking for was policymaking work, and I really enjoyed the legislative process when I was a member of the House. It's a part-time legislature. It's really hard to integrate that service with the practice of law at the same time. So I ended up not running for reelection after a couple of terms.  When this position opened up and there was the opportunity to go back into the legislature representing the profession, I applied and I was hired, and I served in that job for 20 years. I left in the spring ... I think it was June of 2016. My successor, who I think you know, Teri Corsones, became executive director. At the beginning she didn't have any legislative experience and I worked part-time with the bar, doing some of that work during our session and helping her get acclimated to that kind of work. And then I stopped doing that.  And then six years later, she left to become Vermont State Court Administrator, so I was asked to come back on an interim basis two years ago this month actually. And after about five months in that position, the board asked me to stay on, which I was happy to do. So, 20 years, six years away, now two years back. That's how I got here.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. Well, that's fantastic. So 22 years kind of in total. Yeah. You obviously really enjoy the bar and working with the bar. What's something that you really like about your work and the Bar Association in general?  Bob Paolini:  We are a small bar, as you know. Maybe we have about 2,300 members of our association. Even though I've had a six-year break, I still know most of those people. Sure, there are a lot of new young lawyers, a lot of lawyers who have moved into Vermont that I don't know, but it's a small group. It's a close-knit group. The staff of six people, half of whom I've hired, half I did not hire, are great. I love working with them. And I really like our board of managers, who really has the welfare of our members at heart. They're really looking to help members improve their practices, improve their lives, and it's just great to work for them and try to represent them.  One of the questions that I was asked in my first interview going back to 1996 was, "Taking this administrative job is going to be so different than practicing law. How do you feel about that?" And I said, "It's not all that different. I mean, yeah, I've got clients now, but now I will have just one client, and that's our profession." And that's worked out for me, and I think for them too.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, that's a really interesting way to think about it, too. I was wondering about the board, and would you say that it's really important to have a board that is invested in the welfare of your members? Would you say that that is a requirement to running things well?  Bob Paolini:  That's a requirement, yes. Yeah, it is. We need the direction. In our case, we have 17 voices, all of whom are in different types of practice. One of whom is a judge, by the way, because we always have a judge on the board, but they all have different perspectives on what the legal profession is about today.  We meet 11 times a year, and I try to get up to date on, "What are you folks seeing? What should we be addressing? What challenges are new?" So as long as we're all dedicated to helping our members and helping protect the profession, as well as helping to protect the public, I think we're doing the right thing.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. What kinds of things are you hearing from the board or even members about challenges that are coming up that they're having to navigate?  Bob Paolini:  Well, clearly in this current climate, the rule of law is a challenge that we all have to address I think. Respect for the law, respect for the court system is something that I think every state bar needs to address.  In Vermont's case, as I said, we're a small bar, but we are a graying bar. Vermont's surrounded by cities like Boston and New York, not literally surrounded, but we're close to those cities, Hartford, Connecticut, Boston, New York City, places where there are greater opportunities for newly minted lawyers. Asking them to come to Vermont, especially if they have a bunch of education debt, is difficult. So the number of new lawyers we have is diminishing. As the bar ages, we lose to retirement every year a handful or more than a handful of lawyers.  So the shrinking bar is a real challenge I think for us. Actually this morning I engaged in a conversation with our board about the small number of lawyers who were applying for an open judgeship in Vermont, and everybody's concerned about that. There's an email chain going back and forth for the last two hours about what are we going to do about this? How do we get qualified people to be judges? So here's another topic for our board meeting next Friday.  Rio Laine:  Right, absolutely. And it seems that the graying bar situation, I mean, it's something that a lot of the bars are dealing with now. There certainly seems to be a larger number of lawyers transitioning out of practice, retiring, than there is coming in to the profession, absolutely.  Bob Paolini:  Yeah. I don't think Vermont's unique in that respect at all. There's technology challenges, where things went to online filing and different things. That drove some of the older members into retirement. I remember when that started and I would get phone calls or emails from our members saying, "I can't learn this whole new system now. I'm done. December 31st I'm retiring."  So yeah, there's that, there's the pandemic, and how many people that drove out of the profession.  Rio Laine:  Oh, 100%. Because I mean, never mind even the technology adoption required for the pandemic, but also just navigating the entire situation. It's a lot. And if you've been practicing for a long time, it's just easier probably to call it in.  Bob Paolini:  I know. As opposed to relearn everything and start over.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Would you say that that's similar to the difficulty getting lawyers to practice in rural areas as well, along the same lines, it's just difficult finding people to fill those gaps?  Bob Paolini:  We are definitely seeing that in some of our more remote places in our state. Our state's not big, but there are counties that are not big, but they only have one or two lawyers. And we know and we try to say to new lawyers, "Look, if you want to make the sacrifice and go there, you're going to be it. You're going to be that town's lawyer." It's sort of like thinking back 50 years or more, the local town lawyer, there are towns that that local town lawyer has passed away or has retired, and there's nobody there to take over.  So yeah, we're trying to match those new lawyers with the senior lawyers, I have them spend some time together, and then one retires and one takes over that. But it's a challenge, again, because of college and law school debt, and the fact that salaries are not that high in those rural communities.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And for the new members that you do have coming in, are you finding that they're looking for more from the bar than maybe the members that are aging out, they're looking for different types of engagement? Are you finding you're having to adapt or navigate that?  Bob Paolini:  They are definitely looking for something different. And I have to give credit to our Young Lawyers Division because they're great about reaching out, not only to newly minted lawyers, but to law students. And we have one law school in the state, so working with that law school and trying to integrate those folks into the bar.  Yes, their needs now are very different than what I experienced when I started. There was that whole process back then. There's one judge, now retired, who used to say that when he started his first year was carrying the briefcase for his partner. Going to court, just sitting there, but doing that for a year or whatever. That doesn't happen anymore. People don't have the resources to do that like they used to. So there's part of that education, that apprenticeship thing if you want, that's now missing.  Rio Laine:  Got it. Got it. That kind of mentorship piece. Yeah. And I've heard that that is a challenge for young lawyers, and I mean, you're getting into this new profession, it really helps to have some guidance and having to go without makes things much more difficult than they need to be.  Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely lots of things that are needing to be rethought and navigated, but that's always the way it is. There's always going to be something that is a challenge, and then we have to figure it out together, so yeah.  Bob Paolini:  Which makes this position so much fun to be in.  Rio Laine:  Yes, yes.  Bob Paolini:  You got to meet those challenges, there are new things every day. Really, there are new things every day.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. Do you like solving problems?  Bob Paolini:  I do like solving problems. Yeah.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. Yeah, that's fantastic. I think that's a really good way to think about it too, is rising to those challenges every day. And it makes you really a good person to be leading the bar then, because members will need to know that they have somebody who has their interests at heart and wants to help them navigate those things.  Bob Paolini:  Right. right.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. I also love a job that's different every day too. Yeah, it's fantastic. S  I want to shift a little bit and talk a little bit about partnerships. Now, I know that the Vermont Bar has partnerships with different vendors, different groups and organizations, kind of like ALPS, for example. How do those partnerships impact the bar or your memberships? Do you feel like they support the Bar Association?  Bob Paolini:  Well, let's talk about ALPS first.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, okay. Yeah.  Bob Paolini:  ALPS has been a great partner, and I think our most important partner since I started working at the bar 28 ... 6 years, whatever it is, 1996. Since 28 years ago.  This company has always reached out to the Vermont Bar Association and offered help, offered education, offered support. And frankly, even now, if I'm faced with an issue or a question, I call somebody at ALPS and say, "Have you seen this anywhere else? How did that state deal with it? Are there resources there that I can steal from there to help us deal with it?" Yeah, it's been excellent.  Rio Laine:  That's wonderful.  Bob Paolini:  It's been an excellent rapport with this company.  Rio Laine:  Wonderful. Oh, that's really fantastic. And obviously we want that to continue because it's important to us that we're able to support you.  Bob Paolini:  We have working relationships with other associations. I mean, I work closely in Vermont with the Vermont Bankers Association, with the Vermont Realtors Association, with the Teachers Union, in terms of public education and some of the legislative stuff that we need to do that we need support from these other groups that are affected. So we have lots of different partnerships, but the relationship with ALPS is different because they support educating the profession, protecting the profession, and making sure that we have what we need to have in order to not make mistakes.  Rio Laine:  Right, right. Yes. Oh, wonderful. I love to hear that. I guess in a general sense, what types of things do you look for in other partners, other strategic or vendor partners? Is it a willingness to offer that support, to collaborate?  Bob Paolini:  Yeah, it's one thing to endorse a business or a service and tell our members, "Yeah, we've endorsed them. Go contact them." The difference between just doing that and working with a partner such as ALPS, is that we do more than that, and ALPS does more than that. ALPS comes to Vermont and runs classes for us. They provide us information that we probably wouldn't otherwise have. They've helped us with our new lawyers.  We run an incubator program where we bring in lawyers who really want to go out on their own, sometimes right out of law school. And ALPS has a program that helps them get their first-year insurance. And we actually have this incubator program where we meet with these folks in terms of staff conversations once a week for an hour, an hour and a half. And ALPS has appeared remotely at those meetings and answered questions about insurance, and letters of engagement, and just lots of little helpful hints.  Yeah, I think we can't do that on our own. We don't have that expertise. We're a small group of seven employees at our office. But yeah, ALPS really has filled in with the needs that we really probably couldn't meet us in any other way.  Rio Laine:  Oh, that's fantastic. That makes me really happy to hear that. And no pressure because we're at the ALPS office or anything, but oh, that's fantastic. Oh, well, yeah. I'm really, really happy to hear that.  I guess we'll have just a couple more minutes and we'll wrap things up, but what do you see on the horizon for the bar? What are you looking forward to? What's coming down the pipeline? What do you anticipate? Anything really.  Bob Paolini:  Oh, I think we need to look ... I'm not going to be doing this forever.  Rio Laine:  What?  Bob Paolini:  I'm not.  Rio Laine:  I don't know.  Bob Paolini:  So I think we need to ... Let me start over. We have a staff of seven and four of us have been there for 15 years or more. So I think internally we need to prepare for some changes. Not only my position, but my associate executive director's position, a legal services coordinator, and another staff member who does our CLEs, who you know, Laura  Rio Laine:  Laura? Laura, yeah.  Bob Paolini:  Laura, yes. There's a lot of us there that are in sort of almost retirement mode. Of course, I came back from retirement, as I like to say, the board unretired me two years ago. But yeah, I think we need to, and we already have started to prepare succession plans and transition plans.  Yeah, so that's going to be just an internal challenge to our staffing, and it doesn't really affect the profession. It's going to involve the board more in terms of a little bit of management as opposed to just setting policy. They're going to be faced with the challenges of making certain decisions, maybe restructuring, maybe not, but certainly having to hire my successor and then he or she needs to overlap with these other folks who are looking towards retirement. Yeah, so I think we've got some challenges internally.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. A little bit of organizational change. Yeah. Yeah. And that's definitely the way it goes, right?  Bob Paolini:  Exactly.  Rio Laine:  Yeah. If you're not changing, you're not evolving.  Bob Paolini:  [inaudible 00:18:57].  Rio Laine:  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Bob. Thanks for taking the time to sit down and chat with me. Really appreciate getting to [inaudible 00:19:05].  Bob Paolini:  Thanks for having me. It's great to be here again.  Rio Laine:  Yes. Well, we're so excited to have you, and we are going to be enjoying our Bar Leaders Retreat the next few days. So yeah, looking forward to get to chat with you more.  Bob Paolini:  I'm sure you will.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, yeah. Great.  Bob Paolini:  Yeah, me too. Thank you.  Rio Laine:  Yeah, thank you so much. All right, everybody that wraps it up for today. You will hear from me later more.   

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with University of Montana Professor Jeff Brandt to talk about synthesizers, AI, and his class on the history of rock and roll. — Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful Downtown Missoula, Montana. As many of you know, I have been in Florida now for a number of years, but I'm back at the home office here, and we have a special event every two years where we bring in a lot of our bar associates from various bar associations around the country. Then we have some special speakers that come in and talk about all kinds of things.  I have just finished attending a presentation given by Jeff Brandt, who is a professor here at the university and does a course on the history of music. I got to say, in all honesty, folks, I wish you could all have been here. This was one of the most fun, creative presentations I've seen in a long, long time. Jeff, it's a pleasure to have you here. Before we get started, can I ask you to take just a little bit of time and tell us about who you are?  Jeff Brandt:  Okay, so I was born in Sitka, Alaska, which is a tiny, well, it's a big island actually, but a tiny town on a big island in Southeast Alaska. Average rainfall there is about 96 inches per year, so it's a Pacific Coast rainforest.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  I went to college in Tacoma, Washington at Pacific Lutheran University. Taught private percussion lessons after that for about 20 years. Somewhere in the middle or somewhere in there, I got my graduate teaching degree. Then we ended up in Missoula, Montana as a result. Then by happenstance, the History of Rock & Roll as a course fell into my lap.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That was an established course before you got here?  Jeff Brandt:  It was.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  Yeah. There were a lot of people that have taught it prior to me, but when I was given the opportunity to run with it, it was one of the first online courses developed at the University of Montana, and that's really when I dug in because I knew that teaching it in an online setting, I was going to have to be more aware of the points I was trying to get across and how they were delivered. I dug deeper and deeper into the historical aspect of the course, and then I just started creating these different slide programs. Now I'm on my third set of slides and I think it's my final because they're so good now I don't want to mess with them, but that's my brief history.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I didn't realize this is online. Could anybody get online and just take this course?  Jeff Brandt:  Anybody can take it online. I'll give my spiel about online education, to be honest here, is I think online education is good if you have time to do it. I think in-person education, generally speaking, is better.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I would agree with you.  Jeff Brandt:  There are so many different resources now for people to learn. Just with YouTube alone, you can go down an endless pit of stuff on one member of one obscure band, it seems.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Yeah. Mine is one of the many resources out there.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You're welcome to share. Folks, I'm telling you, if you have any interest at all in the history of rock and roll and want to have some awesome fun, this is a course I would encourage you to take and see. I didn't realize. How might folks find this?  Jeff Brandt:  Well, you go to the University of Montana. I believe you have to register as a student.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  You think that I would know all the hoops you have you have to jump through.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  No, that's fine.  Jeff Brandt:  You have to jump through several hoops and then you can take online classes. I do encourage people who are not working 40 hours a week and who are interested in really digging in, to take it in-person because there's so much more interaction with the way the clips are played and the way the slides are presented. Get on the University of Montana website and search it, and you can join the online course or the face-to-face.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You clearly have a passion. It just seems like listening to you, you're having just a ton of fun too, and I love that. Folks, I can also share this course is I think the number one or the number two top.  Jeff Brandt:  It's one or two or three. It depends on the year.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Why do you do this?  Jeff Brandt:  Well, honestly, the first time it fell in my lap. I was just kind of given the opportunity to sub for somebody and subbing for somebody in a college course is, it's a lot to take on because you jump into it usually with all of their materials because that's usually the unwritten rule is, "I'll let you use my stuff." I mean, back then, I mean, it makes me sound like a dinosaur, but the person that gave me the stuff had overheads, and so I was using overhead.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Wow. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Maybe it was a year later that I was using slides, but they gave me their overheads. I jump in, I'm starting to do this, and honestly, I was scared because I guess when you're, I can speak as a male when you're 23, 24, 25, you think you know a lot of stuff. I just cracked open the first of two textbooks that this prof was using, and I was like, "Oh, boy, do I know nothing and I'm teaching it in three weeks."  Then fast-forward, I end up digging in reading resources, listening to a lot of albums. I'll be honest with you, I hadn't really dug into the Beatles that much prior because there were so many other acts that I was interested in. Then I started listening to their catalog and the Rolling Stones, and again, that's a tiny scratch on the surface that doesn't include the other British bands like The Animals and The Who and Led Zeppelin and then John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and all these other in-depth things you can go in. That's just the British blues scene.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  What I realized was in order to make this work and why I continued to want to do it, is what I would need to do is have what I would call kind of a surfacey understanding of about 300 to 400 acts in the entertainment business. Gradually bit by bit, the department would buy my recordings. I would go and dig in and listen to everything from Blind Lemon Jefferson to the Spice Girls. I would just year-by-year chip away. When you get into a subject like counted cross-stitch or skiing or building doors, you get better at it and you realize ways to enjoy it more.  I got to a point where I created my final, what I call my final set of slides, and I really, really carefully planned out the layout of the slides, how the format of the class was going to move and how I was going to justify only featuring certain artists as opposed to leaving out bands, like the one I always pick on is AC/DC because they're not really a part of the course. That's why I do it and why I like to do it, because it's like anything else where you get into it, then you kind of become addicted once you have a little taste.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah, yeah, I get that. Year after year, how do I want to say this? Let me do it this way. What do you hope students get out of your class?  Jeff Brandt:  Well, there are these objectives that we write in the syllabus that you're supposed to abide by, et cetera, et cetera, and I do, but what I really want people to get out of the course is I want them to understand a general approach, or I guess have a general understanding of the social history that rock and roll highlights in America. That's one thing.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  I want them to understand that rock and roll is not white, it's not Elvis Presley, it's not AC/DC, it's not, even though I love them, it's not Metallica. It is something that came about quite by accident and through a lot of pain. That part is kind of an inconvenient truth that some students don't like. I have to warn people in the beginning, "I'm not going to sugar coat this, I'm going to bring it directly to you. Some of the things are inconvenient truths that you may not have faced prior. Depending on how invested you are in learning as a person, it may buck your understanding of how this thing has worked."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Just for example, the inconvenient truth, like I was mentioning today that Elvis Presley is a cover artist. Bill Haley is a cover artist.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Mm-hmm.  Jeff Brandt:  They're not original rock and roll artists.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  The original rock and roll artists are people like Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Bo Diddley and all of the artists on Chess Records. Those are the original rock and roll artists, but because of the unfortunate existence of so much racism in our country, a lot of those people were shoved aside because it was easier to market people with light skin.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  So interesting.  Jeff Brandt:  That's another thing I wanted to go with and maybe if I'm going to highlight a third thing I want them to go away with, is an understanding that you can listen to more than one subgenre within rock and roll. You get people that are "metalheads" and people that are into techno pop or house or people that seventies rock, or here's another category I have, people that love the sixties. They have blinders on. If it's between '64 and '69, it's in, and if it's '70 and on, it's out. The understanding that if you listen to pick your artist, like name a person, let's just pick like Katy Perry. If you listen to Katy Perry and you put hours into it, you will grow to like that artist. If you listen to Destiny's Child, you will grow, if you listen to Frank Zappa, you will grow to like it. I want express in that third point that it takes time to do that, and it's an investment and it's a willing investment.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It's very interesting. I appreciate what you're sharing, and again, after hearing what you had to say here just a few moments ago, it has changed how I look at certain things. What I liked about it, it helps understand the culture, understand music in general, where it comes from. I mean, I have a greater sensitivity. Yeah, I just thought it was very good.  Jeff Brandt:  Well, it's almost like one thing along those lines, it's almost like with Louis Armstrong.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Louis Armstrong was this one of several trumpet or cornet players as they were originally, in the early jazz era that was a soloist and gained a following from the general public, the general population in the United States. Now, Louis was seen as a performer on stage, but at the same time, he couldn't stay in the same hotels, he couldn't eat in the same restaurants.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  He could walk on stage in a club, but not eat at the restaurant in the club.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  He would've to be fed backstage and those kind of inconvenient truths to uncover that for people in a day when I think it's easy to brush that aside and highlight that he was an ambassador to the world in the 1970s. Yeah, in the seventies he was, but for the majority of his time as a performer, he was only respected as a performer, not as a human being.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Wow. I agree with you, that is a great message I think. God bless. These are important things.  Jeff Brandt:  I mean, I think that, and another thing that's along those lines too, it's a little bit of a stretch as a parallel, but it is a parallel, is that performers in rock and roll, many times are actors.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  If you're in a heavy metal band and you're acting all angry on stage and chugging it away on your guitar up there and singing these lyrics that are full of vitriol, that doesn't necessarily define who you were at breakfast at 10 o'clock that morning or who you are when you're off tour with your wife and kids or with your partner at the winery or whatever. That's a different thing. There are a lot of people that can't get past that. They see name your hard rock artist, "That's an evil person." That person puts on sweatpants, watches reruns of shows that we all like on Netflix, enjoys a donut every now and again, and takes a walk with dog.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  They're just real people, right?  Jeff Brandt:  They're real people. That part is also misunderstood about rock and roll in the same way that people can't or don't want to unveil the truth about black artists.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right. Right. One of the things, we talked a little bit last night, and again, you were sharing this in your presentation, one of the things that really sort of struck me was your comments about synthesizers. I'm a guy that likes that sound, but I didn't fully appreciate its impact and the evolution and how that impacted the artists of the day. I guess I'd have to honestly say I'm still not sure where you come out on synthesizing. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I'd be curious, what's your thought about?  Jeff Brandt:  Okay. Well, I mean, I own a synthesizer. Every band I've played in has used a synthesizer.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  I'm not against synthesizers. I also don't dislike house music. I don't dislike techno pop. I don't dislike the synth revolution that happened in the late, let's call it the late seventies to the early eighties where it exploded, where everybody had to have a Yamaha DX7. I don't dislike that. What I think is problematic, is the idea that this machine is everything.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  I think the other part that's problematic is that, and this is going to make me sound like I'm super old because my instrument, my main instrument is drum set. People will ask me, "Well, why haven't you dug into this or this or this about the history of rock and roll?" I say, "Well, I also practice instruments and I have a passion for playing them." To me, it's not just about reading and regurgitating facts, it's about keeping up my musical skills. What happens when you get into the world of synth is to some degree, you lose the world of any sort of musical technique because the machine can do so much of it for you.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. Right.  Jeff Brandt:  I think that the bad side of synth is highlighted like groups like Human League, because if you look at a group like Human League and they're early stuff, it sounds like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, it's very robotic and synthesized, as we should say, in the sense that everything is exactly placed on the exact moment of the exact quarter of the beat. That there is no doubt in your mind exactly where the center of the beat is. You can press a button and the synthesizer can do that. Whereas on piano, you have to go to make the same da-da-da-da-da-da, you have to go like fingers, 4, 3, 2, 1, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da over and over again to make that same key do that. To some degree, whenever electronics jump to the next level, we lose a tiny bit of our ability to perform on those instruments.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Like with synth, you lose a little bit of ability to perform on a general keyboard. With electric guitar, you lose a little bit of ability to perform on an acoustic guitar. With electric drums, you lose a little bit of ability to play an acoustic drum set. I mean, imagine if there was an electric French horn, for example. French horn is one of the most difficult instruments to play, right?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right, of course.  Jeff Brandt:  Period. I mean, it's like a French horn. Missing notes on a French horn is a Monday, that's normal. You can't avoid it. Imagine if there were a way to synthesize so that it would know that your note was going to be missed by your embouchure, and it would bring the correct note out. We would lose some of the, maybe the desire to practice and get it to where we are. That's where I feel it's the bad side of synth. But in general, I'm with you. I like the sound of the synthesizer. I like the ideas you can get from the synthesizer. I even like the drum ideas that you get from a synthesizer. I think that we were talking about last night, it's like you can go too far with something, where you need to think about reining it back in. It's like alcohol. It's like collecting cars.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  It's like colors of carpet in your home. At what point in time do you say enough is enough.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, my interest in this, it's my understanding again, that when this technology, as it sort of evolved and really became mainstream, there were a lot of responses. One of which was this is going to put people out of work because it was the Moody Blues, you could go and see the orchestra.  Jeff Brandt:  Didn't need the spring place.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It changes. I hear you can lose some skill sets because the machine is doing it for you, but it also brings about, I think, some creativity. It seems to me once the revolution happened, the music industry didn't go away, but how it works changed.  Jeff Brandt:  Yes.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  We're at a point where I think, and even involved where, we're having all kinds of discussions and reactions with the evolution of generative AI.  Jeff Brandt:  Mm-hmm.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  There are people saying, "This is going to take jobs away from all kinds of people," not just musicians with the synth, but I also can see that this could bring about some incredible creativity opportunities, allowing just the exploration of music to go far further in directions we've made never even think of right now.  Jeff Brandt:  Right. Right.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Could you do all sorts of things with tones, vocal tones, and I don't know.  Jeff Brandt:  Yes.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  What is your thought? Do you see this as a game changer? Is this much ado about nothing?  Jeff Brandt:  Well, first of all, I think that it's inevitable.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  You could use the Pandora's box example. Once Pandora's box is open, then it's open and you can't shut it again. Well, the synthesizer was going to be developed, I'll tell you why, is because it comes from the pipe organ.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, really?  Jeff Brandt:  The pipe organ is the first synthesizer. The pipe organ has stops that create different sounds. If you study the pipe organ going way back, you look at real pipe organs, they have sounds on them where you pull stops out and make it sound like a flute and make it sound like a trumpet.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I never thought about it that way, but you're right. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  It has a pedal system because pipe organ players have to read three staves. They read treble, they read bass, and then they read sub bass, as I'll call it. I honestly don't know the exact term, but another bass clef for their feet. They're basically playing, no pun intended, a synthesizer with their feet, while they're playing two synths with their hands. That's the original synth. People that think that this came about in like '64, it's been around since Bach, and guess what? It's not going away.  I think the part about the synthesizer and change, is that it is inevitable that AI along with that new technologies will enter where new possibilities will come up. I think that the good side, is some things are a little bit easier for us to do. For example, Pro Tools is a program where you can click into the program and cut right in, and it both takes the ambient sounds from before and the ambient sounds after and blends it together so you can't tell the person was clicked in at that moment. That's amazing. That makes it simpler.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  It saves money for people that own Pro, it saves time, and humans are generally speaking all about that. I mean, if there's a cherry tree here and there's a bigger cherry tree across the river and you're like, "I'm going to stay with this cherry tree right here because I don't want to cross the river." That's what we would literally call the lowest hanging fruit.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  With a synthesizer, if there is an option to make something a little bit simpler, people are going to use it. Again, there's the when is when part, when is enough enough? When is too much, too much, is what I mean. I think with AI, it's going to inevitably bring up other options that we haven't thought of, and it's inevitably going to bring about sounds or feelings or grooves or patterns that will catch people's ears that you cannot create with guitar rhythm guitar standard acoustic bass, or electric acoustic bass and drums, and we like that change.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Speaking personally, is your, I guess, conclusion or do you see the rise of AI, generative AI then, as a positive development? Are you optimistic looking forward to see what the music industry does with this? Or is it cautious optimism?  Jeff Brandt:  I'd say it's cautious optimism because it is true, for example, let's just go with trucks, there are trucks now that can be self-driven.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  I don't necessarily think that's a good thing. First of all, I think that we can put things on trains, and I know I sound like a total socialist here, but you can put things on trains and all of those cars are "self-driven" by the one engineer up there, and it's very efficient. Trucks that are self-driven will become a problem at some point because you can hack into that.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.  Jeff Brandt:  You can't hack into a human's mind nearly as easy, so there's that.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  I think that it's good to have the humans operating things.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  At the same time with the music business and recording, if you go back to the sixties and then the seventies, you had tons of studios that were busy hour by hour, day by day, week by week. You'd have to book into that studio six months in advance to get a four-hour space.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  Now, there are studios that are completely abandoned because they've moved into people's homes because of the laptop, because of microphones like the one we're using right here, and because of the synthesizer. Is it good or is it worse? It's change.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  That's what it is.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Is it going to affect having lots and lots of people play a string track versus using a synthesizer to simply overdub things? Yes, it's going to affect that. Is it going to affect it to the point where somebody goes to a symphony orchestra or a jazz concert and they see 18 mannequins on stage holding up instruments, and all of it comes from a synthesizer? I doubt it because we like to watch artists perform.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Like with hip-hop, almost all of the time in the hip-hop genre or any sub-genre or sub-sub-genre of hip-hop, you have people that are using synthesizers to create the entire track other than the vocals. They're even manipulating the vocals using the synth. When they go on tour, now, increasingly there are people that are using instrumentalists on tour because it's more interesting to look at.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That makes sense, yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  You don't want just two turntables and a microphone back there because that's all it is.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah. Why pay all the money to go?  Jeff Brandt:  When you go on tour, it's convenient for artists like Mariah Carey to just take the synths and go out there, but she knows that when she can afford to hire the string players, it looks cool.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  I think it's a case of are you going to see the glass as half full or half empty? It's here. It's been here since the pipe organ. It's going to stay. It's a question of when do you say enough is enough, and how do you look at it from your perspective as a musician? I guess I'd add one more thing. If you're afraid of the synthesizer, learn to use one. Right there.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I really, really appreciate and love everything that you've shared. Folks, one of the reasons I wanted to do this, as you well are aware, our profession is struggling. There's a lot of people that are very much embracing the AI evolution and a lot of others very, very concerned about will they have a job. A lot of legal staff are concerned, "Will I have a job in a couple more years?" I'm using AI myself to do a lot of writing, and it's saving me tons of time, and it elevates my game. It really does. I still am the one that policy, it's an idea generator for me.  Getting back to this, I'm hoping that it is helpful to you who are listening, as we think about the challenges, the concerns, work through this, it's easier to hear and get some thoughts about how we should be responding or what do we do with all this, when we talk about it in the context of something else. Discussing this as it relates to music, I think is very eye-opening. I love the comment, you are absolutely right this synthesizer.  Jeff Brandt:  It's hard to say.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I always get tongue-twisted.  Jeff Brandt:  It's really tough to say.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It's been around since Bach.  Jeff Brandt:  It's been around since the organ.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I never really understood that. I think some similar things can be said about AI. It's been here a lot longer than we realize. Not in the same way, generative AI is certainly very, very new. I am cautiously optimistic about it. I would encourage you folks to just take a realistic look, take some opportunities, if you're threatened by it, pick up the instrument and learn it, and it can help your practice. I just think it's a positive thing overall. We got to be careful going too far. I can keep rambling on about this stuff for a long time. I have so many planes in my head up right now.  Jeff Brandt:  Well, there's one more thing that's worth adding.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Please, please.  Jeff Brandt:  There's a drummer in LA named Greg Bissonette.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.  Jeff Brandt:  He's a studio drummer. He went to University of North Texas. He's played with lots of different artists. Greg Bissonette has always made his living playing drums.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  Now, when he first entered the studio scene in Los Angeles, as far as I know, he was going to studios and recording. You'd get your drums carted over to the studio by a carting service. You'd show up, you'd play the gig, which was a recording gig, and then you would pack your stuff up or the carting service would pack your stuff up. You'd go home and you'd be waiting for your next booked gig. Now, Greg has a microphone set up in his home. People send him a file. He listens to the file. There's maybe a click track on it, or maybe not, maybe he has to create his note. I mean, I don't know him personally, but if you need a reference for Greg Bissonette, he played all of the in-between clips on the Friends show.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, seriously?  Jeff Brandt:  He's that guy and he's done a lot more than that. Understand that the convenience of somebody emailing you a file or dropping a file in a box and you download this file and then go ahead and say, "Okay, I'm going to add drums to this track," and you do it from your home studio. There are some good things about this. Number one, he's not driving a car in LA traffic to a studio, which means he gets to spend more time at home and more time with his family. That's better for the environment. Electric car or not, it's better.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Agreed.  Jeff Brandt:  Okay. It doesn't have the same in-person work environment that you had say in the sixties when the Fab Four or the Rolling Stones are right there together, hashing it out like, "What does this mean?" That's different. The truth of the matter is, I don't think anybody who's listening to something Greg Bissonette has recorded probably would go, "Oh, well, this obviously is something this guy did at his home studio with the downloaded file." In that way, it doesn't matter. Again, it's a choice of how do you want to do the track? Is it a jazz band? You probably need to come together and play. Is it a digital track and they want live drums on it?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Send it, who cares?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  Again, this idea of change is the only constant. I mean, maybe I'll be eating my own words and I'll be replaced by a robot that has all of the personality of a human being and knows every single history of rock and roll fact. Sure. Maybe that'll happen. I doubt it. People like Greg Bissonette are still out there finding a creative way to make a living simply because they went, "Oh, now I need the studio at home. Oh, now I need this technology so that the files can be sent to me. I need my microphones, everything tuned up."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  You still find a way to do it, and I think that we will. I've never bought that line about AI and knock on wood, that it's going to come together and destroy the human race. I think that's silly.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah, I do too.  Jeff Brandt:  I think what it's going to do is it's going to be one of those things where we just have to be careful how we use it.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Mm-hmm. Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  I think you could say we have to be careful. We have to be careful about how we drive Hummers.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  We have to be careful about not making buildings too tall.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  We have to be careful about not making wave machines so powerful that kids get knocked over when they're going to a wave machine at a water park to have fun. It's pretty simple stuff.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. I want to thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk. You have said so eloquently, things that I have trouble saying. I can't put it into words in the same way you do. All I can say is, folks, Jeff, the insights here, what I'm trying to get across, I hope it's self-evident now, you're summarizing all this just perfectly. That's it. I appreciate your coming. I'll let all of you get back to work. If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns on risk management, ethics, insurance, etc, remember, I'm not the Risk Manager of Alps, I'm hired by Alps to be your Risk Manager. Feel free to reach out anytime. It's MBass@Alpsinsurance.com. Good talking to you all. Take care. Bye-bye.   

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Attorney Ann Moderie to talk about a suicide that should have never happened. — Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. Welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the Historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. And it's a smoky day out there today, but it's good to be back in the office in terms of the home office for a little while.  And I have a guest that is... I'm very excited to share... have her share her story with you, but it's just you want to talk about a compelling, just difficult, I don't even know how to say it. I mean, I'm still swallowing what I've just heard in terms of a detailed presentation on what she's doing. So my guest is Ann Moderie... Modera.   Ann Moderie:  Moderie.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Moderie. I'm so sorry, Ann.   Ann Moderie:  It's okay.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Bassingthwaighte gets mixed up. Yes. So, but Ann, can you... before we jump into your story, can you just share a little bit about yourself and what you do?   Ann Moderie:  Sure. And thank you for having me, Mark. I am a Montana attorney. I have been practicing for about 25 years. I have practiced out of Polson, Montana, which is on Flathead Lake for that entire time.  I practiced with my father for 14 years, and when he became district court judge, I went out on my own, and I've been out on my own since that time. I have handled primarily civil cases, mostly litigation, over the years. I recently have inherited a lawyer's practice who passed away who did a lot of estate planning and probate.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Wow. Okay.   Ann Moderie:  So I'm transitioning a little bit in the last couple of years, not as much litigation, but always on the plaintiff's side. I have tried to dedicate myself to helping victims, whether it's an unfortunate accident or intentional conduct, but I think there's a real need for attorneys that are willing to get in the fight.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes. And you have fought an incredible battle. I just finished hearing a presentation that Ann gave that really focused on a first case.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And it's not your first, or is this your...   Ann Moderie:  Oh gosh, no.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  I've been practicing since 1999.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  And this case came into our firm in 2005.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  But it's the first case of an interesting story. So, Ann, I just invite you, have at it, share what happened and what this is all about.   Ann Moderie:  Well, and I will tell the story, but I think it's important to point out that I was one attorney in a team that tackled-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.   Ann Moderie:  ... this issue and these type of cases. So I don't mean to stand out as anyone that handled them by myself. But how I first became introduced to the troubled teen industry, and these are specialty boarding schools for, quote, troubled teens, and sometimes they're called tough love schools. They're a type of school that has its own behavior modification model that is kind of almost like a military-type setting. It's very rigid, very strict. And I didn't even know these schools existed.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I didn't either until today.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I mean, this is...   Ann Moderie:  It's under the radar.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  But back in 2005, a case came into our office related to the suicide of a 16-year-old girl at one of these specialty boarding schools. And the school was located in Thompson Falls, Montana, which is in Sanders County, which is a nearby county.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.   Ann Moderie:  These... I had no idea this was in our backyard. But the school was a boarding school, mostly for out-of-state students. They are placed there because they are struggling at home, whether it's drugs, alcohol, running away, getting in trouble. Parents would send them to this school as kind of an answer really to the struggles they're having or their concern about their children's safety. And these schools represent to the parents that they are the answer that they are going to change your kids' lives. They're going to turn them around.  And the mother contacted us because her daughter committed suicide at this school called Spring Creek Lodge. And we didn't morally... Suicide cases are difficult, so we really wanted to get the records and study them before we agreed to take it. The mother had access to all of her school records. So the mother got them, presented them to us, and we were mortified with what we saw. The notice that the staff had of this young woman hurting herself was unbelievable. We found 152 instances over six months-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That is just crazy.   Ann Moderie:  ... where there was clear intent to kill herself-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  ... including statements that, "I want to die." She was cutting. She was crying. She was begging for help. She was acting out physically to staff. She tried running away. She tried hanging herself from her bunk. This was a girl who was struggling, and we felt comfortable with the records that we had that we should pursue this. And these people that ran this should be held accountable.  And it's important to understand this girl's history. She was adopted at birth. Her adopted dad died when she was just a toddler. And then it was just her and her mom against the world. They were close. They had a great... They were very connected with their lives. The mother ran a furniture store. She had her desk, and then she had a little tiny desk next to her where her daughter-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, my gosh. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  ... would work with her. It's pretty neat story actually because they had each other and that's about it. And when this girl got into her teenage years, she started acting out. She started sneaking out. She wasn't involved in hard drugs, but she started experimenting with substances. The mother was very scared.  She didn't know how to rein her in. She didn't want her to rebel more. She was scared where this could go. And I think you have to step back and look at the people who send their kids there. These schools cost anywhere from 3,500 a month to 5,000 a month. So they are parents who can afford-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right. Yes.   Ann Moderie:  ... this kind of care for their children. And if you look at that type of family, boarding schools are not considered a bad thing. I mean, they're very actually elite.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.   Ann Moderie:  If you can afford to send your child to a boarding school, my goodness, that is a wonderful opportunity.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  So sending a girl to a boarding school, while some, it rubs them the wrong way, in other ways, it's not unusual for this family from their world.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  So she goes to... Oh, and one more thing about Karlye is she had a learning disability. It was diagnosed. She attended a school specifically designed for people with learning issues, but she was doing real good in school. That wasn't actually a problem in the program that she was in.  The mother went to an educational consultant with her concerns. What should she do? And it was encouraged or advised that she send her to a specialty boarding school where she could be monitored, kept safe while still addressing her learning disability. And she was referred to a New Mexico boarding school. The mother looked into it. She talked to everyone. It seemed to be a good fit.  They had a special education program. She sent her there. And within a short period, this girl ran away and took pills. And the school said, "We are not designed for the care for someone with these concerns or issues." And they sent her home. I mean, the school did the right thing.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right, exactly.   Ann Moderie:  "We're not designed." So she goes home, and the mother's frantic at this point. She doesn't know if she's going to hurt herself if she's going to sneak out and get hurt. She goes back to an educational consultant, and they refer her to what is called Teen Help. It's represented to be a nonprofit referral resource for parents whose children are exhibiting certain types of behavior.  And Teen Help has telemarketers really, when you call in that have a script. We got the scripts that have... They say certain things to pique the parents' fear. "It sounds like you're... you need immediate help. The child, the longer you let it go, the further they're going to go away." One script we found partway through the script, it says to the telemarketer, "MAXIMIZE PROBLEMS" in all caps. They are designed, this company is designed to prey on the fears of parents.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Exactly. Yes. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  So she listens-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It's social engineering is what I'm hearing.   Ann Moderie:  Oh, yeah. It's very smart, actually. And they give her all these statistics. "Within 24 hours, this many children will commit... will try to commit suicide." I mean, they're just talking to exactly what she's fearful of. And they say, "We're a non-profit. We don't get anything by these referrals. We don't have any connection to these schools.  But we think we have found just the school for your daughter. It's Spring Creek Lodge in Montana, and here are the pictures." It's a beautiful mountain setting. Well-maintained lodges. It looks gorgeous. They have pictures of kids boating and hiking, horseback riding. They show kids at computers. They represented that they have a special education program, 24-hour monitoring, therapy for the kids.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  This sounds like a prayer...   Ann Moderie:  Oh, [inaudible 00:10:29]-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  ... an answer to a prayer for a parent.   Ann Moderie:  Oh, absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  It sounds... And especially a parent, we've all been there. We have kids who are struggling. I get it.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I do too.   Ann Moderie:  So it sounds like a perfect fit for her. And the program, though, requires a commitment letter to be written and signed by the mother committing to this program. They also ask the parent to prepare honesty reports about the child. "Has this child ever been dishonest? Have they ever been manipulative?" Well, what teenager hasn't?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  But they keep that in the child's file, and they tell the parent that, "It's going to be strict. They're going to want to come home. They're going to want to manipulate you but stick to the program. We have a record of success. 15,000 students... children, we have been successfully turned their life around."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  It sounds great. So the mother does everything that they ask for. She signs a contract. She's going to pay $3,500 a month. She writes a report about her daughter. She agrees to go to seminars. There are seminars that parents have to fly to and attend-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, okay. Yes.   Ann Moderie:  ... that are kind of a educational this is how you be a better parent type of thing. She agrees to it all, and she sends her daughter off. And the conditions at the school are not like the pictures.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  At the time this young woman was going there, there were approximately 500 kids going to this school.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh my gosh.   Ann Moderie:  There were kids sleeping on mattresses on the floor because they didn't have the room for them.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  But we later found out that this school is part of a network of worldwide schools. And some of those schools were getting closed down by government agencies and they were taking the overflow. So that's why it was overcrowded. Lice was rampant. Kids would've complained they didn't have enough food. And they told the family that, "This is a level system. You start at level one with zero points.  And as you do good things and accomplish certain tasks, you gain points. And if you gain enough points, you go to level two through level six. And at level six, you can graduate." And average time it takes to graduate is a year that these kids are in these programs. On level one, you can't talk, you can't make eye contact, you can't look out the window, you can't talk to your parents. You are completely isolated socially because... until you get to level two.  Well, another part of getting past level one is you have to succeed in their educational program. Their educational program turns out to be completely self-taught. There are no teachers teaching. They put a kid on a wooden box at a wooden carrel, and they give them a workbook. They have to go through the workbook and then take a quiz at the end. And if you pass that quiz, you move on to the next subject. Well, someone with a learning disability-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Exactly.   Ann Moderie:  ... is not...  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  They're not going to be able to do that.   Ann Moderie:  No.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  Of course not. Which showed right from the start, it was obvious she couldn't get past one subject. She was... And you would... there's a window above the carrels where the student sat. And if you looked out the window, you lost points. Very quickly, things dissolved. It was not good. She could not get off level one. She could not speak to her mother.  And she already went in depressed and having some suicidal ideation. And under this point system, suicide attempts or suicide talk, you lose all your points. You're punished. They also have what they call intervention rooms, which is solitary confinement. And that is a punishment for being suicidal. They put you into solitary confinement, and you can be in there for days at a time.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It blows me away that the consequences... You have somebody who's suicidal, and then what they do is going to make her more suicidal.   Ann Moderie:  And that's exactly what happened, Mark.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. [inaudible 00:14:51] gosh.   Ann Moderie:  It was painfully obvious in the record. It was just snowballing. She starts cutting. She starts trying to hang herself. It was just daily. And their response was to just keep putting her in intervention. That was their response and to take points away.  And what's most concerning too is that the mother wasn't being told about this. Her only communication came from staff. And the staff was telling her this entire time that she's being manipulative. "She's trying to work us. Don't fall for it."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  So these are the honesty statements. They have information now that they can...   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Gotcha.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Gotcha.   Ann Moderie:  In fact, these honesty reports come not only up in that scenario, but if children in these schools allege abuse or mistreatment, the staff will pull out the honesty reports. And they say, "Look, even their own families say they're dishonest. How can you believe this?"  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.   Ann Moderie:  They're used against the kids. But at one point, Karlye's begging for therapy. And Spring Creek Lodge, interestingly, is very open to that. Come to find out, they do have a mental health facility on campus, but it's co-owned by the director of Spring Creek Lodge.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Of course, it is.   Ann Moderie:  Of course, it is. So they're all over that.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yep.   Ann Moderie:  They say... They contact the mother, and they say, "She's asking for therapy. We can provide it at $150 an hour. We're happy to do that." And the mother, of course, being a wonderful, loving mother, says, "Of course, I will do..."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, yes, you want to do the right thing.   Ann Moderie:  "... I will do anything to help her. Absolutely. No, any cost." And so they set her up with therapy, and she starts going to a therapist. Come to find out later, the only degree the therapist had at that time was a high school diploma. And he was charging $150 an hour to this mother.  And the therapy clinic did not have access to the school records, so that they didn't even know she was suicidal. She was going through therapy with this guy, and he was talking to her about her friends back home. And the loss of father, I mean, he didn't even know she was suicidal at that point-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Wow.   Ann Moderie:  ... when he was giving therapy. But when... Another thing that happens when children are suicidal at this school, they not only punish them, but they put them on what's called high risk, which is more supervised.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right. Gotcha.   Ann Moderie:  More supervision by parents. Every half hour, the staff has to actually sign something saying they've checked on her, which is a good thing. That part is good.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That is a good thing.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  You can get off of high-risk status if a panel of seven staff members vote you off, none of whom have mental health training, none of whom have training in suicide risk assessment. So she was on and off high risk. They voted her off. I remember asking one staff member, "So why did you vote her off?" She was voted off high risk, I think, four days before she killed herself.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  And the staff member said, "Well, I saw her on campus, across campus, and she looked like she was smiling, and she looked happy." And it turns out she's legally blind.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, my...   Ann Moderie:  It just gets...  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You can't make this stuff up.   Ann Moderie:  You can't make this up. I know.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It just... Oh my God.   Ann Moderie:  So this is in 2004. Up to the day she kills herself, she's threatening suicide. They lose track of her for an hour. She goes into a bathroom stall, and she hangs herself. And two staff members found her, panicked, and ran. They brought other staff members back. They took her down, and she was still breathing-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  [inaudible 00:18:32].   Ann Moderie:  ... but no one had CPR training. They didn't know how to help her. And she died in the helicopter on the way-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh, my gosh.   Ann Moderie:  ... to the hospital.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  This is a crazy story.   Ann Moderie:  It's painful to hear. It's painful to tell.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  So that's how we got involved in trying to hold this school and the directors accountable. But what we found in this case is that this is a small part of a major operation. There is what is called the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. It's called WWASP.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.   Ann Moderie:  And it's a network of schools... Well, they call them schools. They're programs across the whole world. They have them worldwide. And you start looking at how they all follow the same model, behavior modification model. All the schools have to enter into contracts with the same companies. These companies take a third of the profit off the top. So this is millions that these companies are making.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  And if you dig through all of these companies, the layers and layers of ownership, it seems to all flow down to the same group of individuals who are located in Utah and who are the founders of this network of schools. And that's who we concentrated on at the end is because that's where the money was going.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  So it resulted in settlements with some of the defendants early on. It resulted in a three-week trial. It was... And that led to other cases against this same school or being... There were other schools in Montana. I think I recently heard that there's, I think, 72 schools right now in Montana of this... Not WWASP schools, but just specialty boarding schools.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.   Ann Moderie:  I think that that's what I heard.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  All right.   Ann Moderie:  But they have largely been unregulated. There's no federal regulation of these schools. It's left to the states. And in Montana, there was no regulation, or true regulation, until 2019. And in 2019, a law was passed that provided for these schools to be under the regulation of the Montana Department of Health and Human Services after there was a lot of press about these schools, and that has had some positive effects.  There has been some closures, investigations, and I'm grateful that we're inching towards that. But for those of us that work in this school, they... in this field, that we know that there needs to be much more done because the people that were running Spring Creek Lodge, they're involved in these other schools in Montana. There's been allegations of abuse or misconduct. The problem is still there. A little bit of regulations are not enough. What we want is federal regulation. That's our goal.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  The ultimate goal. Okay.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah. And the more we talk about it, the closer we can get to that goal.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right. Right.   Ann Moderie:  And that is where this Netflix documentary called The Program comes in is a former student of one of these schools did a documentary. She is a filmmaker out of LA, former student. And she put together this documentary on these schools and specifically WWASP and did an amazing job. She very talented young woman.  Took a lot of courage because she's been taking the heat since then. But I was asked to participate in this program... the program, this documentary, which I did, and I was happy to do so. And we are hoping that this will have some positive effect. And just getting the word out is something.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I want to make sure, folks, that you are clear. So there is, as a result of this case, other people have become aware. And this... A past student at one of these schools has filmed that they've created this series on Netflix, and it is called The Program, right.   Ann Moderie:  Yes.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  So if that's a show, it's a show I got to go look at.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I just... Again, I've had no idea. But I want to make sure all of you listening are aware of what to look for as well. Why... You got involved in this, I guess. And you've had some success changing the law here in Montana. Have you been involved in any other matters with any of these schools? Is this a practice area that you continue in-   Ann Moderie:  Well...  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  ... to some degree?   Ann Moderie:  Yes. I've had... I've been personally involved in two other cases. The other one was a case against... another case against Spring Creek Lodge.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.   Ann Moderie:  I was involved in another case against another facility. And then I have been acted as a consultant on several other cases that are dealing with these same entities or their same individuals. The school, Spring Creek Lodge, closed in 2009.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  As a result of these legal [inaudible 00:23:53]-   Ann Moderie:  Well, I think they were in legal trouble. They were having these issues and bad press. But I think the economy at that time might have had something to do with the two because this was the recession.  And to be honest, I think that the recession had a lot to do with these closures. And WWASP is no longer in effect. But as I understand it, the people involved in these companies are still involved in the field but just under different names or under different capacities.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  They kind of just disappear but regrow somewhere else in a different name. But everything... They're still going full bore, is what I'm hearing.   Ann Moderie:  That's my understanding.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah, unfortunately.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Why do you like... Why is it important to you to talk about this?   Ann Moderie:  I feel like the more we talk about it, the closer we are to change.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.   Ann Moderie:  Because the lawsuits haven't necessarily stopped them.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  Bad press. They know how to handle bad press. They're skilled media. They have media point consultants... professional consultants. I feel like the stories are what captures people. And that's why the documentary, I think, is so well done.  And she interviews and has [inaudible 00:25:20] former students participate and say what their experience was like and then what effect it's had on their lives. And I feel like I didn't even know about it. I didn't even know this existed. But we're making some headway. People are starting to learn about it. And even if it doesn't result in a successful lawsuit, if it prevents one parent from sending a child-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes, of course.   Ann Moderie:  ... I've done my job.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah. Are there things that you think others, primarily all of us in the legal profession, could do here?   Ann Moderie:  I think being open to cases when they come into your office. I think at least taking a close look at these cases, even if it's not something that you generally handle, hearing these kids out and being open to it. I know that I have been contacted since this documentary came out by many past students, but we have statute of limitations issues. The school closed in 2009.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. Right.   Ann Moderie:  The kids... Statute of limitations starts running when they turn 18 unless there was some kind of... they didn't realize there was a problem, and it was tied to the school. But that's very rare with the records they have in the school.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.   Ann Moderie:  So I hope that as a legal community, we open ourselves up to these stories. And even if you don't end up taking it, trying to give the family the support they need. There are organizations out there that help survivors of these schools that they've got a hotline you can call and get help. So the more awareness we can do as attorneys, I think, is the best.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. And I absolutely agree with you. If you would like, you are welcome to share contact information if anyone in the audience happens to stumble onto something like this. If you would rather not, that is fine. I will share mine. And I assure you folk and mine's widely available, and I can pass things on, but...   Ann Moderie:  Well, I don't want to use this as a means-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It's okay.   Ann Moderie:  ... of getting cases either, though. I don't want it to seem like that.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, no, no. That's not... It's maybe they have a case, and how did you handle it?   Ann Moderie:  Okay. Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I'm not trying to help drum up business for you.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It's, are you able to, or if you would like to have someone reach out so that they can help spread the word, they can understand what to do.   Ann Moderie:  Sure. Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  If not, I'll just share my information. How about we leave it at that?   Ann Moderie:  Well, I have a website, Moderie Law, and my contact information is on there. I'm always happy I to visit with survivors, and if I can help, help. If I can't, try to refer them to an organization or individuals that can. I'm always in any capacity, whether it's this field... this area of law, or not, I think that we need to do that as attorneys.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. [inaudible 00:28:30].   Ann Moderie:  [inaudible 00:28:30] job.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to share this story again. And I'm glad that we have an opportunity to continue to try to spread the message.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  This is... I just am still, I wouldn't say, shock. I had no idea. And it's troubling to me. That's the word I'm looking for.   Ann Moderie:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, folks, I'm going to wrap with that. I encourage you to if you have any interest, and take a look at the Netflix series. Again, it's The Program. And if you have questions, concerns on risk management issues, ethics, insurance coverage, and all the things that I tend to do, I'm not the risk manager for ALPS. I'm hired by ALPS to be the risk manager for the bar at large.  And you are free to reach out to me at any time if there's anything I can do. My email is mbass, M-B-A-S-S@alpsinsurance.com. A-L-P-Sinsurance, one word.com. And I can also, if you ever want to reach out to Ann and have trouble locating her, reach out to me, and I can pass information along [inaudible 00:29:43] happy to do that. So that's it. Thanks for listening. Have a good [inaudible 00:29:47]. Bye-bye.   

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Troy De Baca, the man behind The Silk Screen Machine, Inc. to talk about life, risk taking, and an ice cream dream.   Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the Historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula Montana. I'm here on a business trip at the mothership, the home office here, and we've had some interesting speakers the past couple of days. And the one that I have enjoyed the most, and have been it's just got all kinds of things gone in my head here, just a lot of things to chew on in terms of life insights is a presentation given by Troy De Baca. And I just want to sit down, and we're just going to chat a little bit. For those of you that have listened somewhat rightly, or more rightly on all that I've done with podcasts, I've done several on listening to your life. I am going to add this discussion to this series, if you will, because man, oh man, is there a lot here. So Troy, welcome. It's a pleasure.  Troy De Baca:  Mark, great to meet you. Thanks for having me.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You're most welcome. And before we jump into just having a chat, can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are, and what you are in life I guess?  Troy De Baca:  Sure. Sure. So out of the many titles that you can be given, I've magically found myself in this role of entrepreneur, and I know that's a very big buzzword right now, but yeah. I basically am an American entrepreneur, who creates very outside of the box thinking in terms in the world of advertising, and marketing, and promotional items. And what my job is for the most part is when people ask me, "What do you do for a living," I say, "I'm a professional solutionist," because that encapsulates everything that I do. My job is to find solutions primarily for Fortune 500 companies to go out, and do experiential marketing, which is basically finding a company's demographic, or target demographic audience, and then providing them with an experience that they then hold onto, and they have a positive moment with, that they'll hopefully buy the brand, or support the brand.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I love that. I love that, professional solutionist, and boy, trust me, folks, when he talks about what he's done here, it's just like, good for you. God bless. Man oh man, are you freaking kidding me? Got to stop.  Troy De Baca:  You're too much.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You talked in this presentation yes a word that it explains some things, but entrepreneurs is not necessarily a word you use comfortably to describe yourself. You just don't see yourself that way.  Troy De Baca:  Right.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  But you talk about all of this being unexpected.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah. Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  What does that mean? You are in a great place, and tremendous success, but it's very unexpected. What's the journey?  Troy De Baca:  Yeah. So what I'm realizing now that I didn't know growing up is that I've just deeply been passionate about art and creativity. I didn't really know how to express myself. And that got me down paths that as most artists or creatives, there's a dangerous side to it, because you want to explore everything. And then that can be hurtful or harmful when you're not fully in control of your art, or your craft.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Troy De Baca:  So growing up, I took a lot of [inaudible 00:04:15]. I wanted to get into everything, and explore everything.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  And through doing that, like many artists, I got involved with drugs, and I went down a rabbit hole pretty deep. I got addicted to heroin, and I spent about six years of my life pursuing that. And it took me to some really deep, dark places. And I also overdosed a few times, and was considered legally dead two of those times. So I consider myself very lucky for making it out of that realm. But the process of getting through that, and becoming a normal person again was probably one of the most beneficial points in my entire life. Learning the strength that I had to overcome something so damaging, and through that process, it encouraged me that I can conquer big goals, and big dreams. And to date, that's by far the biggest goal and dream that I've ever conquered. I've been clean for 27 years.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Just an incredible account.  Troy De Baca:  And when I say clean, I need to actually, for the listeners, I don't know if some people call me out, because I do drink occasionally, and I dabble in marijuana edibles when I can't sleep. But when I say clean, I mean specifically clean from heroin, because to me, that was the anchor that was going to take me out.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Right.  Troy De Baca:  And I've not touched it in 27 years, and I'm very proud of that moment when I decided that I'm going to do every single thing it takes to never go back. So with that confidence of being able to maintain that goal, and maintain that dream, it's given me confidence in other elements of my life as far as business, and being an entrepreneur, building companies, and really seeing those things through.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  What I find interesting about this is how I hear it and respond to what you're saying is you had a period in your life that was just deep darkness.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And to have the strength and fortitude to come out of that, and then realize the positive side of all this, if you will, that there's this internal strength, and desire, and say, what I'm trying to do here is, to me, this is it's a big life lesson, or listening to you. It's not. Sometimes things that we look at in our life and miss at times are small, but this is a big thing.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah. Absolutely. It was the fork in the road as it were.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you had the courage to really do something that, and I have tremendous respect for this. I don't think this happens a lot. Certainly, a lot of people struggle at times with, and have dark, whether it's mental illness, or drugs, and they can come out the other side, and be better for the experience, but this journey is, our story is a story of extremes. That's what I hear. And the fact that you did this is just crazy cool to me. I want to throw out a few words.  Troy De Baca:  Sure.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And just if it fits into the story, what's your response? What do you think? Fears, how do you deal with fears, and explore that with me, because I think, again-  Troy De Baca:  I love it. I love it. So when I originally took the steps to get clean, I went through what they call, I believe they call it now more of a therapeutic bootcamp.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Troy De Baca:  But I went through a pretty hardcore intense program, and through that, I was given this book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I read that. It was the first book that I can honestly say I read cover-to-cover, and multiple times.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes.  Troy De Baca:  And I still to this day when I feel like I'm being circled by my fears, and there's no way out, I still turn to this book. And I couldn't even quote anything from it. It's just the magic that I get by reading it, and allowing myself to really walk through the fear, and get to the other side. So I've also given this book over 100 times. I've given it out to people who I saw that were in some pretty fearful moments, and pivotal moments in their life.  And my process now really goes back to who am I at my core? I'm an artist, and with my art, my mediums are almost anything I can touch, but I have many, many fears. And the easiest way for me to overcome those is to literally just go back to the fact that I know my purpose on this planet, and it's to create, and it's to create my value, and my art. And when I do that, and I see a project come to a close that I was so fearful about, it gives me this magical confidence, and these magical openings to take further steps into the unknown. And that leads me to a risk category.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. That's what's going to talk about next. So let's go there. Let's go there.  Troy De Baca:  This leads me to a risk category that many people, I scare a bunch. I scare a lot of people. Many days I scare my wife, because she sees me taking these bold steps, and these bold, literal, just my entire being going into projects that sometimes I'm ill-equipped to be in, but I do this purposely to challenge myself, and to keep myself responsible, and absolutely there for my craft.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  When I do that, the rewards are beyond monetary. They're beyond. They're almost magic is only thing I can say.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  How I respond to that, and again, just boy would I love to have you around for a long time just as a friend to get together and chat. Oh my gosh.  Troy De Baca:  I'll have to come down to Florida and visit.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You'd be welcome. Anytime. What I'm hearing is taking risks, and really daring to go way beyond your comfort zone is how you obtain. It's how you discover who you are, and it's how you grow.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And that's what I'm hearing the returns are.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  We're not. Yes, I'm sure there's some financial benefits to a lot of these risks.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  So you wouldn't be where you are, but that's not really what this game is about to you.  Troy De Baca:  No. It's-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  This is about, "What am I capable of?" And I love it when people dare to see how far they can go.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  In my mind, I think that's a huge limitation to so many people.  Troy De Baca:  I agree.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  We don't dare to put it all out there. And again, it's not about throwing all the money. Sometimes people take-  Troy De Baca:  Money is nice. Don't get me wrong. It's nice.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  No, but I'm saying even risking a lot of money to do something.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And yes. Money is nice. I agree. But the real reason that people are doing this I think is for the excitement, for the fear, for the growth, for the, "It's just life is too short as it is. Let's see what I can get out of this."  Troy De Baca:  Mark, you nailed it right there. I want to tell you a sign that I saw hanging on the wall of the place that I'm staying. When I landed in Missoula, I go into the bathroom, and on the wall is this picture that says, "You only get one life, and if you do it right, one is all you need."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. And that's so good.  Troy De Baca:  I saw that, and it struck a chord with me, because I'm squeezing this lemon for all it's worth.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That is clear.  Troy De Baca:  Robert plant.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  No. I just am really, I'm here for it. And this is now, I think it is very tied to my addiction as far as getting that dopamine hit. I do the same scary thing in business when I build these companies, and when I build these dreams. When I get the reward of the accomplishment, it is truly the biggest fix of life.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I love that.  Troy De Baca:  I still get that strange risk, because it's very risky behavior. I put a lot of money on the line. Sometimes I put my entire reputation, and what I am on the line, but then when I see it through, and I see it on the other side, holy cow. Yeah. The reward is immeasurable.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Again, here's how I respond to this, and I love it. Taking these risks, I think you're comfortable at it. And I'm trying to solidify the learning for me, and I'm trying to share, and express this. So I got to think out loud here, and I got all kinds of planes up. But that response does not surprise me at all, because I think what, again, how I respond to this, here's a guy who is willing to take great risks, but actually comfortable in doing so, because you have traveled this extreme, the strength necessary to do that you know is there. The faith that you can get there is there.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And when it hits, you want to talk about self-validation, and people, we are only capable of validating ourselves.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  No one else can validate us. That's false. That's a false flag.  Troy De Baca:  Sure.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  So may I ask you? I'm going to go on a tangent here for a second.  Troy De Baca:  Please.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Every risk that you take is not going to play out.  Troy De Baca:  Yes.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Troy De Baca:  Yes.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  How do you respond to that?  Troy De Baca:  I've had massive risks that I've taken that have completely fallen through.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  And what's strange about it, I know that it's been said many times. I can't even pinpoint the first person I've heard or read that said this, but essentially fail fast. When you put yourself out there, and you challenge the norm, you challenge everything that you're doing, the quicker you fail, the quicker you get to the solution, the learning.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  And without the learning, if every project you did came out perfect, if every cake you bake is perfect, then it's going to taste like shit.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  It's not all built to taste good without that failure. And I've got probably 30-70 split ratio. I don't know. I don't know that the ratio. I like pie charts, but one of the biggest gambles that I've taken recently, and this is just post-COVID, we were going into the year 2000. We had approximately 1/4 of a million dollars already booked into that year with clients, and then COVID happened. And every single one of those obviously backed out. And our livelihood, and the company that I had built from this dream literally was at risk.  And what I started doing was thinking of ways that we could abide by a six-foot rule, or I wasn't sure if we'd ever be able to do live events again, because we obviously couldn't gather, and that's our bread and butter. So what we started doing, and especially when Zoom came on the scene, and it blew up, we started doing virtual conferences with some of our clients, and they had very cold feet about it. That went over okay. It was mediocre. By the way, the company is called The Silk Screen Machine.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. No. Please fill us in a little bit.  Troy De Baca:  Our primary goal is to do live customization of promotional products for customers. So we do a lot in the conference and convention space.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  We're in Vegas a ton because of that reason. And when we had all these big clients back out due to COVID, it shook me to the core. In talking about being fearful, every moment of my life was, "How do we?" And I'm going to use words that I don't really necessarily like, but there are buzzwords that you'll understand is, "How do we pivot?"  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  "We know our skillset. How do we showcase what we can do in a Zoom call? Or how do we take orders from guests over Zoom in a virtual conference of thousands of people, and then manage that in-house, and provide these guests with a package that shows up on their doorstep?"  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Mm-hmm.  Troy De Baca:  And that's what we did. Then coming out of that cloud, I was riding a high, because this really worked. This was working. We were making money. We were profitable in the virtual space. So then when conferences started, when we were able to gather, but it was still six feet distance, I came up with this plan. Here's the failure attempt. I came up with this plan to devise an app that you could scan. Instead of standing in tight lines, and being on top of each other, you scan the QR code. It's your leisure, and it's a drag and drop T-shirt builder.  So you could scan an event design, drag it to your T-shirt, place it wherever you want it on the T-shirt, hit send. It would then spit back to our printers that were live. They would then print the item, the garment, or the bandana, or the tote bag, or what have you, and we would be able to hand it over to the guest, put it on a table, walk away. They know it's theirs, staying distant. So great concept. Right?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  Beautiful. The idea is phenomenal. The reality of it were things that I didn't foresee. The truth of the matter is, and I'm sure all of us know this, because we've all been in conference space, data sucks. Your cellular sucks. You typically don't have a Wi-Fi.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Boy do I know that.  Troy De Baca:  The free Wi-Fi is garbage.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  It is.  Troy De Baca:  You're not getting anything accomplished on that.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  So what would happen is we would bottleneck, because no one's cell service could actually send it to our printers. So then we would always have a backup method, which was handwriting it, and then handing off tickets. The app actually we sold it for a good deal of money. And the other beautiful thing about the app, which I expressed earlier, was we were collecting people's data, and selling it back to our client, which is very valuable.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  So anyway, we actually, we were making great money with it, but it was a failed product or service. And what ended up happening with it, this is when I had to give it up, and I kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying it. And eventually what happened is we get this giant bid from Microsoft to go to their, basically it's an intern day. They have people from around the world, all these candidates from around the world. I think it was 3,000 to 5,000 kids that were genius on the computer. And someone hacked our system, and literally sent bogus names, funny names, weird names to our brain, the system. And we had over 50,000 order requests.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh my God.  Troy De Baca:  They just kept coming in, and we had no idea whose was real, whose wasn't. So it failed miserably. We had huge backlogs. People were pissed. It was not comfortable. And here I am watching the ship burn, and there's nothing I can do about it.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  It was embarrassing. It was Microsoft for crying out loud, and technology for crying out loud. And here I am botching the worst experience.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh my God.  Troy De Baca:  So making it through that immediately got me to the point where I go, "Okay. This isn't going to work, and if it was to work, we need to put a lot more money behind it." And that was a huge learning lesson. And it's weird, because I have this other ability that's very uncanny, and I think most humans don't share this with me, is that I don't care about being embarrassed. I don't care being the butt of a joke. I don't care looking like an asshole. I don't care looking like an idiot, because that's one of the fears that I dealt with most of my life.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  And it would always prevent me from pulling out my best art. So that's one of those things about caring about what other people think. I had to completely relearn, reteach myself to not give a shit, and just do it, and put myself out there in the most embarrassing moments. And that's actually paid off. It's a weird strategy. When you laugh at yourself first, and everyone's in the joke with you, it goes over a lot easier. It's a lot easier to stomach.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Absolutely.  Troy De Baca:  So I don't fake the funk now. If I'm going down, I'm going down hard, and you get to watch it. So yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  My suspicion is as we talk about fears, and failures, and all, if you have two choices in life, you're going to pick the one that scares the shit out of you the most.  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And that's the one to go down.  Troy De Baca:  Every single time.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And I love that though-  Troy De Baca:  Every time.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  ... because you're not afraid of failure. It's how you grow. It's how you learn, and it's how you push boundaries. It's a lesson I learned a long time ago myself. I've had multiple times where, "Do I take the safe play, or the other play?"  Troy De Baca:  Isn't it funny how those forks in the road are very vivid now?  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh. They are. Absolutely.  Troy De Baca:  And they're some of your best growing tools.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes. Now, I always go toward the one that says, "It makes me uncomfortable. I'm afraid. I don't know. This is scary as shit."  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  But you have to have some faith, and go, because there's no other way. Again, why are we here?  Troy De Baca:  Right? If you play it safe, your couch is only going to get you so far in life.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  You got to get out there. You got to get off the couch, and you got to do it. And obviously, my risks are very different than I think we all have our own set parameters.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. What we might consider risky is going to differ between. Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  I think that one of the coolest things now about risk, and management, and fear is you gain wisdom, and you gain what works, and what doesn't with you.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  And because you're more comfortable with who you are in your space, it allows you to almost not predict the future, but see things a little bit clearer for what a lot of times our fears are complete absurdity. The things that I'm afraid of at night, that keep me awake don't ever come true.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  But the things that do come true, that are factual, that are fact-based evidence, those things, you become intuitive, and you become a little wiser when you approach things in situations. So I'm very grateful for that side of it. It's another feather in the cap.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  One final word, and I want to have you tell one very short story.  Troy De Baca:  Sure.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  What does the word relationship mean to you, and how does that play into your story, if you will?  Troy De Baca:  Wow. That's a great question. I think that I know now today that without relationships, I don't exist. Whether that be personally, whether it be professionally, I know that if I'm not tending to the garden, so to speak, I'm not doing it right. If I don't listen to people, if I don't hear people in their perspectives, I'm not doing something right. Relationships to me are the ultimate key to almost everything.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Would it be fair to say that there are relationships at all stages, at either end of your story, that there are relationships there that are a foundation for you to stand on? Or would this story have happened absent relationships?  Troy De Baca:  Absolutely not.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. So it's not all you.  Troy De Baca:  Yeah.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  But you had to do all the hard work. Don't get me wrong at all. But I really want to. I guess what I'm trying to get to, and ask in a roundabout way is it's important I think, to recognize that we are not alone. Did you prioritize? Did you nurture these relationships? Do you continue to do that? Is that fundamental to, again, your story, and where you're at?  Troy De Baca:  I think that I have been bad at relationships the majority of my life.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Troy De Baca:  And one of the biggest, biggest relationships that I've been bad at is the relationship with myself. Personally, I wasn't good to me for most of my life. I had a lot of negative self-talk. I had a lot of doubts about who I am, and where I want to be. So I think one of the greatest gifts that I've come away with over these years is letting myself off the hook, and taking it easier on myself. No one's perfect.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Oh. Absolutely.  Troy De Baca:  And I actually embrace my imperfection.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Troy De Baca:  I know now that without a really healthy relationship with myself, I can't have relationships with other people.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes. Yes. I love this.  Troy De Baca:  And saying that-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That's so important.  Troy De Baca:  I've had fallings out with my family all my life, especially due to my drug use. There were years that I didn't speak to my closest people, my loved ones, my mom and dad, and my brother. And they stuck through it all. Incredibly strong people that sat by my side in the darkest times of my life, and I still wasn't able to be there for them. And I'm so, so happy that I can say that one of the biggest gifts in my life now is my wife, and my relationship with her. None of this, the business elements, and where we're at, and at the level that we execute would not be possible without her. And she's believed in me, and my ridiculous schemes, and dreams, and goals.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Troy De Baca:  She's been right there on the sidelines, cheering me along. And a lot of times, she gets in the game with me now. Now we travel all over the world doing what I love, which is providing these promotional products for companies. And she came on board full-time about two years ago, and it's helped us accelerate. It's just put the pedal to the metal. So shout out to my wife Katie, because she's amazing, and she's the backbone of this operation.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  This story, let's talk about the dream, and one of the learnings from that. I'll let you fill folks in.  Troy De Baca:  This is probably the coolest part of my day. And again, going back to my wife, she hears the story, she's like, "I hear it one more time, I'm going to blow up." So she's heard it way more than most. Anyway, really, I started a screen printing company in 2007 in Denver, Colorado with $1,000 loan from my dad. And he put me up in his garage, and he gave me the time and the space to dedicate my life to learning about this craft, and this skill. And through that, I started the company, and was just doing bars, and restaurants, and friends' bands, and things like that.  And the medical marijuana industry popped up in Colorado. And that was a big. That really put us on the map. We started getting our name passed around the craft beer industry. Of course, we started doing things there, and those were all goals of mine too back then. So when I started playing with some of the biggest brewers out there, it was really a proving ground, and it gave me a lot of faith in our abilities, and what we do. And then in 2012, this is the dream. I had a dream. I was chasing an ice cream truck, and it was this alien spaceship ice cream truck. It had LEDs, and smoke machines, and laser beams, and it was wild.  And it was so vivid. And I ran up to the truck, and I asked the team that was on the truck, if I could have a Rocket Pop, and a Fudgsicle. And instead of them handing me ice cream, they printed tee-shirts off this truck. I woke up the next morning, and my head was on fire. I couldn't get this dream out of my head. So I went to Google, and I started googling every instance of Screen Printing Truck, and Trucks that Screen Print, and Print Truck, any phrase, and it didn't exist. There were no hits coming back. And A, that blew my mind. But B, it was like, "Wow. Am I onto something?" And then C, I was like, "Let's go build this thing." So I built the first truck in Denver, Colorado.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  As an aside folks, it's a freaking awesome truck. I've seen photos of this. Oh my God. It's awesome.  Troy De Baca:  It's wild. I had a graffiti artist from Mexico City who was new to Denver. He painted my truck for very, very cheap. I got a bargain. He didn't know his value, because he's very prominent in Denver now. But his art was just so explosive on this thing. It really carried my vision. And we got this truck on the road, and the next thing, Red Bull came across us, and saw what we were doing, live screen printing, and handing out these promotional items to target demographic audiences. So they picked us up, and they wanted the truck in Los Angeles. And we didn't have a truck there. So we shipped out the truck from Denver, and we did a 30-day marketing campaign with them. And it really set things in motion. I realized right then, "Wow. This is bigger than me." This idea was bigger. And that's really where things took off.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I love it.  Troy De Baca:  And then the fact that this wasn't even on my radar at the time, but they wanted to wrap the truck. And boom, there's another revenue stream, is making a billboard truck for clients.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  So yeah. That really, that was the pivotal moment, again, seeing the fork in the road.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  But what is the learning? You talk about if you're going to Google something, when you say-  Troy De Baca:  Oh. Yeah. Bottom line. Honestly, when I speak, when I talk to people about it, I go, "If you Google something, and it doesn't exist, it is your job. It's the universe selecting you out of all the people on the planet to go make this thing, to put it on Google. It's your now job."  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Go build it.  Troy De Baca:  If the universe gives you a nudge like that, you got to take the blinders off, and you got to look further than where the blinders are.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Troy De Baca:  We spoke about that a little bit, but yeah. Take those cues, because they're there for a reason.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And that's where I want to leave it with your story. Again, folks, I'd like to share a couple of comments. And if you have something to add, please do. We have talked about it. And in my experience, and just personal learning as well, I have a different life story, but a lot of the lessons have been learned are somewhat similar.  Troy De Baca:  Mm-hmm.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  We do need to take blinders off, and we do need to look for the sounds, the things that your life is saying to you, the opportunities. Yes. They may be fearful. Yes. They may be risky, but again, if you're trying to set up a new law practice, or you're walking into a firm as an associate on the first day, and it's normal and natural to have these fears, but don't say no to opportunities. Look for them. I love it.  You talk about the universe giving you this little nudge. I see it as your life is speaking to you, and there's an opportunity here. Only you can see it. Only you get to choose what do you do with it. But if you, for out of fear, not wanting to take risks, all reasons that we don't want to do this, because life's comfortable right now, and it's good, but you're not growing. You're not doing anything.  Troy De Baca:  Get off the couch.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Just get off the couch. That's exactly right. So that's the point. And I just have loved visiting with you. It really just-  Troy De Baca:  Oh. It's been so fun, Mark.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  And I want you to hear just guy to guy. I find, here's how I want to say this, to have the opportunity to have met you, to have some discussion yesterday, and today, and to listen to you speak, I feel quite privileged to visit with you. I really do.  Troy De Baca:  That's heartfelt Mike.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I want to say, well done.  Troy De Baca:  Thank you.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You're somebody I really look at, and admire, and respect for just the courage to do all that you've done, and we could talk for a long time yet about what's coming.  Troy De Baca:  Oh. And we will. We will, offline. Yeah. No. I don't take that lightly. I really, really thank you for that. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity with you, and it's been fantastic to get to know you, and chat about life, and everything that goes with it.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, I hope we can stay connected. That's it, folks. Before I sign off, I just want to remind all of you that while I am the risk manager here at ALPS, I am not a traditional corporate risk manager. I am hired by ALPS to be your risk manager, a risk manager for the bar at large, nationwide. So feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions, concerns, anything that I could do to try to help. Whether it's risk management in your practice, law practice management, ethics, the list just goes on and on. Even want to talk insurance, now, there's an exciting topic, but I'm happy to explain all kinds of things. You can reach me at mbass, M-B-A-S-S @alpsinsurance. That's one word, A-L-P-S insurance.com. That's it. Thanks all. Bye-Bye. 

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar & Affinity Strategist Rio Laine discusses the journey of Meri Althauser from a dedicated solo attorney to the esteemed Director of Admissions at the University of Montana. In this podcast, Meri shares her experiences and insights on navigating the legal profession, including the challenges and triumphs of running a solo practice in family law.   Discover how Meri streamlined her practice to provide affordable legal services, the entrepreneurial spirit that fueled her success, and the critical importance of mental wellness for legal professionals. Whether you're an aspiring attorney, a seasoned practitioner, or simply interested in the intersection of law and education, Meri's story offers valuable lessons and inspiration.   —   Rio Peterson:  Hello everybody. Welcome to episode 84 of the In Brief Podcast, brought to you by ALPS. My name is Rio Peterson and I am the Bar and Affinity Partnership Strategist here at ALPS. And I'm also going to be your host for today's episode. So I'm going to be chatting today with Meri Althauser. Hello, Mary.  Meri Althauser:  Hello.  Rio Peterson:  Thank you for joining us today.  Meri Althauser:  You're welcome. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  So Mary is the Director of Admissions at the Montana University Law School, correct?  Meri Althauser:  Right, yeah.  Rio Peterson:  University of Montana Law School.  Meri Althauser:  Yes, yes. Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  And so today we're just going to be talking about your legal career. I know you spent some time as a solo and now you spend your time guiding the next generation of the lawyers out into the world. So we wanted to just sit down and chat about your experiences.  Meri Althauser:  Perfect. Happy to be here.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. We're happy you joined us.  Meri Althauser:  Good.  Rio Peterson:  So I think I wanted to get started in talking about your origin story. How did you become a lawyer? Was there a moment where you're like, "This is what I'm going to do?"  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, so law school and being a lawyer was actually never on my radar whatsoever. I started off going to music school.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, really?  Meri Althauser:  I played the violin and I shifted a bit from there because actually music school was so competitive, it made it no fun whatsoever.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, really?  Meri Althauser:  So law school was much better in comparison actually, if you can believe it or not.  Rio Peterson:  Wow.  Meri Althauser:  But I did some social work after law school and through that I kind of had a no more Mr. Nice Guy moment when one of my clients allowed her baby to be cared for by an extremely violent person that we knew of, had warned of. It was a headlines-grabbing incident, and I said, okay, no more. I want to go to law school. I want to represent kids in court in foster care and protect kids from abusers. And so within a matter of weeks I had taken the LSAT and applied for law school and was signed up for law school. I really didn't think it through honestly. It was just a very quick snap decision and the rest is history.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that history. So you went to law school and then did you end up defending children in court or did you take another path?  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, I did. So right out of law school, I worked with an insurance defense company, and we primarily worked on kind of car accident type cases, so it was just kind of a traditional launch into learning how to be a lawyer. But they did let me add on a contract with the public defender so I could take kids. So for a very small portion of my caseload there, I represented kids in court. I did that for about two years, and then I was invited to join a small firm in Missoula that we did sliding scale legal services. And so we did primarily family law and very small issues on a sliding scale, serving our clients anywhere from 75 to $150 an hour, and also continued with my contract with the public defender. So I did that a lot while I was there. I did that for about five years, and then I went into solo practice and continued. I've always kept few of those kids on my case load.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, I feel like that had a big impact on you. Is that something that you felt like you were making a difference?  Meri Althauser:  It did. It's a small difference. On the big scheme of things, it's a small role to represent foster kids in court, but I got to do fun things like take Child Protective Services to court because they wouldn't pay for my client's prom dress or senior pictures, or they couldn't figure out how to get them to soccer practice or something. I got to fight to make life normal for the kids that for their life, their lives were anything but normal. And it was really a delight. And some of those kids I'm still in contact with today and say, "You were one of the only people that was actually a constant presence in my life when everything was total chaos." And so that was really a pleasure.  Rio Peterson:  And I think to me, that sounds like in the grand scheme of things, that is a really big thing and it's a very, I think, difficult existence to have when your life is constantly in flux and to have a constant presence. The fact that you still talk to some of them is testament to the impact that had. Yeah.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. I think it really kind of captures in the most purest sense the role of a lawyer, which is to be there for somebody when things are hard. And you can do tangible things. There can be to-do's on the list that you can accomplish, but it's always the most rewarding moments are when clients are like, "You were there for me. Maybe we didn't get what we wanted, or maybe we got the opposite of what we wanted, but I felt like I had somebody on my side, and that's what made the difference."  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more. I think it's easy to lose sight of how important that is in the grand scheme of things. I mean, typically when someone has a legal problem, it's a very emotional, difficult time for them. They're not seeking legal counsel because life's awesome. Every is great.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. It's kind of an all bad news business.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Meri Althauser:  I'm sure there's areas of the law where it is good news and you're helping to amplify entrepreneurs and businesses and stuff like that, but that's not family law.  Rio Peterson:  Not family law. So you worked with the firm and you did some public defender work for several years, and then you moved into your own practice and became a solo.  Meri Althauser:  Yes.  Rio Peterson:  What inspired you to take that step forward?  Meri Althauser:  What inspired me to take that step forward was a desire for more freedom, certainly with working with three or four other attorneys and staff. Oh, here's a fun side hustle that I was also doing. I was running a fitness center. I ran a gym.  Rio Peterson:  That's awesome.  Meri Althauser:  Because I had started working out there and the owner was going to quit, and I liked the gym so much, I was like, "You can't quit. Okay, I'll just take it over for you. I can do this." And so I was doing that on the side, which was understandably difficult then for my partners to be like, "Well, when are you going to be at the gym? When are you going to be here?" It wasn't insurmountable, but it seemed like it would lend itself to more freedom to work that kind of side gig for fun and not have to kind of communicate quite as much about my plans because I just didn't know my plans and I needed to be more of a free spirit.  Rio Peterson:  More autonomy.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, totally.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Was it scary stepping out onto your own like that?  Meri Althauser:  It wasn't scary for me because I knew I already had a reputation and a client base that would follow me by name. And because I had been running a firm together with other people, that was a good training ground. I felt like it would be really easy to just replicate what we were doing on my own on a smaller scale. And so that really gave me the confidence to do it without too much worry.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's great. Were there other support or any support systems that you pulled from or leaned on while you were getting started?  Meri Althauser:  A lot of the products that lawyers use just offer support, just like ALPS has somebody you can call and say, "Hey, I'm thinking of doing it this way," or materials. And the same with, I used CLEO and CLEO was like that, and the state bar of Montana. So I felt like no matter what it was, there was always a resource that was easily there to help.  In addition, Montana is a really small bar. We don't have a million attorneys, and we keep in touch with our classmates and our professors. And so I had friends who were doing it who I could ask, "Okay, how do you handle this? What's it like? Is it scary? Do you feel all alone? What are the biggest struggles?" And so I was able to just survey my friends, even talk to my professors who were teaching the law practice class to get any information and support that I needed at all. The legal community is just like, "Yes, do it. You're going to love it." So I think Montana is a really special place in that regard.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. I love when people support each other in being successful. Yeah.  Meri Althauser:  Totally.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. So speaking of challenges, what were some that you experienced?  Meri Althauser:  So there's always kind of a, oh, what do you call it? Now that I have to say it out loud, like imposter syndrome.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, yes.  Meri Althauser:  Like I'm too young and I haven't done enough stuff. I mean, back then I was too young. And oh, you just couldn't hack it at a real firm. And those kind of things. You're always kind of have a bit of self-doubt or feeling like other people are questioning or judging you, which I don't know if that's really real or just kind of perceived because it's not like any other attorney was like, "Oh, so you can't hack it. Stupid effort." I've never heard that. My friends talk about other people that way. So that's certainly a challenge. I was from time to time worried about not having enough business, but that was also never really real.  It was almost like the universe provides. You'd notice that I'm finishing up a big project and I'm like, oh, crap. After I finish this project, I'm not actually sure what I need to do next week. And then the phone rings with a lovely person with a very tangible need that you're like, "Oh, this is what I'm doing on Monday." So that never actually happened, and it was actually kind of fun to do creative. I worked with an SEO person, and so what ad words do we use? What do I post online? That kind of part was kind of fun. Although at the same time it felt like it carried a lot of weight, like if I don't do it right, I won't have anything to eat.  But that never happened. And then really just having the buck kind of stop with you about everything. On the one hand, it's a real blessing. I can go on vacation, I can turn on my auto reply. I can decide that I'm not going to take any cases. I can kind of control my own income in that way. But at the same time then, every decision and everything, there's nobody to bounce the ideas off of. There's nobody to share in the project management. Any client question or question from client's mom or grandma or cousin, it's always back on you. And that can feel like a lot of pressure and it would just be nice to share that with somebody. But then you'd have to share it with somebody. You won't have the same autonomy. So it's kind of like a battle that you've chosen.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's funny about imposter syndrome. I think we all assume that everybody else knows what they're doing and they're going to know that I don't know what I'm doing.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. It's so easy to think that everyone's got it all figured out except you.  Meri Althauser:  Right? Yeah, I know. Why is that our default setting? I know I have that conversation with students at school all the time because they're really afraid of getting cold called in school, like they show on Legally Blonde, and then she always gets it wrong, and everybody's making fun of her. And really everybody's just thinking, "Oh, thank God they didn't call on me because I thought the same thing. I would've gotten it wrong too." Nobody's judging each other in class, but it is really hard to swallow your own advice sometimes.  Rio Peterson:  Absolutely. We're so good at giving it to others. We're just like, "I don't know. I've never heard that before." And something that you kind of touched on was there's nobody to bounce ideas off. There's nobody else around. And I would imagine that gets kind of lonely, and I know isolation is something that a lot of solos really have to deal with and navigate. Did you realize how isolated you were when you were practicing, when you had your solo practice?  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. I don't think I did. So I had been in solo practice for a number of years and I was having a conversation with somebody from my building who was a marriage counselor. I worked in a building where it was just like a coworking space, and there was all sorts of different people there, and he had left. So I was just having coffee with him. And then he said, "You know, if I look back on it all these years, I wouldn't have spent my time alone in that basement. It was really lonely." And he only realized it because he had left. And the thought had never really occurred to me. And I'm like, "What are we talking about? We see each other for coffee all the time." You can really call any of your friends who are attorneys to bounce actual legal ideas off of. It really had never occurred to me, the loneliness. And I didn't even really absorb it that day when he said it.  But then when I got offered this job at the law school, and I have always loved my law school, and so every once in a while I've just considered going back. And so I kind of applied for the job for admissions thinking, I'm actually not sure if I want it yet because I feel good about what I've got going on here. And so they offered me the job, and the next day I went and I started reading the settlement brochures for the case that I was going to handle as a settlement master the next day. So that's where people send you, here's all the crappy stuff that this person did and why they're a jerk, and here's all the crappy things that this person did and why they're a jerk. And then I read them together and I find a way to mediate the case and get them to settle. And I spend all day doing so. And I started reading them and I started sobbing so hard, I actually fell to the ground.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, wow.  Meri Althauser:  It hit me in that moment when I had something else to compare it to that, "Oh, my life could maybe not involve this amount of bad stuff," that I realized how hard I had emotionally been working in order to get this type of information from people. And then I just set the emotion aside and I start kind of working the Rubik's cube of it all. But really I felt like I was the only one working the Rubik's cube. Like they're going to tattle, they're going to tattle. They're going to try to pull each other in different directions. They're going to try to convince me to go in different directions, but I'm the only one with the cube that I can see it all and solve it all. And you have to set aside so much emotional baggage, even just to hear the bad things that people are saying about each other, that I just didn't really realize that emotional load that I was putting in until I had something else to compare it to.  Rio Peterson:  Yes.  Meri Althauser:  And that was a type of loneliness. It was just like, I'm the only one working this problem. So yes, I did have an aha moment where I was like, "Oh my gosh, I think I need to take a break. Maybe if we could change something."  Rio Peterson:  Yes. I think it's often something that we don't consider is that emotional work is work. It's a lot. It takes quite a toll on your body, both physically and mentally. And I think we were talking about this earlier, where you get so used to borrowing from your future self just to get through the day that you don't even realize that you're doing all of this and that you've hit a point that where maybe you need to change.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. And I even consider myself pretty good at managing the emotional toll. I didn't let people's moods bother me. I was able to work with the problem. I was staying healthy. I know once you've had a really crappy day, you need to kind of flush all of that garbage out of your body with some exercise, or time and nature. And I write articles on how to stay well as a practicing attorney. But that still wasn't quite good enough I think in that moment to realize when I had this realization that I might not have to have to work that problem anymore. And then came in the imposter syndrome syndrome, like, "Well, aren't I a dumb dumb? I'm not even doing my own wellbeing good enough." It spirals. Look, everyone's going to know I'm not supposed to here.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. It's difficult. It's a difficult reality to face, I think. Yeah. What's some advice you'd have for solos trying to balance life and their practice and the toll that that takes?  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. I think being able to identify the untold work that you're doing, really capture it, name it to tame it, find something to do to counteract or help with it. If I had to do it all over again, recognizing how lonely it is, I would find a way to be creative about, "Okay, how do I have a thought partner, but still the same freedom?" So maybe does that mean I contract with somebody during mediation days that we work together about it? Or do I at least have an assistant or an associate of some sort who I feel like can have my back from time to time? It might be how do we balance the being able to be autonomous but not be alone? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?  But the second piece of advice would just be to follow regular all the wellbeing stuff. Other people's bad vibes are contagious, and so you need to be able to have a really good method other than just stuffing it down or ignoring it to not catch other people's bad vibes. And then you also need to take care. Stress that you feel actually just still lives in your body. It just lives in your blood. It's a cortisol. It's different hormones, and it'll stay there unless you flush it by physically moving it out of your body. So I think a default mechanism just to go home, veg out, have some beer or watch some Netflix, but that just lets it all stay there so you haven't actually flushed it. So if that's your coping mechanism, at least go for a walk first. [inaudible 00:20:46] some water. And it is amazing how some time in nature and some walks really do make you feel better.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, yeah, I know. I always say, I got to go for a stupid walk for my stupid mental. I think your body gets really good at convincing you that just sitting around is actually going to be fine. That's going to work out totally fine for you. But in reality, you need to be moving. And as much as it might suck to get out and get it started when you don't feel like it is really important, and it helps a lot.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. That's really good advice.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, for sure.  Rio Peterson:  So you're not practicing anymore. You're not a solo practitioner anymore. You are now the Director of Admissions. And I know you were saying that sometimes law students can give you a hard time for not practicing anymore. How does that feel? What do you have to say to somebody who's thinking about maybe they've gone to school, they're a lawyer, and maybe they're like, I want to do something else with this knowledge. I want to do something else with this. What would you say to that?  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, I think just along the same lines as the imposter syndrome, I think the courage or anyone's goals to do something that is not a traditional legal job really feels like it might be shrouded in some sort of shame or that you couldn't hack it or something like that. Again, something that's probably mostly all in your head in that there are plenty of great pathways that don't have to involve legal practice, that include all the critical thinking, all the leadership skills. Really going to law school is learning how to take a whole bunch of balls of yarn that are all entwined, that all seem like they have the same priority and the same urgency, and being able to pull them apart into a nice order of operations. And we're going to do blue first, and then we're going to dig yellow.  That's what thinking a lawyer really is. And it has so many applications elsewhere. So I know happy attorneys who are real estate agents and who run nonprofits. I love working at the law school. I feel like I can coach and mentor and help law students form good habits from the get-go so they don't get that burnout feeling that I got. I'm helping them at the source, and I feel like that's where my impact could be better. So we just need to erase any of that shame or judgment that we might feel about doing something different.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I really love what you said too about all of those things that you learned to become a lawyer being just applicable to so many wider different settings and situations. And absolutely, critical thinking skills, there's a lot to be said for that in everyday life.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, definitely.  Meri Althauser:  Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. What would be some advice that you'd give to a law student, a new law student, or someone even thinking of applying to law school?  Meri Althauser:  Oh, my gosh.  Rio Peterson:  You're on the spot now.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. I think it's really important to make sure you know your why about why you want to be a lawyer. And then think more about that why, to make sure that it is kind of burnout proof or more universally applicable. So for example, when I said I want to go to law school to represent kids in court, that was super specific. And I did it, but it wasn't quite broad enough so that if I felt burnt out about representing kids in court, or really at the end of the day, it didn't pay enough and so it wasn't going to be a sustainable long-term big picture thing, I felt really lost. And so making sure that a goal is more process oriented, like "I want to go there because I want to be there for people in their time of need."  Rio Peterson:  Well, that's process. You can win on that every day.  Meri Althauser:  As long as you're not the person who ghosts their clients and actually isn't there for them.  Rio Peterson:  And there's a lot of different ways you can do that too.  Meri Althauser:  And there's a lot of ways you can do that. So yeah, so really honing in of that, why do you want to do it? Because it's a really big, I mean, it's a big financial investment. It's a big academic investment. But it's more emotional investment than I think we're really prepared for because it's not like you would think. Like, "Oh, if I'm going in to be a counselor," that's a big emotional investment and that's probably my strong suit. But people going to law school, their strong suit might be political science, history, logic. And there's not the same expectation or preparedness for the emotional investment that they're making for society.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. I think I'm kind of thinking about another Legally Blonde quote. I think the teacher, doesn't she say that the law is reason free from passion, doesn't she?  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. That rings a bell.  Rio Peterson:  So yeah, and I think it's such an interesting thing to say because it's just, I mean, the law maybe is theoretically free of passion, but the people who practice it aren't.  Meri Althauser:  No.  Rio Peterson:  There's feeling and emotion no matter what.  Meri Althauser:  And the real stories that got them there are real stories of real people's lives that have real consequences depending on how good you are at your reasoning. I think that kind of maybe tips over into more of a coping mechanism that's like, "Well, we'll just stuff it down." We'll just say it's free from passion, and we'll pretend it's free from passion and we'll be in denial that there's any emotion involved, and that's how we will be fine.  Rio Peterson:  If you have passion, you're doing it wrong.  Meri Althauser:  Yes, yes.  Rio Peterson:  And then you're burnt out.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Absolutely. Well, is there anything else you want to add or you'd like to say to the audience out there, to our friends and listeners at home?  Meri Althauser:  Oh my gosh. Come to the University of Montana Law School. It's the best law school. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yes. Fantastic.  Meri Althauser:  We're friendly there. It's a good school.  Rio Peterson:  Yes. Fantastic. You have great people to guide you.  Meri Althauser:  Yes.  Rio Peterson:  Awesome. Well, thanks so much for chatting with me today.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, you're welcome.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, I really, really appreciate it, and I want everyone to know to stay tuned, because you will likely be around a bit more. We might be getting some content from you and having some more discussion. So yeah, looking forward to it.  Meri Althauser:  Yeah, likewise.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much. Thank you so much to all of our listeners at home and wherever you may be. Have a wonderful week.     

Despite best intentions, sexual harassment is still a very prevalent issue that impacts the legal profession on a wide, wide basis to this day. In this episode, Rio sits down with the founders of Women Lawyers on Guard to discuss their work to confront sexual harassment, and other issues impacting women in law and what you (yes! You!) can do about it. — Rio Peterson:  Hello, everybody, and welcome to In Brief episode 83, Women Lawyers on Guard. My name is Rio Peterson. I am the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS, and today, I'm going to be chatting with two fantastically inspiring women, Cory Amron and Corrine Parver. Cory, Corrine, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you.  Corrine Parver:  Thanks so much.  Cory Amron:  Thank you, Rio.  Rio Peterson:  Thank you.  Cory Amron:  I'm really pleased to be here.  Rio Peterson:  Wonderful. So, before we dive in, I know we've got a really interesting conversation ahead of us today, which I've been very looking forward to for the past few weeks, since we had our first chat. But before we started, I wanted to find out if you could tell us a little bit about you, who you are, where you live, where you came from. Corey, why don't we start with you?  Cory Amron:  Okay, great. Alphabetical order. I live in Arlington, Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C. I've been here for yeah, 30 some-odd years. I'm now retired, but I worked primarily for a number of law firms that, some of which are no longer around, but most recently retired from the firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, which started as a Midwest-based firm, here in D.C.  I have been working over my 40-year legal career not only day-to-day clients, et cetera, but also on women's and diversity issues. So, for instance, I was the chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, the second chair. In 1991, I took over right over right as Anita Hill was testifying in the Senate at Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing. So, that was kind of a trial by fire.  Rio Peterson:  Right.  Cory Amron:  So, I've also had a lot of experience working on sexual harassment and things like that, and then, fast-forward, co-founded Women Lawyers on Guard in 2017.  Rio Peterson:  Great. All right, fantastic. Corrine, how about you?  Corrine Parver:  I'm also a retired lawyer. First career was as a physical therapist for 15 years before going to law school. So, I went to law school primarily because I wanted to work in the health law area. My practice, when I was a partner in a law firm, was geared towards policy, regulations, as opposed to litigation.  After I retired from practicing law, I was a law professor for close to 10 years, where I created the Health Law and Policy program at American University Washington College of Law and enjoyed teaching the young students and remained involved with the law school over the past few years, even though I am retired from actually teaching, and joined forces with Cory and our gang of warriors in 2017 to now be the president of Women Lawyers on Guard Action Network.  Rio Peterson:  Got it. So, you both retired to then go on to do more incredible things in your post-retired life. Fantastic. Now, you mentioned you both founded and you run Women Lawyers on Guard. We know that's a nonprofit organization that's been doing some really especially important work around understanding and addressing sexual harassment in the legal profession, and that's what obviously what we're here to talk about today. So, before we really dig into the deeper part of this conversation, I'd love for the audience to learn a bit more about what Women Lawyers on Guard does. What is your mission? Why don't you tell us a little bit about how everything got started?  Cory Amron:  Okay, so in the end of 2016, I was a member of a national network of women lawyers, and we decided that we really needed to do something, both to protect women's rights that we had worked so hard over 40 plus years, and also expand women's rights into the next couple of years. So, we organized Women Lawyers on Guard that first year, in 2017, to bring together our volunteers, because as I said, we have a network around the country, with the legal needs of other nonprofits.  Corrine and I went around and met with a lot of nonprofits and asked them what their legal needs were, because we weren't quite sure what exactly we wanted to do. We wanted to do something. And frankly, our volunteers didn't know exactly what they wanted to do, either. So, this was sort of marriages made in heaven, and we would match our volunteers with those legal needs.  After about a year or so of doing that, we decided we really needed to focus our areas, and that's when we did some very heavy-duty strategic planning and came up with three areas that we were going to focus on. So, sexual harassment obviously was key, because right at that time, #metoo exploded, but we decided also that we were not going to just do one area, but we also picked women's reproductive rights, which actually at that time was not exploding but is of course now, and gender and workplace equity. Those are the three.  Rio Peterson:  Right. I'm curious to know, how was it that sexual harassment and this area was something you both identified as an area that you wanted to be involved in? Is this something that's impacted you directly in your life? I mean, you both had pretty incredible, long careers, so I suspect that at some point, you may have encountered this.  Corrine Parver:  Well, as Cory said, the #metoo explosion made it even more impressed upon us that we needed to speak up for this particular area, and there were other groups that were focusing on, for example, Hollywood and the restaurant industry, and the marketing and public relations areas. We thought we needed to focus on the legal profession, and that's because we had heard stories for years, the years that we practiced, that this was a concern with people.  We wanted to be able to represent their interests and try to do something about it, and that's how we got really involved in focusing on the legal profession, because no other group was doing that on a national basis. There were some people statewide doing certain surveys and the like, but not on a national basis. And because we were, and are, a national organization, that's what we decided to focus on.  Cory Amron:  And just if I could add too, that when we started to talk to lots of people in the profession when #metoo exploded, and came to determine really that there were those who didn't see it happening in the legal profession, either because well, because it wasn't happening to them, and so they just thought, "Well, we have all of these policies, and we have these trainings, and that's ... we're good to go."  Then, we talked to other people, and not just young people, who said, "Oh my God, let me tell you what happened yesterday to me," or to my colleague, or to somebody I was in the room with, et cetera. It was like, "Ugh." We'll get into our survey, but that's kind of what led us to do that.  Rio Peterson:  Got it. Right. Absolutely. So, really realizing that despite best intentions, this is still a very prevalent issue that impacts the legal profession on a wide, wide basis. So, let's talk quickly a little bit about DWL's mission. I know you mentioned that you focus on three areas, and what is the overarching mission of your organization?  Cory Amron:  Well, we have a very broad mission because again, as I mentioned, we didn't quite know what we were going to do at the beginning. So, our mission is that we are a national network harnessing the power of the law to ... well, to go after and make sure that people have equality, they have justice, and there's equal opportunity for all. So, it's a very broad mission. We have a 501(c)(3), which is the one behind me, and we have a 501(c)(4) which is what's behind Corrine, so that we can do different things in these spaces with the different organizations.  For instance, obviously we do a lot of programming around these topics, and of course with the pandemic, we've been able to do that around the country. We not only sign onto amicus briefs, but we've also written amicus briefs, particularly one in the Dobbs case, on behalf of women lawyer organizations, which of course was ignored. We do studies, obviously we'll talk about them, and initiatives around these various topics.  And of course, we have this network that we activate when needs be, and we also advocate. As I said, we have different arms that we can do different types of things, but we've done lobbying and with letters, advocating to policymakers. We sign petitions, and we get out there and march.  Corrine Parver:  I've had some really interesting experiences doing that. One of the other things that we do also is work in coalition with other groups there from out of the University of Texas, The Council on Women and the Law and the National Conference of Women Bar Associations, and the National Association of Women Lawyers. So, we have done programs with all of those groups and attended various coalition meetings to learn about what these groups are doing. The American Bar association also, as Cory had mentioned earlier, has a commission on women in the profession, and we are looking to collaborate with them, as well.  Rio Peterson:  All right. Fantastic. I know we're kind of deviating just a little bit, but we will definitely be talking about the survey, but I'm curious to know, so obviously, you're doing a lot. You're doing a lot of work, and so is the organization run primarily by volunteers? I'm guessing you have a pretty incredible team.  Corrine Parver:  Yes, we are. We are 100% volunteer-driven, and it's pretty much been the same board of directors that have been together since its inception. We've had some people go into certain government roles that prohibited them from continuing to be on our board, but they all, they continue to support us. We have a Facebook presence. We have a LinkedIn presence, and Instagram, trying to make ourselves known via social media. So, through that, we get our messages out to the various communities.  Rio Peterson:  Got it. Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. It's really wonderful that you're devoting your time to this undertaking. It's fantastic.  Cory Amron:  And we're always looking for more to grow our network.  Rio Peterson:  Fantastic. I think at the end of the chat, we'll have a chance to ... We'll plug and let everyone know where to get ahold of you and how they can participate.  Cory Amron:  That's great. That's super.  Rio Peterson:  All right, so now, we've kind of alluded to a survey a few different times, so I would love to dive into that, because it's really, really fascinating. So, in 2020, I know you published a report titled Still Broken, and that shared the results of the national survey that was conducted by Women Lawyers on Guard, and the intention of the survey was to better understand not so much the prevalence of sexual harassment but rather the experience of those affected by it, in addition to uncovering the impact that this has on the legal profession. So, I would really love to know if you could share with us some of the methodology behind the survey itself, and expand on how the survey is different from typical surveys about sexual harassment.  Corrine Parver:  What we were very fortunate in being able to collaborate with a well-known researcher who is a woman by the name of Dr. Arin Reeves, who is also a lawyer in addition to having her PhD in certain aspects of statistical analyses. We put together a group that went through the actual drafting of the survey questions, and it took us a good couple of months to be able to go back and forth to hone in on all the areas that we wanted to investigate.  Rio Peterson:  Right.  Corrine Parver:  Cory?  Cory Amron:  Yeah, so what else? My job actually was sending this out and trying to get people to respond it. So, it was not a survey where it was a closed box of respondents. It was a survey where we were just trying to get as many people as we could to respond to it, both women and men. Lo and behold, we did get a representative sample, even though we hadn't put that sample together, but we analyzed it afterwards and compared it to the demographics that the ABA keeps about lawyers, and was very representative of the box of the profession and where people were geographically, and ages and things like that. So, it was, we felt, a pretty good picture of what was going on.  We were also, because we asked people to tell us the sort of 10-year tranche when something that they were talking about in the survey occurred, we were able to measure change over time, and I think that's one of the things about the survey that's been extremely valuable, to be able to say, "This was like this, and now it's like this."  Corrine Parver:  We also gave the respondents the opportunity to comment throughout the survey questions. So, when it came time to look at an issue of great import, we allowed comments.  When we collated all the information, we gathered literally hundreds of different comments from our respondents, and included some of the quotes from their comments in an appendix in the Still Broken report. So, I would encourage everyone who listens to this podcast to actually go online to our website and read the report, and also the appendices, so that they can see the lasting effect of some of the experiences that they went through.  Rio Peterson:  Absolutely, and that's something that really stood out to me when I was reading the report. I think it's very often that we overlook the context surrounding these types of experiences, and I found that that really just added so much depth to understanding the issue and just understanding the experiences of those who have been impacted by sexual harassment in their workplace and just in all different ways. It was really unique, I think, the way that you've approached this. Yeah. Can you share with us some of the results of the study?  Cory Amron:  Yes, absolutely. Well, first, I guess I wanted to say some of the positive things that we saw. There were some. For instance, we asked about the culture of harassment within the person's employment setting, and as I mentioned, these are settings all across the board, everything from the judiciary to academia, to law firms and associations, the government, et cetera.  What we found was that, at the very least ... We gave them choices. They could say it was often part of the culture. In other words, it was just ubiquitous. Or they could say it was part of the culture, so it was within certain departments, or groups, or whatever. Or they could say it was rare, rarely manifested itself.  So, 30 years ago, we found that the respondents said 51% of these incidents were often, often part of the culture, 38% just various departments, and only 10% was it rare. Now, we've found, and these will be easier to see when the people read the report, 25% was often. So, it went from 51% to 25% was often.  Rio Peterson:  Wow.  Cory Amron:  So, that actually shows that there is change, and that the change is for the better. However, they also said that 48% part of the culture. So, if you add often and part together, you find what you see is that 30 years ago, 89% of these cultures had either often or in some places in the employment setting, whereas now, it's 73%, right?  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Cory Amron:  So, it's better, but it's obviously not right. So, that's one of the more positive aspects. Another positive aspect we saw was that, we asked about, in one place, who was doing the harassing. We found that a lot less now from professors in law school and a lot less now from judges in court. However, partners-  Corrine Parver:  And there's always a however.  Rio Peterson:  There's always a however, yeah.  Cory Amron:  However, partners and supervisors still kind of similar statistics from 30 years ago, and now, there's maybe somewhat more from clients.  Corrine Parver:  Another positive finding was that, in comparison over the 30-year span that we asked about, is that there were fewer sexual assaults and rapes nowadays than occurred in the past, although I think what we saw an increase in was a lot of verbal comments, name-calling such as the like. So, there was a plus on one side, but then again, the bubble expanded in another area where there is more name-calling and appearance criticisms, et cetera.  Cory Amron:  So, some of the negative results that we found were, as we mentioned, it's still insidious, and we called it insidious and alarming, the incidents. We'll talk about some of these things later, but the barriers to reporting were absolutely identical today as they were 30 years ago, things like, they didn't think they would be believed, or they thought they'd be retaliated against, nothing was going to happen, et cetera.  The price to the people who were harassed, and by the way, most of these people are women, not all of them, but most of them, was just devastating, and long-lasting. I mean, there was one quote where, "Even though this happened once while I was a law student over 30 years ago, it still haunts me."  So, the consequences to the people who are harassed, long-lasting anxiety in the workplace, fear of retaliation, loss of productivity, loss of confidence, and in the entire workplace, you find loss of productivity, anxiety, et cetera, things like that. So, the consequences to the workplace, even if it's not just the people who are harassed, is consequential, and in fact so consequential that we made a determination, not statistically, but that the consequences to the people who were harassed was greater than the people who were doing the harassing.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Right, and unfortunately, that sounds ... Yeah. That sounds not surprising.  Cory Amron:  Yeah, unfortunately.  Corrine Parver:  Another major finding that was a little bit surprising to us was that people at every level of the profession have experienced harassment of one form or another. Professors, judges have responded to us that in their capacity at really the highest levels of the profession still have experienced that kind of harassment.  Cory Amron:  Partners, general counsel.  Rio Peterson:  Yes. I think that was something that really disappointed and surprised me deeply. You would think that, once you reach a certain level in your career, you maybe garner enough respect that that type of behavior is curbed in others, but that doesn't seem to be the case, and I definitely found that to be very surprising and discouraging, in a lot of ways. I mean, you work really, really hard to get to where you are, and you still have to [inaudible 00:25:49] that same sort of nonsense, it's very disappointing. Yeah.  Cory Amron:  Yeah. I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, at least the way that we look at this, that sexual harassment is not a sexual thing. It's a control thing. And so people find ways to control other people, whether those people are partners or associates, or supervisors, or general counsel, whatever. This is a tool that some people use to control others. So yes, it's somewhat surprising, but maybe not so if you look at it through that lens.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Absolutely. That's an excellent, excellent way to think about it. Was there any other findings that you both found surprising?  Corrine Parver:  I think the numbers that we were able to calculate on the issue of reporting sexual harassment, that was a bit surprising, that the vast majority of people don't report. Either they don't have the right circumstances in their place of employment for them to report an incident. For example, if there is someone working in a small law firm, and there is on HR department, or even if there is, it could be the spouse of one of the senior partners, or the named partner of the small firm. How do you go about doing the reporting in that circumstance? So, the numbers were really quite staggering, as far as many people not reporting incidents.  Cory Amron:  It was something like 86% currently are not reported.  Rio Peterson:  Wow.  Cory Amron:  Mm-hmm.  Rio Peterson:  Wow. That's a very large number. So, I know that the goal of this study is not only to understand these experiences, but also to take these findings and use them to impact some kind of positive change in the legal professional. So, I'm curious to know, thinking about all these points that we've just touched on, what were some of the recommendations that came about as a result of the survey?  Cory Amron:  Yeah, go ahead.  Corrine Parver:  No, go ahead.  Cory Amron:  No, you. No, you.  Corrine Parver:  There's so much that we want to say, we want to make sure we get it all in.  Cory Amron:  Right, right, right. Well, I just want to mention three, three recommendations. There were a lot of recommendations, and Corrine, please pick up after I finish. The three that I want to mention are the reporting, because of just the terrible statistics, something we call transparency, and also individual accountability.  So, the reporting, you can have the greatest policies, and training, and all that in the world, but if people don't feel comfortable reporting, and of course all the barriers that we just mentioned, then you're not going to hear about it. You're not going to be able to fix it. So, you need not only better reporting mechanisms, you need multiple reporting mechanisms, and you need support for reporting. That somewhat goes to the culture, so that has to come from the top down. I've heard male general counsels say that if you put better reporting mechanisms into place and your reporting goes up, you're actually doing a good job, because now, you're finding out about things that were happening that you did not know about before because there were too many barriers. So, reporting.  The second thing is transparency, and what that means is what the workplace knows. Oftentimes, in the statistics that we found from the survey, we found that even in the 14% of incidences that were reported, 50% of those, there was absolutely no consequence, and another 20%, the person who'd been harassed was never told what the consequences were.  So, knowing what happens and what steps the employer took is key, I think, in first of all creating a culture of A, reporting, and B, a lot less sexual harassment, but it also, everybody knows that it happened. I mean, if the employer thinks that this is under wraps and, "I'm doing my privacy thing by not telling anybody what we did," which employers do say, "Oh, privacy, and we can't tell anybody," everybody knows what has happened, and everybody needs to know that something was done about it. And it doesn't always have to be the person was fired, okay?  Which gets to individual accountability. In the most egregious cases, the person actually is let go, and if it's a law firm, sometimes what happens is they just go across the street with their clients, leaving the firm to clean up the mess, because now, there is not only somebody who's been harassed, but now, you have ... and particularly because a lot of these people are rainmakers, so you're leaving behind a lot of people who now have no work to do. And in the worst possible case, people are suing employer, and the employer now has to come up with funds to settle these lawsuits. Sometimes, the individual goes off Scott free.  So, there needs to be individual accountability. We've been looking and talking to a lot of people about the ethics requirements and disciplinary requirements, and that's okay, as far as it goes, but there has to be a lot more thought given to how to make sure that the individual is accountable for what they've done.  Corrine Parver:  So, the consequences really aren't just for the individual who was harassed, but to the location of the employment, the place of employment, whether it's even government, or a small firm, or a large firm. The business imperative exists for companies to act properly in informing the employees or partners, but the people in the workplace what has occurred, because the gossip will permeate the institution. People will know, as Cory mentioned, and so the consequences financially and otherwise are of concern.  Cory Amron:  But there are also a lot of positive things that employers can do to get ahead of the situation before it gets to that point. So, positive reinforcement for mentoring and for let's say 360 reviews to try to figure out what's going on, to putting in place conversations about what is appropriate, what is not appropriate in this particular organization. I know of general counsels who go, and magic partners, who go around to all of their offices to lead by example and talk about what the culture of the place is. So, positive reinforcement, not just always negative consequences.  Corrine Parver:  Two important recommendations that really laid the foundation for the next initiative that came out through the publication of the report and the survey findings, is that we need to come up with a creative way in order to make a shift in the landscape. Not that the teachings and videos for example that companies use to inform their employees about the latest EEOC regs or what has happened from the Supreme Court in cases, what the obligations are, the dos and don'ts, focusing mainly on the don'ts, the recommendations to engage in conversations with primarily, at least initially, with men, to involve men and to have men become active allies for their female colleagues. Out of those recommendations came our Conversations With Men initiative.  Rio Peterson:  Yes. Yes, absolutely, which is I thought just so creative. So, why don't we just, yeah, let's dive into it. Would you like to tell us a bit about it? The initiative is Conversations With Men, and so what does that look like?  Corrine Parver:  A good segue into it.  Rio Peterson:  Segue.  Corrine Parver:  Which is still going. The power of male allyship is, we deem to be, quite significant and crucial, and a lot of the work that's being done in the legal profession on these issues has been done by women, primarily. You'll have a lot of women's initiatives in law firms, women in charge of mentoring and education that really has nothing to do with the practice of law but working in legal employment settings. So, that has been something that we wanted to make sure that we were able to develop an initiative that would address those issues.  Cory Amron:  Yeah, and we did a lot of research just looking at who was doing what and what exactly were they doing in the male allyship space. We talked to some of the experts, people who've written books on the topic, and we convened some thought leaders to talk to us about what we might be able to do.  We also convened what we called an expert taskforce. We had people on that taskforce like Chai Feldblum, who was an EEOC commissioner. She was the author of the seminal work on sexual harassment in the workplace for the EEOC. Corrine mentioned that our Still Broken survey was spearheaded by Dr. Arin Reeves. We got her also to help us structure these conversations, because we wanted them to be open and honest with prompts and very thoughtful information.  But we also decided, with the help of that expert task force, that the facilitator should be ... We knew the facilitator was going to be a professional, but we decided that it was going to be a male. We thought that was important because we wanted no barrier to honest conversation. If they wanted to talk about their locker rooms, go for it, okay?  But we couldn't find a male facilitator that had this expertise. I mean, there's just a tiny handful of these people. So, we paired up a professional facilitator, who was actually a clinical law professor at Harvard of facilitation and mediation, we paired him up with Dr. Reeves, and together with Women Lawyers on Guard, we structured the sessions.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Let's talk a little bit more about those sessions. What did the mechanics of those meetings look like? I know this is still, this project is ongoing. So, how did it start? What was the first couple sessions like?  Corrine Parver:  Well, we decided that we would ask our network of women lawyers to nominate men to participate in the focus groups. We sent letters to ... Once we had the information about the men they were going to nominate, we realized quickly that everybody was very enthusiastic and accepted the invitation almost instantly.  Rio Peterson:  It's what you planned, right? [inaudible 00:39:46].  Corrine Parver:  Right. So, we convened focus groups of 10 men, and each of the focus groups met twice. They had an initial meeting with the facilitator. We also had a male note-taker who was introduced at the start of the session and then sort of was blank space afterwards, so that we were able to get notes from each of the sessions.  Cory Amron:  Anonymous, by the way.  Rio Peterson:  Right.  Corrine Parver:  The people did not know each other, who were in the groups. We made sure that the groups were diverse in every respect you could think, area of the country, legal place of employment, seniority, and the like.  Cory Amron:  Race, ethnicity.  Corrine Parver:  Ethnicity. Yeah. We tried to over every-  Cory Amron:  We had gay guys. We had a disabled person. Yeah.  Corrine Parver:  We had professors. We had judges, partners in law firms, general counsel of corporations. So, we had 50 people in the five focus groups. They met twice officially, and the facilitator had a curriculum and encouraged ... Really, it wasn't a lecture type of curriculum. It wasn't professorial. It was a true conversations that were structured over issues of sexual harassment.  Rio Peterson:  Right, and so for the first session, they would have a discussion and talk about things, and then what happened in the second session?  Cory Amron:  Well, first of all, before they got to the first session, they were told that they should read Still Broken.  Rio Peterson:  Got it.  Cory Amron:  We gave them a bunch of resources to look at, but Still Broken was at the top of the list. So, the conversation centered around what was happening and what they had read, what they had experienced, the types of prompts that was structuring the discussion. By and large, these were guys who obviously had ... well, had been nominated, right? So, they wanted to be there. By and large, they were shocked and credulous. They were just like, "Wow, really?" Because again, they were the ones that really weren't seeing it, for the most part. There were some that were working in their places of employment on these issues, but for the most part, these were people who were not seeing it.  So, in between the first and the second session, they were asked to talk to women in their lives, their relatives, their colleagues at work, their neighbors, whatever, just to ask them, "Just talk to me about sexual harassment." Not were you sexually harassed, but just talk to me.  To a person, when they came back into the second session, they were blown away. Absolutely blown away. They had no idea that their wife, let's say, this was the way she comported herself, or this is what the experiences that she has seen, or just that part of their life, their lived life. So, they were extremely, very, very impacted by this.  Rio Peterson:  Right. So, you mentioned that initially, this was two sessions, but that these conversations are still continuing today. Can you tell me a little bit about that?  Corrine Parver:  Well, we had provided the men with some active ally actions that they could take once the two sessions, two conversations were complete, and it was an extensive list of things that they could do. About a dozen or so of the 50 men decided that they wanted to continue the conversations with the facilitator, and they've been meeting now how long, Cory? Over a year.  Cory Amron:  Over a year and a half.  Corrine Parver:  Yeah, with a facilitator.  Cory Amron:  Every month.  Corrine Parver:  Once a month, every month. We are now seriously trying to plan the next cohort of 50 men.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Did it surprise you that they wanted to continue the conversation?  Corrine Parver:  Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yes?  Corrine Parver:  Yeah. Yeah. We were constantly getting feedback, whether through the notes from the note-taker or from our conversations with the facilitator, which we held religiously. Some of the discussions also entered into the area of gender discrimination and the role of women in the legal profession, which was fine with us, if the conversations expanded to include that type of discussion. The facilitator always brought the focus back into what are the active ally actions were they engaging it, et cetera? So, they didn't veer too far off of the topic, but they obviously were seeing changes that they were able to impart within their places of employment, and they were just enjoying the comradery that was developed and, "This is what happened to me and my firm," type of discussions.  Rio Peterson:  Right.  Cory Amron:  One thing that I also appreciated and would not have otherwise appreciated was how they talked about the nuances of what maybe ... Like if you were a bystander, and you saw this happening, they brought a lot of that into these discussions and talked over, "Oh, what should I have done?" Or, "What did I do, and was that the right thing to do?"  Talking about these nuances, I think made them realize that you know, not every situation is the same, and you just don't have one script that you can work off of in every single situation. So, I thought that was fascinating, that they came to that realization and were very, very attuned to not necessarily what they wanted to do, but what the person that was being harassed, I hesitate to say needed, but from that person's perspective, what might the bystander do?  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, what could be helpful or useful in the moment.  Cory Amron:  Yes. Right.  Corrine Parver:  Which is what led us to develop a Bystander Intervention Toolkit, which we're in the process of finalizing.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, fantastic. I think that's such an important way to help people frame a situation, is perhaps not so much think about yourself in that moment, but how can I be of service? How can I be helpful? And also, the importance of recognizing it's a dynamic issue. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for every situation, and that's a really powerful tool. I mean, it sounds like it's inspired some pretty tangible, positive change, really, at the end of the day.  Corrine Parver:  Right.  Rio Peterson:  I'm curious to know, how does that make you both feel? Do you feel accomplished and fantastic about that? Because you should. It's pretty amazing.  Corrine Parver:  Thank you. I think the bystander toolkit will really be of help, particularly when these occurrences take place in a group setting. One of the things, the surprising things also that we discovered was that it's not just in a single office with one-on-one interactions. It could happen, and does happen, in group settings.  So, if you're a fella, and there's five guys around and one woman, and someone makes an untoward comment, how should you react? What are the things that you could say or do in the moment to diffuse a situation or, "We don't talk like that around here," or things like that, you know? "That's very surprising you should make a comment like that," and the like.  Cory Amron:  And actually, sometimes they are coming to the realization that the person who's being harassed has it under control and that it's best not to be the knight in shining armor zapping in or whatever, being patronized or whatever. So, that's also an important perspective, trying to discern the difference between those situations. It's hard.  Rio Peterson:  Right, trying to navigate the nuances.  Cory Amron:  Mm-hmm.  Rio Peterson:  Certainly not a map we're all just born with, so it's very, very important. Oh, that's fantastic. So, we've got the bystander toolkit coming up, where you're working on facilitating a second round of conversations with men. What else is next? Is there more on the horizon for Women Lawyers on Guard?  Cory Amron:  Go for it.  Corrine Parver:  Well, I don't know that we can talk too much without getting our board approval on that.  Rio Peterson:  So yes, but to be coming soon.  Corrine Parver:  But I think in the other areas that we're working on, the reproductive healthcare rights, is a never-ending avenue for us to give our assistance. There's been so many court cases that have altered the landscape, and so that is something that's taking up a fair amount of our time right now, as well.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Absolutely. It's a massive mountain to scale, that one. Yeah. Well, this is fantastic. I know we've got just a couple more minutes left. I would love for you to tell us how people can get involved with Women Lawyers on Guard. Where can they find you? How can they lend their support?  Corrine Parver:  That's a wonderful question to end with.  Cory Amron:  Well first, if there's anybody who would like to nominate a guy for our upcoming sessions, we would love to hear from them. My email address is C Amron, so camron, C-A-M-R-O-N @womenlawyersonguard.org. So, we'd really love to hear your nominations.  Corrine Parver:  And we'd love to have you join us. There is no fee to join Women Lawyers on Guard. The website is www.womenlawyersonguard.org, where you can see all the reports of the work that we've accomplished thus far and also take a look at some of the amicus briefs that we've participated in. That's all online. We would love to have your listeners join our mighty band.  Rio Peterson:  And we would love for them to do that, as well, and we'll make sure to put the website and your email, Cory, in the show notes so that if anybody would like to get in touch, they have an easy way to do that, and definitely nominate someone to participate in more Conversations With Men. That'd be fantastic. Well, thank you both so much. This has been really incredible. It's really incredible work that you're both doing, and I'm very happy we got to discuss it today.  Cory Amron:  Well, thank you.  Corrine Parver:  Thank you. We really appreciate you inviting us.  Cory Amron:  Yes, and ALPS has been a stalwart supporter of ours, so we're very appreciative about that.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, wonderful. Well, hopefully once you have the toolkit out and the next round of Conversations With Men, we can do this again, keep the conversation going.  Cory Amron:  Sounds good.  Corrine Parver:  That's a date. Thank you.  Rio Peterson:  Wonderful. All right. Thank you so much, everyone, and this has been episode 83 of In Brief, and we will see you next time. There we go. We're done.  Corrine Parver:  Yay.  Rio Peterson:  Wonderful. Oh, thank you both so much. That was fantastic.  Corrine Parver:  I'm glad that you found it worthwhile. Good.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely.  Cory Amron:  Yeah. Thank you for your enthusiasm. It wasn't just like, "Oh, let's see, what's the next question?"  Rio Peterson:  Well, it's definitely something I feel is very important, and it hits close to home in a lot of ways. I'm just so blown away just reading through Still Broken and the Conversations With Men. It's just such a fascinating approach, too. The way you've tackled this issue, it's really inspiring. I've really, really enjoyed digging into your work and getting to talk with you both about this.  Corrine Parver:  Thank you.  Cory Amron:  Thank you, especially because there have been some who have looked at the construct that we're trying to bring forth, which is active male allies, and said that they can't ... not that they can't support the initiative, but they can't use their DEI dollars for it because it doesn't either A, they can't see the obvious impact on women, or B, they can't spend money on something that is just male-oriented. I'm like, "But you don't see the tunnel."  Corrine Parver:  Yeah, very frustrating.  Cory Amron:  Yeah, it is. It's very frustrating.  Rio Peterson:  There's a very larger picture you're not seeing there.  Cory Amron:  Yeah.  Corrine Parver:  And for us, the funding issue becomes an issue. It's very important that we can be able to garner sufficient funds to keep these programs going, because we don't have a fee to belong to the organization. So, like what ALPS has given us in contributions has been very important.  Rio Peterson:  All right. Well, hopefully we can keep that going, keep that support coming.  Cory Amron:  Thank you so, so much.  Corrine Parver:  Thank you.  Rio Peterson:  Absolutely.  Cory Amron:  Great to see you.  Rio Peterson:  Great to see you both. So, I will let you know when the episode publishes and we can tag you in the social posts, and get the word out there. Yeah.  Cory Amron:  Great. Great.  Corrine Parver:  Thank you.  Cory Amron:  Great. Thank you.  Rio Peterson:  Thank you both so much. I hope you guys have a great day.  Cory Amron:  Thanks. You, too.  Corrine Parver:  Bye.  Rio Peterson:  Bye-bye. 

Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana.  For those of you that aren't familiar with me, I've been practicing at ALPS, serving in the role of risk manager for over 26 years, and, recently, it's been about two and a half, maybe ... Coming up on. Well, two and a half. Two and a half. I got to think through this.  I have been blessed to be able to have my wife and I move to Florida, so I'm coming to you from our remote location here in St. Cloud, Florida on a beautiful day.  I want to continue with some conversations that I've had over the years, and this fits in the category of listening to your life, focusing on some growth issues, and really the purpose of this particular podcast is to talk about how to build, and, perhaps, even more importantly, how to maintain a successful law practice.  There's a lot written out there on the importance of marketing, networking. I've lectured, and written on a lot of this, myself, and I really don't want to dismiss that. That's very important, in terms of building a practice, as is understanding the marketplace, having all the correct tools. There's lots of things, if you will, on the business side that need to be addressed, and they are very important.  But the older I get, I continue to discover, and appreciate the value of something else, and it really is what I would describe as the foundation, and foundations in relationships, as an example, and in many aspects of our lives, I've come to learn, are so important, whether that's a foundation ... To become a foundation for your children, as they grow, to have a foundation built on commitment in personal relationships, particularly, in the context of a marriage. It's just something that I have found to be very, very relevant.  So, I'm going to talk about the foundation necessary to build and maintain a successful law practice, and really what I'm talking about is wellness. I have written and talked for years about how impairment issues are significant, in terms of their role in practice claims, in grievances, and all that, but I'm coming at it from a different angle, and I really do believe that a foundation in the practice of law, a personal foundation, based on wellness is absolutely essential, and fundamental to the long-term success of a successful law practice.  And I'm going to be, as we talk today, sharing a little bit about myself, and I'm not here to suggest, in any way, shape, or form that I've got it all figured out. I absolutely don't, but I do want to say I'm on a journey, and it is a wellness journey. I have yet to find the end point, if you will, and I mean I remain a work-in-process.  That's going to be true for me for the rest of my life, because life is a journey, and I guess, at some point, the journey will come to an end, and perhaps, in some way, that's an end point, depending on what you believe, but while we're here, in a physical body, in this wonderful place we call Earth, for all of us, it's a journey, and so I encourage you to consider that, and let's talk about what is important, in terms of wellness, as we go through this journey.  In my mind, wellness ... This is far more than just about health. Okay? I'm going to talk a little bit about health, but it really is about all aspects of one's life. We need to have wellness in our personal lives, in our professional lives, in our spiritual lives, it just goes on and on.  And, again, to the degree that we struggle individually with any aspect of wellness, in any aspect of our life, that can create some problems. How do you think impairments arise? If we're not taking care of ourselves, we can get overwhelmed, we can get burned out, we can get depressed, we can turn to alcohol, et cetera, et cetera. I don't want to rehash all that.  All I'll say is to really stay strong, to stay focused, wellness matters. Let me ask some questions just to set this up. Are you happy in your life? In terms of generally happy. I have days where I'm not happy. Things can be kind of crazy. I've had a rough week, to be honest with you. A colleague recently passed very unexpectedly, and that's been difficult. It's been very difficult. I've gone through some health issues, nothing overly concerning, but some surgery that was necessary, and, let's just say, it was a little rougher than anticipated, so there are normal stressors in life. Things happen, but I would say, generally, I have an overall sense of happiness, an overall sense of fulfillment, an overall sense of purpose.  Is life stress-free? No, but even the times ... Even good things happening in life can be stressful, so it's about wellness. How do we handle the stress? How are we working through the issues?  Okay. That's the broad stuff, but let's dig in a little bit, and talk about really what wellness means, if you will, in the practice of law, and talk about why it's important.  Let me knock it out there, in terms of the first topic, because it's so significant. We do need to set some boundaries. We're not going to really talk about how can we find, and maintain wellness here. We do need to set boundaries, and you hear these discussions all the time, and, honestly, speaking personally, "Well, it's about maintaining balance," and I just ... It drives me crazy. I fail to understand how if we find some balance between two aspects of our lives, that that solves anything, because by even framing it that way, the assumption is that some aspect of your life is unhealthy, and if we bring some other aspect of your life that is healthy into balance with this, somehow that fixes everything, and, no. No. All aspects of your life have to be happy, and healthy.  And, typically, when we're talking about balance between professional life, and work life, there's this assumption that we're devoting too much time, and things are out of balance, and it's not healthy for us in terms of our professional life, so let's talk about setting boundaries, and we could talk for a long time about all the different ways to do this, but what I really want to say to you, whether you're brand-new in practice, or have been practicing for 50 years, and still struggle with this, sometimes it's important to hear from a fellow lawyer, a fellow ... Someone that gets it with you.  Life can be crazy, both externally, in terms of your personal life, and professionally. It's okay to take care of yourself. Self-care, self-prioritization is not selfish. It's not saying to your client that, "You don't matter to me." You need to work, to have a life. That's really what we're doing here, so set some boundaries.  If you work great in the morning, or some people are morning people, some people are afternoon people, whatever time of day is really good for you to knock some work out, protect that. Don't have the phone ringing all the time, and people scheduling appointments. Have some quiet time, and really prioritize that. Stick to it, and give staff the ability, or the permission, if you will, to enforce the time that you set aside. Turn off notifications, don't check your email, et cetera, et cetera. I would schedule some breaks throughout each day, in terms of the work day, primarily, even if it's just 10 minutes now and again to get outside, and get a little sun, to get outside and just clear your mind.  I have found that to be very effective. Sometimes I just need a mental break, and so I'll go out, and just stroll a little bit, and that can provide clarity. I can problem solve at times doing this, because I give myself permission not to worry about it, and I give myself permission to just go, and be calm.  So, set some boundaries. On personal time, you don't need to be available 24/7. So, unplug, turn this thing off, get off of the Matrix. That's okay. It's not selfish. It's something you deserve, and it's how you stay professionally sharp. If you're never recharging your batteries, just to even have some time to de-stress and get the work done that needs to be done, or have time to clear your head, it's all good. You have to have that, or the ax is going to get dull.  So, another thing that I strongly encourage you to do is just invest in your physical health, because, again, boy, I could tell you some stories over the years with all the consulting I've done, and I have worked with more attorneys than I ever thought, who had all kinds of health issues, that were tremendously impacting their ability to competently, in a few situations, serve their clients.  I literally had to go into one solo practice, at one point, and tell them, "You're done practicing today," and it was not a conversation I was looking forward to, but, at the end of the day, I got to tell you, you know what the response was? Just one of relief. Finally, somebody gave him permission to say, "It's okay. You're done. You can't ..." He was able to acknowledge, and finally just say to himself, "Okay ... It didn't need to be that way. Get some exercise." It improves cognitive function. I mean it really does. Eat reasonably well. All this fast food crap that's out there, we all know that just shoving junk into your body morning, noon, and night, day after day is going to not serve you well.  You want to try to get a good night's sleep, and just rest. Again, that needs to be prioritized at times. Yes, there will be times, perhaps a hearing coming up, or something, and where some of these things have to go by the wayside a little bit, and that's okay, but you got to get back into the routine.  As you go through this journey of living, and being an attorney, and serving your clients, you still have to care for yourself. One of the things that I do, and if you've listened to some of my other podcasts, I enjoy tremendously going out, and cycling. I do a lot of cycling, and that is just a place, again, where I can be calm, and where I can just enjoy the moment, and, for whatever reason, it works for me. I love it. Even if it's indoors, at times, you're ... Depending on the hour, and time of day, and weather, I do a lot of riding indoors, and that's where I get some of my best writing in, believe it or not. I put in anywhere between 1500, 2000 miles a year, and it is a great workout indoors, and I just love it.  Playing tennis is another thing I've taken up, I got back into, after a number of years, but doing it here in Florida, we're very blessed to be near the USTA, the USA's Tennis Association, national campus, and I'll be honest and say, there are many times where I either have a tennis lesson over there, or here at the local courts, meeting with some friends, and playing, I'll tell you honestly, there's a lot of times where I just don't want to go. It's been busy, been a crazy day, and I just, "Ugh." I've never missed, though. I always just force myself to do it, and here's the crazy thing, never once have I regretted going, and I've always had a blast every time.  So, invest in your physical health. It pays back in spades, in terms of energy, staying mentally competent, still enjoying what you do. If you're out of shape, overworked, poor diet, poor rest, it's no wonder so many lawyers struggle in our profession with just not being happy, and it's not working, and they're just going burnt, because, again, they're not taking care of the physical health. Extremely, extremely important. That's the foundation. It honestly is.  Prioritize mental and emotional wellbeing. I'm not a mindfulness guy, but I really, really need you to hear the mindfulness movement has really helped so, so many people. Try it out. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, okay. Meditation. You just need to find ways to manage stress, and those are two excellent ways. I have to be honest, and say I've tried them some. I will admit, I've not really gone gung-ho on this, but I'll go back to cycling. For me, that's where I can find calmness. To me, I guess I'd say that's the way I meditate, and it's a very I guess non-traditional way, perhaps, I don't know. I'm not a guru in meditation, but it works for me, so find ways.  I do need to say, if you feel that you are struggling in some ways with burnout, depression, anxiety is another thing that I have seen recently, in a very dear and good friend, that I'm concerned about, and I do try to listen, and say, "We got to address this. What can I do to help?"  But if you feel that there's some challenges there, I strongly support, and encourage you trying to find some help, whatever that might be. Visiting with a colleague perhaps, a pastor, a social worker, a psychiatrist, depending on the issue, the answer or solution to this is going to differ, but, please don't ignore that. It's just not worth it.  On a parallel, or tangent here, please don't minimize the importance too of building, maintaining, and, by that, I mean nurturing, your support systems. They're so important over the years, and, boy, have I come to learn that too, whether it's colleagues, friends, family members, extended family members, your significant other. These are the people that are here for you, and can do wonderful things to help care for you, to be supportive of you, to be a cheerleader for you.  Of course, the gift is a two-way street. You need to invest in them as well. But isn't that what the journey is all about? What's the point of going through a journey of life without anybody to validate the journey? To go with you? To share the experience? And to, also, have you experience someone else's journey? Again, this is a two-way street. There's more than just one relationship there.  Let's talk a little bit about the office too. It's important to create a positive work environment, whether that's a home office, which is where I'm sitting right now, or an office, a brick and mortar law firm, but you do need to make it a positive kind of thing.  I have created a calming space, and you really can't see the whole thing here. If some of you can't listen, over the years, I have ... I'm a Disney person. My wife and I have been members of the Disney Vacation Club for years, and years, and years, and, literally, have traveled a number of places around the world with Disney. Kids were raised Disney. We have a lot of fun. I am in a Disney space. Again, that's calming to me, and it's full of pictures and all kinds of things that are memories. You can see some in the back ... Well, see this side of the background here. There's a Disney cruise ship. There's a photo of myself when I was quite a bit younger with my daughter, when she was a lot younger, on my back, hiking in Glacier National Park.  There are things that are very special, and memorable. That's a calming positive workspace for me. Let's create a culture of respect, and support among staff, and colleagues, at your firm, assuming you're not just a true solo. Let's encourage open, honest communication, respectful, but we need to talk about if somebody's having a problem, or you're having a problem with somebody, "I can't trust this individual to do things," and you don't want to delegate, or something, we need to work through that.  On healthy relationships, again, just left alone and unaddressed, really begin to impact the health and wellness of the workplace setting, so let's address that. I would encourage you to engage in continuous learning, and here's an interesting ... Yes. I'm talking about CLE, and maintaining our competency, whether that's through webinars, but maybe networking, and mentor kinds of stuff. It's very, very important to ... You can read up on journals, and publications, and there's all kinds of things that you can do professionally, and I do that, I go to conferences, I present webinars, and there's a lot of learning that goes into being able to present a webinar, or put together a CLE, and I, obviously, attend a lot of CLEs, and that helps keep me sharp.  But I'd encourage you to go further. The mind needs to stay active, and the mind needs to be stimulated. I'll be honest, and say, at times, the ethics world, which is a lot of my world, and cybersecurity, those are very, very stimulating topics for me, and I love working through hypos, and reading things, and having a lot of fun, and just like, "Oh, how do you solve this?" But, also, I love physics, I love to cook, and so there are this aspect of continual learning, even learning to play tennis, and trying to study the game, how do you position yourself, and what are the tactics on a double score? As an example.  I got to cook ... I cook a variety of cuisines, Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, the list just goes on, and that, again, helps keep me sharp. So, I think continuous learning is so, so important, so find the things that interest you, that, again, that keep the desire to learn, and to grow alive. That is going to bring out so much more in terms of even just who you are, and how successful you can be in building, and maintaining your law practice.  Finally, I would say give back. Give back. There's all kinds of ways you can do this, pro bono is a great way. You can volunteer for legal aid organizations. You can mentor. There's a lot that you can do professionally, and just get involved with state bar, local bar, and present some [inaudible 00:24:22] now and again.  But you can also just give back in so many other ways, whether that's getting involved with any local charity organizations, Boys and Girls of America, being ... Working in a museum, working at a children's hospital. Just the list just goes on and on and on. I've done some of these things over the years with a volunteer thing, National Cancer Institute, and I have worked at a children's orthopedic hospital years ago, as a volunteer. Boy, was that crazy? I learned more from kids that were dying, I am not kidding you, than I have ever learned in any other setting. The professional and personal growth with that experience, I will never, ever forget.  So, there's just a variety of things, but being able to give back, it feeds and nurtures the soul, if you will. That's my personal experience, and, again, it helps me be the best person that I can be, and I'm always open to growing and learning, because, again, that's the point of the journey. That's the point.  I guess I have one other thought too. I would encourage you to focus on spiritual as well. I'm not sitting here saying, "You got to go out, and go to church," so many times a month. That's not what I'm getting to, but I do believe there is value in perhaps appreciating just that the gift that you've been given, the gift of having the opportunity to have a life's journey, and the older I get, I can appreciate ... They always talk about this attitude of gratitude, but just acknowledging life's good, and I'm very thankful, and I do feel blessed, and this isn't about placing some God a way ... It's just about this ... I just acknowledge that the journey I'm on, and the life that I've been given is of value, and I try to figure out what my role is with it, what my purpose is, and for a lot of years, I've had to have a purpose.  I have a purpose. I do. How you answer that, what is your purpose, it may change over time, and it's not always easy, but it's also not that hard. I have been so proud of just the dad that I have been over the years. Did I do it perfectly? Oh, heck no. I assure you, but I've been a really good dad. I really have.  That's one purpose. I've raised five wonderful, beautiful children. I am very proud of who I am as a husband. I am proud of who I am, as a friend to a number of people, and very proud that they chose to be my friend. I could go on with all this, and it's not important, I'm just trying to give you some examples, but find a purpose, and this whole spiritual side, I think, again, can be so fundamental in terms of grounding ourselves, as we build this personal and professional foundation.  We need to be strong in character. We need to be strong in knowing who we are, what we have to offer, what we want to offer. I'm trying to say, again, this is how you bring out the best in who you can be, and that will serve you, your support systems, your clients, everybody that you work with, and for, better than anything else I can think of. Marketing, very important, but if this foundation isn't there, the marketing efforts aren't going to work out for the long-term anyway. You're going to have your challenges, and struggles.  So, I guess I'm going to leave it at that. I hope you have found something of interest, something of value with this soliloquy, and I really would love if any of you have thoughts, and want to share stories, or talk about any of this. Please don't hesitate to reach out. I am a risk manager for ALPS, but that doesn't mean I'm their risk manager. ALPS hires me to be your risk manager, and I'm a support system, and someone that's here just to enter into relationship, so if you ever care to chat, just give me a call, or send an email, we set something up. It's MBass, M-B-A-S-S, at ALPS Insurance, one word, A-L-P-S, insurance dot com.  That's it, folks. Have a blessed day, and stay strong in the practice. Bye-bye. 

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar Partnerships Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Tamara Nash, Director of Experiential Learning and lecturer at the University of South Dakota School of Law and Chair of the ABA's Young Lawyer Division. They dive into her upcoming initiatives for the year ahead and discuss the inspiration behind her focus on empowering and motivating new and aspiring lawyers. Lastly Tamara, a first-generation lawyer herself, shares her plans to reach more young lawyers by organizing the ABA's inaugural first-generation summit in April 2024. — Rio Peterson:  Hello everybody and welcome to episode 81 of the In Brief podcast. I'm your host today Rio Peterson, coming to you live from Chicago. And as we all know, I am the bar partnership strategist here at ALPS and one of your new hosts for the podcast. So today I am sitting down with the fantastic and fabulous Tamara Nash. Hello.  Tamara Nash:  Hi.  Rio Peterson:  How are you?  Tamara Nash:  I'm great. How are you today?  Rio Peterson:  Good, I'm fantastic. Better that I get to sit here and chat with you. So we are both attending BLI, the Bar Leader Institute conference here in Chicago. And so we thought this would be a great time to sit down and talk about a lot of, well, all of, or as many as we can, the exciting things that Tam is doing because you do all the things. So yeah, happy to have you. Thanks for joining me.  Tamara Nash:  Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.  Rio Peterson:  Fantastic. All right, so let's get started. I would love to hear a little bit more about you. I mean, obviously I know a little bit about you, but our listeners don't. So why don't you tell me a little bit about who you are, what you do, and yeah, we'll go from there.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, I would love to. So those kind of questions always strike a chord of panic. Who are you? It's like, "Well, let me encapsulate my life in this one sentence." I always like to start that with I'm a proud first-generation attorney, born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and then transplant to South Dakota, a proud South Dakota young lawyer, but I can only say that for one more year and then I'll be aging out. So I'll go kicking and screaming to veteran attorney status.  Rio Peterson:  Yes.  Tamara Nash:  O I guess a quasi veteran attorney status, but...  Rio Peterson:  Young veteran attorney.  Tamara Nash:  Young veteran attorney. Yes, I like that. We'll bring that term into use. I am the oldest sibling of three. I'm very close with my siblings. I have a brand new nephew and I have a niece. I'm quite obsessed with them. I bring them up any chance that I can get. I was a prosecutor for about eight years and then recently made a transition into academia. I currently have the joy of serving as the director of experiential learning and a lecturer at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. And I am kind of a serial joiner. I really like bar service, so I do quite a bit in the South Dakota State Bar as well as the American Bar Association and the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division and just try to squeeze in time to read and bake when I'm not doing all of those things.  Rio Peterson:  I do all of the things when I'm not doing all of them.  Tamara Nash:  Basically, yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. And so I think it's incredible that you do all those things. It really just shows that you're so passionate about what you do. And so something I would really love to hear is a little bit about your origin story because I know you mentioned that you're a first-generation lawyer, so that's a really, I think, exciting thing when somebody in your family takes that next step. So I'd love to know more about what inspired you to become a lawyer.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah. So I love telling this story. It's something I'm super proud about and something that has always followed me. It's always like a little seed or flower I carry with me everywhere. So I think I come from a family of helpers, a family of people who always want to improve the world, make the world better and have done that in kind of their own little way. But no one in my family ever really went to professional school, ever did anything like this. I mean, my grandfather had a third grade education and started his own business. So I mean, so amazing feat from that, a Black man from Mississippi.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Tamara Nash:  So extraordinary journey and path that he lived. But my kind of story was inspired by an amazing teacher. My sixth grade teacher let us create a mini society. So we had our own money, we had our own name, we had our own businesses, and one of our classmates had a hot dog stand, which beside the point of how weird and creepy that is, that sixth-graders were selling hot dogs to other sixth-graders, we had a mini society day where some of us were selling... I had a supply store with my friends, they had their hot dog stand, but apparently my friend's classmates thought he wasn't pulling his end of the labor. And so they fired him.  And my teacher said, "Well, you can do something about that." So our class had a wrongful termination lawsuit and some of us were jury members, some of us served as attorneys. I was his attorney. One of us was a judge. And it just changed something inside of me. It was the coolest thing I've ever done. And my teacher was like, "You seemed to really enjoy that." And so he brought in three Black women to talk to me about what it meant to be a lawyer and what they did every day. And I sat with them in the school cafeteria during the school day and just learned about it. And it planted the seed inside of me of what I could do and what my life could be.  And I kind of had ups and downs through school. I didn't do very well the whole time. But when I got to college, that dream came to fruition. I took the LSAT, the law school admissions test and was like, "I can do this, and went to law school. And so I went to University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law and the dream of following in the footsteps of helpers and my family kind of came to life. So it all started with a hot dog stand.  Rio Peterson:  Did you win? Did you win the case?  Tamara Nash:  We did. We did. Yes. But really we were all winners. We were all winners.  Rio Peterson:  That's really incredible. It's really a testament to the power that education and certain adults in your life can have to influence and inspire the direction you go. And do you still keep in touch with that teacher?  Tamara Nash:  I do. So his name is Mr. Summit. We keep in contact periodically on Facebook. And I very much believe that my journey and my life has been influenced and my trajectory has been changed by people who have intervened and got involved and influenced me in these monumental ways. And he's just one of the several examples of people who've changed my life. And so yeah, I'm so appreciative of him for something that he probably thought was no big deal, but literally changed the course of my life.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I love too that he thought to bring three women that you could relate to and connect with as a woman of color and show you," Hey, this is what you can do."  Tamara Nash:  Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  That's amazing.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Tamara Nash:  It's so powerful. I mean, you have to see it to believe it, and that's what he did. And it just planted the seed that took years to blossom, but when it did, it came with a vengeance. So it's really cool  Rio Peterson:  Oh, I love that. That's fantastic. That's a great origin story.  Tamara Nash:  Thanks.  Rio Peterson:  Was there anyone during your journey through law school and as a young lawyer who also inspired you in that way or pushed you forward?  Tamara Nash:  Yeah. So I mean, sincerely mean it when I say I've had amazing mentors who've been pivotal in my life. As a young lawyer, I've had a few mentors who have just been wonderful, who've taught me how to be a young lawyer, how to navigate the profession, how to have empathy, how to have compassion, how to be a professional.  I had one mentor in particular, I remember it's the summer between second year and third year, everyone's interviewing for jobs. And I remember walking out of that interview and I thought to myself, "Whatever I got to do to work for this person, I'll do it." Just you connect with a person and you just know this is who I am supposed to learn from. And fate aligned that I got that internship and it was with the US Attorney's Office in South Dakota.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, wow.  Tamara Nash:  And it changed life. And I'm still mentee with that person, and I still call on them when I want to know what to do in life or what decisions to make. And the coolest thing about it is that person ended up becoming a judge and then I ended up becoming their clerk by happenstance. We both kind of got the same job the next year. And so our lives kind of tracked for a couple paces after that.  And so that person has been such a pivotal mentor and role model and encourager and champion in my life. And I think that's one thing that makes the South Dakota Bar so amazing is that it's such a close-knit community that I don't know a single young lawyer who hasn't been impacted by an amazing mentor, someone who's been a champion to them, cheered them on, encouraged them, provided opportunities. And I am so fortunate to be not at all from South Dakota, but benefiting from an amazing bar and amazing mentors.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. And really the role of mentorship is so important, especially when you're new at something. I mean, whether you're coming into the profession as a young person or even maybe a bit later in life, it can be a very daunting and intimidating thing to be surrounded by all these very intelligent people who know what's going on. So it's really fantastic to know that it is understood that that is such an important thing for people to have that support when they're trying to figure out who they are and where they're going to end up in this profession.  Tamara Nash:  Absolutely. And especially as a first-generation attorney where you don't have a parent who came before you who can tell you, "This is what you do when you go golfing," or, "This is how you interact at this fancy lunch." And for someone to just sit you down and tell you these unspoken rules or just to encourage you and remind you, you are here for a reason.  Rio Peterson:  You belong here.  Tamara Nash:  You belong. Exactly.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Tamara Nash:  And then just the power of someone saying your name in rooms you're not in, and to help you seek opportunities and achieve and push yourself, it is so powerful and it means so much. So it's really exciting.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. And I think there's kind of a theme that I keep hearing when I get to speak to incredible legal professionals. It's that a lot of the legal community is of the opinion that success is not a zero-sum game. There's enough opportunity for everyone, there's enough success, and if we just work together and bring each other up, we're all going to do well. And...  Tamara Nash:  Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  ... the world I think in general will do well from that.  Tamara Nash:  Oh, yes. Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, our whole profession succeeds. One of the cool things is there's a session here at BLI, the Bar Leadership Institute, leadership is a team sport. We all succeed when one of us succeeds. We don't take away from any of us or any one of us. And I believe sincerely that when we dig in and work together to do our joint mission, whether that's serving justice, whether that's a strategic plan, whatever the goal is, we all come out enriched for whatever that is. And that's how my mentors taught me.  Rio Peterson:  Yes, yes. And so in your role as a teacher and a lecturer, is mentorship something that you speak about with your students and encourage?  Tamara Nash:  It is. Mentorship is such an amorphous topic to teach, though. It's so hard to say, "Mentor, find one."  Rio Peterson:  [inaudible 00:12:38] right now with somebody.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, exactly. But I do, and I try to bring in folks to come in and guest lecture and different guest speakers and bring in my mentors to demonstrate how important it is. And I talk and try to be open and vulnerable about how I've benefited from mentorship and why it matters and how to find mentors and how to engage with your mentor and how to give back to your mentors because it's not a one-way street either. It's not someone you just call up like, "Hey, Bob, need a job, what you got for me," kind of thing."  So yeah, we talk about it. And I think it's one of those things that as you grow in the profession, you understand what it means, kind of like I understood the opportunity that my sixth grade teacher gave me much more as I got older. And so I think it's one of those pieces as well. But I think the students really enjoy meeting professionals, understanding what they do and understanding how those connections can continue to be cultivated as they grow in their three years as law students and then much more beyond as lawyers.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. So you teach, but you were also a prosecutor for eight years?  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, about eight years.  Rio Peterson:  Was that in South Dakota?  Tamara Nash:  Yes. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Okay. How did you like it?  Tamara Nash:  I loved it. It was very challenging, very stressful, but I loved it. I loved my office and the mission and just the pursuit of justice, it mattered, and it was a very meaningful job to have.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Got it. And so then after your time as a prosecutor, you've now segued into, you work with the South Dakota Bar, you do work with the ABA ,and you teach. What are some of the things that you do with the South Dakota Bar?  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, so I have been fortunate enough that as soon as I was licensed, I had folks say, "Come to bar service. Welcome. Welcome." And so I've been involved in the South Dakota State Bar and the American Bar Association pretty much since the time I've had a license. And so with the South Dakota State Bar, I've been on the Young Lawyers Board of Directors. I've been fortunate enough to serve as our South Dakota Young Lawyer Section President. And with the South Dakota State Bar, I am our young lawyer delegate to the ABA House of Delegates. I serve on a few different committees within our state bar, with our law school committee. I also this year serve as chair of our diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. And it's just been really cool to be a part of a state bar and to serve and lead in a state bar that has given me so much and really has been the reason I have a career. So it's been really rewarding. I enjoy it.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. And they recognize, they're like, "This woman gets things done. We need her to join the [inaudible 00:15:32]." Yeah, we know obviously ALPS works with the South Dakota Bar, and they're a fantastic group of people. So yeah, it's wonderful to hear too the impact that a bar and participating in your bar can have as well. And, oh, excuse me. Yeah, just the positive impact that can have in helping to push your career forward as well.  Tamara Nash:  Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  And helping you to connect with people. And I think also focusing on your passion. It sounds like you're very passionate about supporting young lawyers and helping them navigate the world, the legal profession, and becoming lawyers. I know... I mean, I think it's clear based on your work as well with the ABA, because you are the chair of the Young Lawyer Division this year for the ABA as well, right?  Tamara Nash:  I am.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. How did that come about?  Tamara Nash:  Oh, that's a windy, twisty turn of fate, truly a fate. And it's been such a remarkable just journey of kind of finding a home in the ABA. I attended my first ABA conference back in 2016 as a member of the board of directors for South Dakota, our young lawyer section. And I say this in all sincerity, although it sounds like a Hallmark card, knew I had found my home and found my people in my first meeting. And so instantly signed up for everything I could and tried to join all the things. And then someone was like, "All right, we'll need to narrow it down. So tell us one thing you want to do." And so I applied to become a scholar, which is a leadership development program at the Young Lawyers Division does each year. 16 young lawyers are selected to participate. And that we kind of lovingly and appropriately call a springboard into leadership.  Rio Peterson:  Great.  Tamara Nash:  And so that was kind of the first opportunity or segue into the Young Lawyers Division that I did. And after that held different positions as a director and committee leader and on different teams and on different boards. And everything that I did, I just kind of fell in love with the division more and lovingly call the division home, where I've made amazing, amazing friends that have kind of helped guide me through hard life stuff that we all live challenges, career changes, encouraged me as I'm negotiating new jobs, celebrating fun wins in life, and it's just kind of become this professional home that means so very much to me. And so I decided in 2019 to run a campaign, a year-long campaign to be secretary of the division and the successful candidate for that ascends to chair. And so that was four years ago...  Rio Peterson:  Got it.  Tamara Nash:  ... which leads us to today...  Rio Peterson:  Got it.  Tamara Nash:  ... serving as chair.  Rio Peterson:  Well, I would buy that Hallmark card. Yeah, I love that you found that community. You just instantly were like, "Yes, this is where I need to be." And it really shows through all the work that you've done. And I know a project that you have coming up is a summit for first-generation lawyers, which we're very, very excited about. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?  Tamara Nash:  Yeah. So I'm so very proud, very excited to be a part of the first-generation summit that we're able to put on. So kind of context of stepping back, we as the Young Lawyers Division have a first-generation initiative. Something that we are incredibly proud of is creating community for first-generation law students and young lawyers. It was a gap that we had that we didn't have a place where we could say, "Hey, this is who I am and this is something I'm proud of, and here are resources to support me." And that is a gap that we filled last year, last bar year.  Rio Peterson:  Yes.  Tamara Nash:  And a part of that is creating space where we can come together and be proud of who we are, to bring mentors into the space, to provide resources. And so on April 26th of this year, 2024, we'll be meeting in Houston, Texas to have a summit and really just celebrate that shared identity that I think we've all, a lot of first-generation, I should say, have gone through this transition of it used to be something that you felt, I wouldn't say embarrassed, but maybe felt like it used to be a barrier or a challenge. And now it's a badge of honor. To be a first-generation is synonymous with grit and tenacity and to be someone who perseveres.  And we'll come together and celebrate that identity and that label. And we'll have high-schoolers there, we'll have college students there, law students, members of the judiciary and young lawyers, and just kind of celebrate that shared identity, build community and have some programming, have some networking breakfast, networking lunch, and really just celebrate who we are and that first-gen status. And we have some amazing partners, one of which is ALPS. We have the AccessLex Institute. And we have some of the Texas Bar Associations that have been fantastic partners, and South Texas College of Law has been a wonderful partner. And so we're just really excited to say, "We're here and we're proud of who we are and how can we help."  Rio Peterson:  Yes. And I really love that you've included high school students in that as well. And I mean, giving them an opportunity to see the law as something that is viable and it is something they should be considering and that is open to them. And I know you've done work in the past with I think it's Project Destination, right?  Tamara Nash:  Yes. Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. So I love that because I think it's, especially for someone who doesn't come from a family of lawyers, even thinking about being a lawyer is maybe something they wouldn't be considering without someone being like, "Oh, actually you should."  Tamara Nash:  Yeah, 100%  Rio Peterson:  "You can do this. This could be you."  Tamara Nash:  Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the profound ability to see yourself in someone who looks like you, to say, "I did it. You can do it." And to plant that seed that we know that sometimes can take years to blossom. I'm the example of that, that someone took the time to plant a seed in me, and it took years for me to even think back on that. But once I did, and once life happened and the universe aligned, that seed blossomed. And it's just to take the time to pour into someone, pour life into someone, invest in them and believe in them, and for them to remember to believe in themselves as well.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I think seizing the opportunity to create visibility around, I mean, particularly women of color and showing other young girls of color like, "Hey, this is something that you can do." I mean, I think about media and stuff, it's not often that you see that representation.  Tamara Nash:  Absolutely.  Rio Peterson:  So connecting with that is so important, even if you don't realize it in the moment. Looking back, just like you said with, as you've gotten older, understanding the opportunity that was presented when you met the those women lawyers. Yeah. It's amazing growing the gardens of tomorrow today.  Tamara Nash:  Yes, exactly. It's so cool. And I always think even if students never become a lawyer, the impact that you can have is profound. And the ripple effect of the generations you impact afterwards are amazing. And there's a quote that I love of, "You plant seeds today so that generations can live in the shade tomorrow." Something like that, the quote, not precisely. But it's so cool that someone years from now can live the benefit because you put on a 40-minute panel.  Rio Peterson:  Yes.  Tamara Nash:  And so it's really so cool and so truly just moving to know that you can change the course of someone's life. And I say that in a way of not like I'm important, but in a way that I've lived it. It has changed my life. And so I know the impact that it can have.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I love that generational element as well. I mean, maybe if a high-schooler comes to the summit and they don't become a lawyer, but maybe their kid does and maybe their kid becomes president because of it and changes the world. You never know.  Tamara Nash:  Exactly.  Rio Peterson:  You never know.  Tamara Nash:  Or someone becomes a court reporter or they go into law enforcement and then the next generation does something. It can just be so cool.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's very, very exciting. And so that's on April 26th.  Tamara Nash:  April 26th.  Rio Peterson:  At the Houston?  Tamara Nash:  South Texas College of Law in Houston.  Rio Peterson:  South Texas. Yes, in Houston. Okay. Fantastic. And we'll talk in a minute about how people can get connected with that.  Tamara Nash:  Sounds good.  Rio Peterson:  So something I want to ask because I think this is really a theme and overarching theme about what we've been talking about is just inspiring youth and creating and opening those opportunities. So what is some advice that you would give your younger self? I know this is a question you like to ask. Well, I'm asking you, Tam.  Tamara Nash:  All right. A piece of advice I would give my younger self is to stay rooted in your passion and your dreams and to trust the process and trust the journey. I think we get very convinced that success looks one way and that the path has to be one way. And we get so rigid and so distracted by other people's definition of success that sometimes we lose sight of our own passion, our own dream, and our own wants for our life. And so I would just remind my younger self that it will work out just as it should and that you can define success for yourself.  Rio Peterson:  Oh, I love that. I feel like that's going to be the title of this episode. I imagine your family's really proud of you, hey.  Tamara Nash:  I hope they are.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. I love that. I love that advice. And it is so true. I mean, we definitely get wrapped up in this idea that it has to be a certain thing. But that's the great thing about success in this life is that you really get to decide for yourself what is important and how that looks and where you want to take it. And that's a really powerful thing to know.  Tamara Nash:  Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. And I mean, obviously it takes time to learn that, but once you do.  Tamara Nash:  It's liberating.  Rio Peterson:  Yes, it absolutely is. It's like, "Oh, I don't have to fit in this box. That's really awesome."  Tamara Nash:  Yeah.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's great advice. So tell us how can people find out about the summit?  Tamara Nash:  Yes. So easiest way to find out about the summit is reach out to me directly. You can email me at tamarapnash1@gamil, tamarapnash1@gmail.com. And I would love, love, love to get you connected to get you there and to get you all the information you might need.  Rio Peterson:  Perfect. And we will make sure to put that in the show notes so that it's easy to find and everyone can connect with you. And yeah, we're really looking forward to the summit and I think it's going to be a fantastic success.  Tamara Nash:  Thank you. We're excited and we are appreciative of your partnership.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. We love young lawyers. Yeah, so thank you so much for chatting with me today. This was fantastic. I really enjoyed our conversation.  Tamara Nash:  Me too. Thanks for having me.  Rio Peterson:  Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. You come back anytime.  Tamara Nash:  All right, be careful.  Rio Peterson:  This is just going to be our new show. And then they did a spinoff and it was great.  Tamara Nash:  And It kept going.  Rio Peterson:  Right. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time. Have a wonderful day.   

Rio Peterson: Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 80 of ALPS's In Brief Podcast. My name is Rio Peterson. I will be your host today. I am the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS, and I'm very excited to be here, kind of sharing hosting duties with Mark, who will be joining us on a future episode. But for today, you got me, and you've also got with you and myself with Susan Carns Curtiss. Susan, hi. Welcome. Susan Carns Curtiss: Hi, Rio. Thank you for having me. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Thank you for joining us. So for those of you who don't know, Susan is not just a lawyer, but also the founder of an incredible group called GIRL ATTORNEY. So today, we're going to sit down and chat with her a little bit about her work as a lawyer and her work with the group. And in honor of Women's History Month, we're going to be exploring all of the incredible opportunities and ways that GIRL ATTORNEY has brought women together. So, Susan, do you want to start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Susan Carns Curtiss: Sure. So I am an attorney based out of Oklahoma City. I am a personal injury attorney, and I handle cases just within the state of Oklahoma related to when someone's injured as a result of an auto collision. I do a little bit of other things, but mostly, if someone calls me about anything else, I tell them where they can find good representation, not from me. I know what I know and I know what I don't know in plaintiff's personal injury and, specifically, auto neg, auto negligence. So that's really my sweet spot, and that's what I'm focused on. That's what I do. Rio Peterson: Sick. And I feel like knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know is kind of a superpower, actually. I don't think a lot of people know what they don't know. Susan Carns Curtiss: And truly, that's one of the most valuable things I've come to appreciate as an attorney, is the value of practicing in an area where you know what your limits are. So you're never going to know it all. And even if the laws on the books haven't changed, how it's applied, it is evolving. There's new fact situations, and people are always looking for new ways to understand how the law applies today. So one thing, and we'll get to GIRL ATTORNEY later, but one of the most valuable things that I have gleaned from my years of watching women have conversations there is, yes, I should not dabble in anything else, because as they have conversations about nuances and areas of practice I don't have, I realize more and more, "Yes, good to know. Interesting." And it's just affirmation. My comfort level is to stay in my lane. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: No pun intended. Rio Peterson: Yeah. And being a specialist is a fantastic thing. Susan Carns Curtiss: Well, yes, focusing on one area of practice is what works well for me. So I can feel confident. Like I said, even when I don't know, I know what the boundaries are, I know what the questions are, and I know it's not a function of, "I just don't know this area of practice well enough." I never want my client to have their case handled by somebody who really doesn't know. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: Right? Rio Peterson: Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: That's where you want your clients. So my personal injury clients, if they call me about estates, I say, "I love that you trust me with that. I do not trust me with that. So let me find you someone." That's my point. Rio Peterson: Fantastic. I love that. I feel like your clients can really trust you to do what's best for them and serve their best interest. Susan Carns Curtiss: Hopefully. Hopefully. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Rio Peterson: So how long have you been practicing law, Susan? Susan Carns Curtiss: Since I graduated in '06, December of '06. And so, I took the bar early '07 and got sworn in a couple months later when, thankfully, I passed that sucker first try. So that's how long I've been practicing, and very thankful for that. Yup. It's been a bit. Rio Peterson: Awesome. What first drew you to law? Susan Carns Curtiss: Oh, okay. And actually, we did not talk about this ahead of time, so you don't know, but I love telling the story. Rio Peterson: Excellent. Susan Carns Curtiss: I was a juror. That's why. Rio Peterson: Wow, really? Susan Carns Curtiss: I was a juror on a case in Oklahoma, of course. It was a bad-faith case, which is basically when someone sues their insurance company because they believe the insurance company didn't handle their claim properly, and not just a mistake, like, "They did bad. That's why it's bad faith." All right. So I'm a juror on this case, and it was a week-and-a-half-long trial. I, at the time, was working at a flower shop part-time, thinking about, "Maybe I should start my own business." I checked out a library book for break time during jury duty on how to open a flower shop. This is kind of where I thought my life was going. And over the course of a week and a half, I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is the best show ever." Rio Peterson: That's so cool. Susan Carns Curtiss: Well, I mean, truly, bad-faith cases, it's insurance. It really shouldn't be interesting, but I was fascinated with all of it. So long story short, at the end of that week-and-a-half-long trial, I reached out to the judge, a woman, because I was relatively new to Oklahoma City, and I didn't know anyone who was an attorney. Well, I didn't know any women who were attorneys. So there was a neighbor, who was a guy, who was an attorney. But anyway, I didn't know anybody. And so, I thought, "Well..." I mean, I was just so young, just such a baby, little baby adult. I was pregnant with my third when I was going through jury duty. Rio Peterson: Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: And so, I spoke with the judge and asked her, "Hey, can I take you out for lunch?" And she said, "No, but I can host you for lunch in my office." And so, we had lunch, and she was so, so nice. And I've done a little homework. I found out she was a parent. She had children. I've since met her daughter, and she's a lovely person and all this. But anyway, the point is, I thought, "Well, I guess, clearly, she's a successful woman attorney," even though she's a judge, not an attorney. But anyway, I didn't understand all that. I mean, I knew she wasn't an attorney, but the point is, I was like, "She's a successful woman with a law degree," because I was thinking, "Maybe I should do this." So I met with her. And then after that, I called her back a month or two later and asked her, "Hey, I'm really still curious about this. Could I make your coffee and sweep your floor so I could see more about what happens in a courtroom?" And I literally did that, and she was like, "Yeah. So I already have people that do that, but you are welcome to come in anytime." So I did. Over the next year, she was so kind. She let me come and watch. We'd sit and talk about things after they happened out in the courtroom. I mean, it was nothing that was even on the other side. I know she didn't cross anything since she wasn't supposed to. But she would let me hash out my questions about, "Why did it look this way?" or "Why did they handle it this way? Why didn't they do this?" and then her two cents on it. It was just a really amazing experience. She actually also would let me read the briefs that had been submitted to her. Again, all public record, but it was a unique experience. She'd say, "Why don't you go read this stuff and let me know your thoughts on how you think I should rule?" I know nothing. I was like 0% helpful to her. She was just being nice to me. But it did really get me interested in being a lawyer and being a litigator, and grew my appreciation and my understanding beyond that of being a juror, because that was clearly a front-row seat to what litigators do, but getting to have a better feel of what happens up until and what might potentially even help resolve a case without a trial. Anyway, so yeah, a year and a half later, I was on a jury in June of '02, again, pregnant with James, my youngest. And then in the fall of '03, when my son was nine months old, I started law school. So I had three kids. And yeah, it was incredible. Rio Peterson: That's so cool. That's so cool. And really, kudos to the judge. Sorry, what was her name? Susan Carns Curtiss: I didn't say. Her name is Nancy, Nancy Coats. Rio Peterson: Nancy? Yeah. Well, kudos to Nancy for really nurturing your curiosity and providing that vehicle for you, really, that ability for you to explore and dive deeper into that. That's a really incredible story. Have you kept in touch with Nancy at all? Susan Carns Curtiss: Oh, yes. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: I'm the president of her fan club. Wait, she doesn't really have a fan club. But yes, we absolutely have, and it's so sweet. In fact, she just got honored a few months ago, and she invited me to sit at her table. Right? I was her guest at this thing. Rio Peterson: Oh, that's wonderful. Susan Carns Curtiss: So that is the long story short as to our relationship. Rio Peterson: Gorgeous. Susan Carns Curtiss: Absolutely. She has maintained a relationship with me and invested in me, and she tells me all the time how proud she is of me. Rio Peterson: Oh, wonderful. Susan Carns Curtiss: And it's funny. And actually too, another fun, crazy thing about this: The defendant in that bad-faith lawsuit, we found in favor of the plaintiff as against the defendant. The defendant was Mid-Century Insurance Company, which is a subsidiary. I may not be using the right word. But basically, they're under, and also, they are a Farmers Insurance company. Rio Peterson: Got it. Susan Carns Curtiss: When I graduated law school, my first litigation job was with Farmers Insurance. Rio Peterson: Was it with Farmers? Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Rio Peterson: That's great. What a small world. Susan Carns Curtiss: Oh, yeah. So small. My eventual boss, I mean, technically, he was a colleague. He wasn't really my boss. But he had decades of experience on me, and we both worked at Farmers. He was my boss in my mind. He was on the stand for four or six hours of this trial. Rio Peterson: That's incredible. Susan Carns Curtiss: Crazy. And they did know. They did know. Yeah. But they still hired me. And we entered a verdict against Farmers for, I think it was 2.1 million. Rio Peterson: Oh, wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: Anyway, at any rate, it wasn't like chump change. It was real dinero. Anyway, but yeah, that's crazy. It is crazy, but it is true. That is how I ended up in law school. I just was a fascinated juror, and did homework that just made sense to me. At one point, Judge Coats said to me... I don't remember now if it was weeks or months or years into it, but she, at one point, said to me... And this did stick out. She said, "It took a lot of guts to reach out to a judge." Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: And I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, if someone would've told me it takes guts to do this, I would not have done it." It just made sense to me. I was just like, "Who else am I going to ask? I don't know any women attorneys. This is the one woman attorney I've ever been exposed to in this city or state. I might as well ask her." Rio Peterson: Did you? Susan Carns Curtiss: So, yes- Rio Peterson: It seems like she would know. Susan Carns Curtiss: ... I had no idea. I just was a desperate person for information, and she was nice enough to respond. So yeah, it is kind of funny how, looking back, I accidentally did things just by following my nose that led me to the right place to be at the right time. Yeah. Rio Peterson: Wow, that's such an incredible- Susan Carns Curtiss: I'm very thankful. Rio Peterson: ... origin story. I really love that you reached out and that she received, and here you are. It's really incredible. And I think that that's also a really good, possibly, segue into how you came to found GIRL ATTORNEY, because I think there's a lot of parallels with women lifting each other up and helping each other kind of get further and move forward. So tell me a little bit about how GIRL ATTORNEY came to be. Susan Carns Curtiss: So I worked at Farmers for a few years, and I had a great experience. My colleagues were great. The company was good to work for. Our clients as lawyers were the insureds. And I was in an office where it was very clear, my loyalty was to my client, not the person who paid my check, because you can see how that could be an issue. And all I can say about the office I was in was, is there was never a question. Never. Your loyalty, your obligation is to our insured, not to Farmers. And it's rare anything came up, but I never felt like there was a pushback when there was something. Anyway, so great experience, but I was 13... 12 or 13. I can't remember. I think it was 12, maybe it was 13, jury trials, three-and-a-half years into doing the work with Farmers, and I started to feel a tension about whether or not I have been given this opportunity to go to law school to save an insurance company money. Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: Again, I worked with great people. You need to have good, nice people on both sides that will advocate hard for their clients. So I always took a lot of pride in the work I did, but I would often get verdicts for zero for the plaintiff, or very little for the plaintiff, which, by the way, my clients loved, the adjusters loved, Farmers loved. I was not loving myself as much as each trial went on. I thought, "Oh." I mean, you win one, two, three, or four, and you're like, I was anyway, "I'm a killer. I am so good at this. Oh, I'm a boss. People love me." Okay. But eventually, this is happening over and over and over and over, and I thought, "I mean, I know I'm just doing my job. I'm not calling anyone a liar, but I'm just trying to get the impression that the system is slanted in favor of my position on the civil side." And that was my experience. That is not always the case, but it just ended up being my experience. And so, I was this many. I was at least a dozen trials in, and I had gotten one verdict total. It was my second trial, where a verdict was more than our last offer. But everything else was a zero or it was less than our offer. And so, it's a win. I mean, that's how they calculate a win. So even if it's a plaintiff's verdict, if it's real low, then... If it's lower than our last offer, it's a win. Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: So I started feeling like this wasn't the long-term career for me, because I wanted to be able to go and fight hard on behalf of my client, respectfully, but hard and focused. And if I somehow accomplished more than maybe I meant to, I could still be excited. Right? Instead, I was like, "Oh, man. I zeroed him out again." Like, "Thank you. Thank you. Adjusters love me." But I just wasn't enjoying it, because I thought, "Some of these people really should be getting something, and they should be getting more." And so, it was around that time, a lawyer from the other side reached out and asked if I would be willing to switch to the plaintiffs' side. So long story short, I ended up doing plaintiffs' work, and that's when I came to find out or more clearly understand that there are so few women that do plaintiffs' personal injury work. Rio Peterson: Oh. Susan Carns Curtiss: I mean, even my own experience, every jury trial I had was against a guy. Rio Peterson: Ooh, interesting. Susan Carns Curtiss: There are very few women that do plaintiffs' personal injury work. So it was going to trial lawyer conferences and having... Occasionally, I did. I had bad experiences, and somehow connected to the fact of being a woman among... three women among 100 men at a conference. Right? So sometimes bad things happened, but really no worse than what anybody experiences out there as a woman in a profession, period. Rio Peterson: Being a woman in the world is- Susan Carns Curtiss: It happens. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: And not in a passive way, but just to say there's just like... That was the norm. That's a baseline. But also, I would have people just being polite, saying, "Oh, so whose wife are you?" Rio Peterson: Oh, yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: Right? They're not even trying to be a jerk. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: But I was constantly expressing to people that, in one way or the other, "Oh, I actually belong here. Oh, so anyway, funny story, I'm one of you. I hear you. I don't have that bonus body part, but this is news to you. This is not a reason to assume I'm here as a spouse." Right? Rio Peterson: Yeah. "I assure you that I can be here." Susan Carns Curtiss: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But all that to say too, these are people who are not trying to be ugly. They were trying to be polite to somebody's spouse. But it's just these culture norms, and living and then now working in a very male-dominated space is what led me to look for a space online. I literally looked for it in the back of a room at one of those conferences. I was like, "Now I'm getting on my laptop looking for something. There's got to be something out there." And, of course, there's women's bar associations, and they are awesome, and there are organizations for networking for women professionals in general. But I couldn't find something across the US that was a community for women attorneys. And maybe it existed, but I couldn't find it. So anyway, that is really the shortest version of the GIRL ATTORNEY origin story. I was looking for a place, and then I created a space where women attorneys could be a part of it, and no one would say, "Yeah. I'm sorry, do you belong here?" Rio Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. "Is your husband coming to the meeting? Should we wait for him?" Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. "Who's endorsing you today? Who's sponsoring you?" Rio Peterson: "Who vetted you?" Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. But that led to me starting a Facebook group, and this was in 2016. I really did, at that point, only imagine... No, it's '14. Anyway, whenever it was. Whenever I started it, I imagined... It was on Facebook, and it was before a lot of law firms even had Facebook business pages. Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: I imagine today, I say it's kind of like people who have... TikTok feels like, "Well, that's for younger people." I can say that because an old person. And kudos to all the people who are in their 50s and older, and they are rock stars on TikTok. I'm like... But it feels foreign to me, right? Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: And so, when I created this group on Facebook, I imagined it would be a social space. I never imagined what it became. And that's really a sweet testament to what the community is, which is, it's very organic. It's what the women bring to the group, which allows other women to receive from the group. But yeah, it started as just a social... I added, I think it was just under 50 people. Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: "Hi, everyone. You're all my Facebook friends who are lawyers. I know all of you." I literally did this. "I know all of you, but you don't necessarily know each other. So I'm just thinking, if you want, you can introduce yourself, and you're welcome to invite other women." And that's how it started. So that was 50-something women. And then about a week later, there were 1,000 women in the group. And then within a few weeks, people started asking practice questions. Kind of like if you walked down the hall and you asked the lawyer at the other end of the hall, "Hey, how would you file this?" or "Have you ever filed one of these? Do you have a template or a go-by that I could look at?" Right? Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: People started asking those questions. And sorry, I'm going on a little bit. Rio Peterson: You're great. Susan Carns Curtiss: But anyway, so that... Okay. And people were saying, "Hey, I woke up at 3:00 AM with a sick kid. I've got a docket in such and such county." There's a call. Their docket call... "Is anyone possibly going to be there already who can answer for my case and let them know XYZ?" And otherwise, total strangers were saying, "Yeah. I'm going to be there. Happy to help." Right? Rio Peterson: Wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: I know, right? Rio Peterson: Like a very organic process. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yup. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: That led to somebody saying, "Hey, can we get a separate group for just our state?" And I think that was Texas. And so, I started a Texas group. And then, of course, I'm based out of Oklahoma, so most of the women were in Oklahoma. I started a separate Oklahoma group. But that original group is the one that we call GIRL ATTORNEY - NATIONAL now. And so, that's just because sometimes things are federal questions or it's something that you really just... I encourage people, if they're going to join a state group, to also join the national group, because sometimes people will ask a question, "Oh, I'm looking for an attorney in Tennessee," because they think, "Oh, I don't need to join the Tennessee group." They don't need to join the Tennessee group. But if they do, they're going to get 30 people answer their question, as far as if they need a referral, or if they need a question, they asked. In the national group, though, it does give sort of a clearinghouse for just addressing whomever, because it's not a state-specific question, or you're just asking, "Hey, does anyone know anyone in this other state?" that they'd recommend, or raise your own hand. So that's how it happened. And now, just recently, just within the last week, we confirmed we're over 37,000-women strong. Rio Peterson: That's incredible, because I think when we talked a couple weeks ago, it was like 34- Susan Carns Curtiss: Close. Rio Peterson: ... or it wasn't too long. Susan Carns Curtiss: 36. Rio Peterson: 34. Susan Carns Curtiss: It was 36. Rio Peterson: But still, it's incredible. I mean, it started with just 50 people being like, "Hey, you guys, maybe we could chat." And now you have 37,000 members, and you have chapters in, what, all 50 states, I believe. Isn't it? Susan Carns Curtiss: Okay. Rio Peterson: Oh my God. Susan Carns Curtiss: I have a group for every state on Facebook. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the Vermont group. Okay? Rio Peterson: Well, come on, everybody. Anyone listening from Vermont, let's go. Susan Carns Curtiss: That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. And it really is interesting. It just happens organically. What typically happens for a group to hit the ground running, all the groups have existed now for a few years, but for a group to just take off, it usually... And this is by observation. I've never asked anybody to do this, but this is what happens. One person in a state decides to do what I did with the first group. They add not one or two people, but they literally invite 50 friends, and they're like, "Hey, ladies, this is a space we can use." Rio Peterson: Right. Oh, that's interesting. Susan Carns Curtiss: "Introduce yourself to each other." And whenever that has happened, it has just taken off from there, and it's just sweet. And there are some states... Let me give a good example. Ah, golly. Well, I won't name names, but there are some states where I swear all the people who are in the group are people who went there to say, "Hey, I'm looking to refer a case to someone in the state for a family law issue." And no one's there to answer their question. Right? And so, now we've got five or six or eight people in certain state groups where the only people in the group are people who are like, "I would like to hire a lawyer here." But there's no one in the state who's been added or found their way there yet. So it is interesting. I feel no urgency. Technically, it is GIRL ATTORNEY, LLC, but I don't charge for membership. It's more or less run in terms of the members as a nonprofit. Rio Peterson: Right. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Now, I'm not speaking as someone who does nonprofit law, so don't misunderstand that as like a legal term. I'm just saying there's no membership fees. There are no boards. I think the value is not creating yet another organization to ask for your time or money. Right? Nobody needs that. There are ample nonprofits. There are wonderful, professional, your bar associations, whether it's the state bar for everybody or a women's bar, or the plaintiffs' bar, the defense bar. All those organizations already exist and provide great opportunities for leadership, education, and I like to add to that. I like to support what the bar associations are doing. I try to follow as many as I can on social media. I repost their events into the groups. But we're here to support women helping women. That's what I do. The no-fee is also partly based on my desire to create a space where, whether someone has had their law school paid for, they have no debt, and maybe they're going straight into big law. I mean, good for you, girl. Go get it. That gal's got plenty of extra dinero. And if I charged whatever a year that she thought it was worth, she can and hopefully would pay it. Right? Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: But there's also women who've graduated with a mile-high pile of debt and who are in public service work. And guess what? If I charged $5 a year, I mean, is it worth it? Yes. It would absolutely be worth the $5, but it would also be a reason somebody said no, because they're like, "That is technically not necessary, so I'm not going to pay it." And I want everybody to be in there regardless of their economic situation and also regardless of their connections in the legal profession, because many women come from legal families, and there are plenty of women who do not. And they don't have the connections. They don't know who's who in their state, in their city, and the GIRL ATTORNEY community helps provide access to them. There are partners in law firms in the very same Facebook group as the brand-new associate. I love that. And when I see partner so-and-so post a meme, and her associate gets to laugh at it with her, I'm like, "That's kind of like passing the woman in the hallway and giving her a high five." Rio Peterson: Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: Who gets to do that? Law firms can be very not chill. Rio Peterson: Right. Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: So this creates a space where they can help each other. Also, this associate gets to contribute to questions, pick up cases, and it's potentially an opportunity for that partner to see this gal going and getting it done. Right? Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: So it's just a way to facilitate connection and, hopefully, elevate women in the profession, which helps elevate the woman in her community, which helps her help her own family, and make a difference... Well, I guess I sort of did that backwards. I mean, really, ultimately, I want her to be helped individually, professionally, and also, it impacts her ability to help her community, and it helps everybody. Rio Peterson: Absolutely. And something I really, really love about this and about the GIRL ATTORNEY community is that success and opportunity is not a zero-sum game. There's enough for everybody. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Rio Peterson: And I really feel that just how GIRL ATTORNEY has evolved and grown is really testament to the fact that there was a major need for a community where women feel equal, where they feel seen, where they don't feel embarrassed about asking a question, or where they have opportunities to connect with each other on an equal footing, is really incredible. And I'm so excited. I'm so excited that it just keeps growing, and that women keep connecting, and that it keeps just building. It's fantastic. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: I'm thankful. Rio Peterson: Yeah. I mean, I hope we all are, because it's great. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yeah. Rio Peterson: And so, I know we've got just a few more minutes left here, but I did want to talk about some of the people and experiences you've had through GIRL ATTORNEY and through building this. Now, I know that you put on a conference just before the great pandemic. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yes. Rio Peterson: And so, I know you've gotten to connect with some pretty incredible people. Can you tell me maybe who was someone that really stood out to you or a moment that really made you feel like, "This is a really good thing that I'm doing and building"? Susan Carns Curtiss: Okay. I've got two answers to that question. One, I have to give explicit props, express my admiration and appreciation for the role that Judge Coats had in facilitating the conversation, which led to the opportunity. Right? So that was, for sure, a difference maker for me. I have no idea if she would've not been willing to make time in her schedule to meet with me. Maybe I would've never taken those next steps. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: And then, otherwise, I can say broadly just the fact that I get to see all these women helping each other, and making each other laugh and encouraging each other. So without singling any one person out, just to say, that has really made an impression on me. Okay. I have a theory. I'll try to be as quick as possible. Rio Peterson: Okay. I'm ready. Susan Carns Curtiss: So we have heard for years that women are hardest on women. And I will tell you, one time, we had a situation in Oklahoma. It was a few years ago, and it's a good story. But the point is, on the other side of... They had the teacher walkouts. There were a ton of teacher walkouts in maybe '17, '18, I can't remember which year, across the US. And in Oklahoma, we had... There was a woman in the GIRL ATTORNEY Oklahoma group who said, "Hey, who wants to go down and support the teachers?" I'm thinking, "We'll go down on Friday, if anyone's interested." Well, a whole bunch of people were like, "Yeah." Long story short, yes. A lot of people said yes. And this lawyer then posted on her social media, something like, "We're going to be there, legislators. You're on notice, and you'll know us when you see us. We'll be the women in black." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I just love that." Assertive, right? But she just threw the gauntlet down. Funny story. Then she goes to take a shower, and her husband's knocking on the door of the bathroom. He's like, "Did you post something on our social media page?" Because the post blew up. Right? Rio Peterson: Wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: So we ended up having about... Gosh, I don't want to exaggerate. Well, we had hundreds, maybe a couple hundred, I can't remember now, women from all over the state that showed up. And by the way, men who covered their dockets so that they could be there that Friday. Right? Super sweet. Right? Rio Peterson: Wonderful. Susan Carns Curtiss: So we show up, and this all was facilitated. It was not the group that organized it. It was a woman in the group who asked, "Hey, anybody else want to do something about this?" Right? Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: And people were like, "Yeah." So this question was asked on a Thursday. By Sunday, we're being interviewed by CBS Nightly News. Rio Peterson: What? Susan Carns Curtiss: I know. It was insane. Rio Peterson: Incredible. That's incredible. Susan Carns Curtiss: It was insane. Women on Sunday night were like, "Hey, should we have tables out there to pass out things to teachers tomorrow morning?" And by Monday morning, at 5:30 in the morning, there were three tables donated, brought, and set up. Someone had a tent. We had cookies to pass out. We had gas gift cards to pass out. And here's the thing: No one was in charge of this. It was women going, "Well, I could do this. I'm going to go do that." Rio Peterson: Wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: It didn't need to be cleared through anybody. It wasn't like we're looking for volunteers to do. It was just women thinking, "Here's the situation. I could contribute this way." One person thought to call the bar association and ask, because it's right next to the Capitol, if we could organize there, and they said, "Oh, yes. You can come and organize, but don't park in our parking lot." Okay. It didn't even occur to me. So we all show up, because, again, I'm not in charge. But in the end, we were a visible group in support of the teachers. Laws don't change because a bunch of people show up on one day. It's just not the way it works, unfortunately. But we were able to show up in force. We get there. I get word that there's a local high school band that heard we were going to be marching from the bar association to the Capitol and wanted to lead us in. Rio Peterson: I love this. Susan Carns Curtiss: And I was literally in that moment when they were like, "They're all here." I'm looking over, and there's literally... It's the Norman High School Band. And I think there's two bands here, so I don't remember which one. But anyway, they're there, and I am like, "Oh." I'm like, "No, no, no," because I'm not like the, "You'll see us, the women in black." Right? Someone else said that. I did show up in black, but I also was just stressed. Right? I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, it's not about us." And even in that moment, they're like, "Oh, we're here to do this." And I was like, "No." I started to say no, and I thought, "No, but it isn't about you. It's about the teachers, and it's about this band. They also want to participate. We all want to be here and show our visible support for these people." Okay. On the other side of that, this is getting to my point, I heard more than one person say, "See? Look what happens when women help women." And I couldn't help but think, Rio, I don't think any one of those women were pushing down their natural inner bitch. Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: Believe me if you need to. Rio Peterson: No. Susan Carns Curtiss: But I do not think that anyone was not being themselves. Rio Peterson: Wow. Susan Carns Curtiss: And I thought, "Wait a minute. What if that narrative is, 'I understand. There's competitive people in the world who are very unpleasant. They are both male and female'?" Rio Peterson: Yes. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: And I think based on what I observed, because I was like, "Wait, wait, wait," this is incredible. All these women, nobody was asked to do anything, but they all were now operating in a space where clearly what they wanted to contribute was going to be received. And look what happens when you create a space where women get to lead. Rio Peterson: Yes. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: They get to follow their own lead, their heart, their mind, use their experience, their access, their connections. Guess what happens? A really wonderful, beautiful thing. When we came around the corner, the band, the teachers cheered. They felt loved. They were literally crying. We're crying, they're crying. It was a powerful thing. And all of it happened because there was a space where women got to trust themselves and do what was next. Right? Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: So I was like, "Oh my gosh, this really makes me wonder. This whole narrative of women who are attacking women, who created that narrative?" It would've been, in my opinion, the dominant society, quote, unquote, "society," of whatever fill-in-the-blank business culture that now, a few decades ago, not that many decades ago, maybe five decades ago, started allowing a woman. Oh, now we have two women. It must've been quite the spectacle, right? Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: And whether you're the first or the second woman, you're not the majority. And the people who are observing are telling the story of what's going on, and they basically pit these two people against each other- Rio Peterson: Yup. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: ... or maybe there's three, or maybe there's four. And I have a suspicion, with zero data to back it up, that this whole narrative of women are fighting women is because they were pit against each other, but not because women fight women. Rio Peterson: Right. Right. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: What do women do? Look at the bathroom in the bar. That's what women are, right? Rio Peterson: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: They're like, "Girl, you got this. He is not good enough for you." Rio Peterson: Yes. Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: That's who we are. Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: And I'm not saying that men can't support each other. It's not a contrast. It's not a zero-sum game. Right? Like some people, "We're the gender who's nice to people." Not that. I'm just saying, this narrative is wrong. Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: I saw it in this microcosm from Thursday to Monday. I was like, "What even just happened? What just happened?" And then in the years since, I just get to see it every day in the community. Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: It's the most delightful, amazing, kind of sacred thing. And I just hope I don't screw it up. That's really my goal. That, and I don't want to get hit by a bus and not have a succession plan. That's my other big problem right now. Rio Peterson: Yes. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: I'm like, "Oh, I don't really have a structure. I oversee this space, and what happens if something happens to me?" I really got to get that in order. Right? But anyway, that's what we do. That's what it does. Rio Peterson: It's incredible. It's incredible. Susan Carns Curtiss: It's women helping women. Rio Peterson: It really seems to me too, to your point, about competition between women. What better way to keep women from succeeding than to pit them against each other? Susan Carns Curtiss: Absolutely. Rio Peterson: It's the thinking that they have to compete with each other for a seat at the table, when in reality, we need to just maybe make that table bigger, and then that makes room for everyone. Susan Carns Curtiss: And, of course, we're talking about GIRL ATTORNEY, and it's about women, and it's Women's History Month. It also was just Black History Month. Rio Peterson: Yes. Susan Carns Curtiss: And, of course, there's all sorts of faces where, similarly, if you're not the dominant culture, you are pit against each other. Rio Peterson: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: Right? Rio Peterson: Yup. Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: So I don't want to equate like, "Oh, because I am a woman, it's kind of like being a Black person." No, no, no, no, no, no. No. I do not have that same experience. But I would be remiss to say, "Hey, women are really left out. Women have been pit against each other," without saying, "Hey, look, that is a thing." And then if you also are not a white woman, which, if people are listening to this and not watching it, I'll tell you, I'm a white woman. Rio Peterson: Absolutely. Susan Carns Curtiss: And so, I have only that. But that's another reason why access is so important to me in the groups, because I think it's important that the space invite everyone in, because if you're not white and you're a lawyer, male or female, you're a minority in the space. Rio Peterson: Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: You are. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Right? And then there's sexual orientation. There's so many ways that you can be basically pit against other people and made to feel that you're not a full member. You're not a full member. Rio Peterson: Right. Right. Susan Carns Curtiss: So this all started because of my experience just being a woman. But the more I learn about the experience I have had and what I feel, the more strongly I feel about broadening that welcoming experience to anyone who has been made to feel that they don't... "Oh, wait. Why are you here?" That they aren't actually a full member, just because they don't look like the dominant. So first, we've got white men, and then we've got white people. Right? Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: And it goes out from there. But it's so important to me that the group be a welcoming place for everybody, and everybody has access to everyone. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Level playing field. Rio Peterson: Yeah. It's really inspiring, Susan. Really, this has been such an incredible conversation. I had no idea about supporting the teachers, and just the depths that this community has, I guess, explored and is starting to explore, and how open it is to anyone, regardless of experience, background, where you came from, what color you are, sexual orientation, anything. We need more of that in this world. And so, it's really fantastic that you're creating that, and I think that's a pretty incredible thing. And not only that, but making space for it. Not just to be the thing that you started, but to be something that all women have a hand, all members, and everyone who's part of it has a hand in building and crafting and making their own. That is a really special thing, to be able to make space for others to claim it as their own as well. Susan Carns Curtiss: I hope so. Rio Peterson: Oh, I'm going to get weepy. I'm getting weepy. It means a lot. It really does. It means a lot. So I know we've run over time. I think we could probably just talk about this forever. But maybe let's wrap up with, can you just quickly tell everybody where they can go to join GIRL ATTORNEY, and how they can find out more? Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: So all of the groups are... There's two things. There's a website, girlattorney.com. Also, if you go to boyattorney.com, it goes to girlattorney.com. Rio Peterson: Wonderful. Susan Carns Curtiss: LOL. But anyway, and from that site, it will tell you how... It tells you more. Alternatively, and there is a directory that you can register for on the group, on the website, and that gets you on the newsletter, stuff like that. But alternatively, if you do have to be on Facebook, so you got to deal with Mr. Zuckerberg- Rio Peterson: On the book of faces. Yeah. Susan Carns Curtiss: Yeah. Yeah. If you can get past that hurdle, and you are on Facebook, then the fastest and easiest way to get to any of the groups is to go to the GIRL ATTORNEY, LLC Facebook business page. Rio Peterson: Okay. Susan Carns Curtiss: On that page, there's a tab somewhere that says, "Groups." You may need to go to the one that says, "Other." And under Other, you'll find groups. But from the business page, there's a tab that says, "Groups." And under the groups, every single one of the groups is listed with a button there, the Facebook button, where you click to join. You'll need to answer a few questions. And once you have answered those questions, I'll get alerted, and I admit you. And then from there, you can request to join any other group. And it's basically automatic because of the way Facebook has set it up, that once you've been admitted, cleared for one GIRL ATTORNEY group, you're automatically approved to any other. It's usually, you just request and you click Refresh after being admitted to the first. So that's it. Rio Peterson: Perfect. Susan Carns Curtiss: And then you can help, be helped- Rio Peterson: Fantastic. Susan Carns Curtiss: ... et cetera, et cetera. Rio Peterson: Oh, wonderful. Oh, that's so fantastic. Well, this has been great, Susan. Thank you- Susan Carns Curtiss: Thank you so much for your time. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing and telling us about this really exciting kind of group that you built and just grown. Yeah. And I hope many more people join, and it just continues to grow and create space for everyone. Susan Carns Curtiss: Me too. Me too. Thank you so much again. Really, it's an honor. I appreciate you so much. Rio Peterson: Oh, thank you. I appreciate you too, Susan. All right, everybody. Well, join us next month or next week. I guess we'll see. We've got a couple new podcast episodes coming out pretty soon here. But otherwise, have a fantastic day, and we will see you... Well, you'll hear us soon.  

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar Partnership Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Liesel Brink and Amber Kuhlman from the ALPS HR team to talk about careers in Insurance. Learn about their path into HR and learn about all the exciting opportunities that exist in this often overlooked industry.   Transcript:  Rio Peterson: Hello, everybody, and welcome to this month's installment of In Brief. This is episode 79, and I am your host for the first time ever, Rio Peterson. I'll be joining you, hopefully more frequently in a rotation on the podcast, and very much looking forward to it. So this month is Insurance Careers Month, and so we thought it would be really, really appropriate to speak to the two people here at ALPS, who really make sure that people can have careers at ALPS and bring us new talent, and really keep the lights on and run all the things. So I'm going to be talking to Liesel Brink and Amber Kuhlman. Kuhlman.  Sorry, Amber. So Liesel, do you want to start by introducing yourself, telling us a bit about who you are, what you do here at ALPS?  Liesel Brink: Sure. Thanks so much, Rio. This is an exciting opportunity. So I am your manager of HR and payroll coordinator here at ALPS Insurance. Do everything from hiring, recruiting, all the way to payroll.  Not to take any of this under from Amber, I can't do it all on my own. I've been with ALPS for, it's going on nine years, and yeah, been a great time so far.  Rio Peterson: Awesome. How about you, Amber? Tell us a little bit about yourself.  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. So I'm Amber. I'm the HR generalist here at ALPS Insurance. I've been here a little about year and a half now, but in my role, I focus more on the onboarding, recruiting side of things, but I also participate and help out all things wellness with our employees, so that's great.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, that's right. You kind of run things on our Employee Wellness program, which I will speak from experience, is an incredible program and definitely a major perk of working here. So thank you both for all your work and for putting that together for us. It's really fantastic. So we're kind of taking some time to explore careers in insurance this month.  I don't think necessarily, an industry that a lot of people wake up when they're like five or six, and they're like, "Ah, I want to work in insurance," but so I think it's really important that we can take some time and kind of explore what we do and all of the incredible kind of opportunities and possibilities that exist when you do choose to pursue a career in insurance. So I'm really curious to find out kind of from both of you like, "What was your life before ALPS? What did you do? What was your world before that?"  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah, I can start off. It definitely wasn't insurance. This is my first job in insurance, but prior to coming onto ALPS, I actually came from retail sales, so very different. It's a great learning opportunity, working with individuals, helping them find what they need, but definitely enjoy the insurance side a lot more. Love the stability within insurance.  Everyone needs it for a variety of things, whether it's car insurance or attorney's liability. So I love that aspect, and we have a lot of opportunities at ALPS as far as diversity within our department. So there's Liesel, myself and HR, but there's also business development folks in sales. We have our claims attorneys, account management, maintaining our policies, and everything else you may need from finance all the way to the C-suite, so it's great.  Rio Peterson: Yeah. Fantastic. And Liesel, what about you? Where were you at before you found your way to ALPS?  Liesel Brink: So before ALPS ... I mean, how much time do we have, Rio?  Rio Peterson: We've got a couple minutes.  Liesel Brink: Yeah. So I've been doing HR for about 25 years, and in the last, ooh, 12 mostly in HR, previous to that, nonprofit work, and many people know in a nonprofit, you become a jack-of-all-trades, right?  Rio Peterson: Absolutely.  Liesel Brink: You do a little bit here, do a little bit there, and that's where I started in human resources, HR, people operations. So for me, what really resonated were employee benefits, and so being able to talk with individuals about what truly they get with the benefit and having that understanding come to light is what fulfills me the most in my role. I not only worked in a nonprofit, but I too did some retail, but it wasn't retail-retail, it was concessions, some more food. Sorry about that, Amber. That was a really long stint.  And then, I also worked for a third-party administrator, which is insurance adjacent, and then from there, came to ALPS Insurance. I did do three years as a paralegal assistant. Learned a lot. Not sure I'd go back, but who knows? Someday, maybe.  Rio Peterson: You never know. You never know.  Liesel Brink: Exactly, exactly. But yeah, that's kind of my journey in the insurance world, mainly having the most excitement and fulfillment from the employee benefits side.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, got it. Fantastic. So how did you two find your way to ALPS? Was it sort of like serendipitous? Did you seek it out?  Yeah, I'd love to hear. Maybe Liesel, we'll start with you.  Liesel Brink: Yeah, sure. So I was actually headed back to the university for a degree in computer science, and I received a phone call from an acquaintance at a local company, and they shared with me, "Would I be interested in considering?" And at the time, ALPS wasn't sure what they were going to fill this position as. They needed a payroll person, and so I decided, "You know, I'll have that conversation with Chris Newbold," the Chief Operations Officer. "I'll just talk to him, and nothing's going to come of it."  And then, four interviews later, I was made an offer and decided, "Hey, why not try payroll?" And then, because of the previous experience, grew into the HR role.  Rio Peterson: Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. And Amber, what about you?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. So I kind of go back to the university as well, with my connection with ALPS. I took a human resources course, in which required you to network with a human resource professional.  Rio Peterson: I love it.  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. I got connected with Liesel for a group project, and then we worked on that together, and then I was interested in being an intern, because then, I was very interested in HR after that class and everything. So then I did a summer internship, and then Liesel realized, "Oh my gosh, this girl's so much help."  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Amber Kuhlman: So then, she was like, "I need someone full-time." So then, she posted an opening for a full-time role, and then now, here we are, so yeah.  Rio Peterson: Fantastic. So you both dazzled each other, and you were like, "This needs to continue. This is an excellent partnership."  Liesel Brink: Definitely.  Rio Peterson: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So it sounds like we have a pretty good connection with the university. And I understand you two also just did some kind of speaking yesterday. You spoke with the HR Program, is that right?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah.  Rio Peterson: Yeah. Is that something we do quite a lot of? Is ALPS pretty involved in working with the university and connecting with students?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. I know Liesel has presented before. That was my first time presenting to a management course. However, we do often go to their career expos, so when we are hiring and recruiting, it's a great way to network with local folks and get connected with them, so it's great.  Rio Peterson: Got it. Fantastic. So let's maybe shift a little bit and talk about kind of ALPS in general. What are some different career paths that somebody could explore at ALPS? I know we've got quite a lot of things.  I know, Amber, you touched on them a little bit before. Maybe we can dig a little bit deeper into that.  Liesel Brink: Definitely. Amber, jump in when I'm off track. So for individuals within ALPS, when they come in and they've learned their job that they were hired into, we always encourage individuals to learn more about different departments, and we encourage them to do continuing education. If it's a department that they were hired into that doesn't require licensure, we encourage them to consider that. We encourage them to do continuing educations, whether it's a CPCU or an IEM, or any of the credentials that you can get in the insurance industry, we encourage them to do continuing education.  So when a position in another department might open, they can be considered, if it's something that truly interests them that they want to try out. We start individuals, a lot of times, in our lead generation specialist roles, and then from there, they learn a lot about marketing, and sales, and account management, and the insurance, like how insurance actually works in the lingo and the terminology. So it's a fantastic place for individuals to start, and we usually implement an interim program within that lead generation specialist role to get people considering like, "Could insurance be for me?" That is, to be honest, your opportunities are only limited by what you put on yourself. I know that's cliche. Sorry to be cliche, but-  Rio Peterson: I love it. I love it.  Liesel Brink: It's one of those things where truly, if you were in sales and you were interested in underwriting, we would love for you to pursue what that might look like.  Rio Peterson: Right.  Liesel Brink: We do not put limits on individuals. In fact, we encourage individuals to become more involved in improvements that we're making within our product, and then also, just be more helpful to individuals in different roles, cross-education, which is super helpful.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, fantastic. And then, I'm kind of wondering, so lead gen, that's obviously part of our sales team, right? And so what I'm hearing is that's a really good place for someone to start. If they don't know anything maybe about insurance, they don't really ... Maybe they're fresh at a university, maybe they're just trying to figure things out. That's a good place for them to start, and to kind of get a broader overview of the rest of the functions of the company.  Liesel Brink: Definitely. The lead generation specialist role, our client processing specialist role, that's an administration position. And not to change the topic, Rio, and I know we'll come back to this, but what I appreciate most about the insurance industry is that you can learn it on the job while doing it.  Rio Peterson: Yes.  Liesel Brink: You don't need a college degree. College degrees are great, but you don't need a college degree to be successful in the insurance industry.  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Liesel Brink: That is the biggest takeaway I try to leave with individuals that I talk with.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, that is absolutely fantastic. It's really good to know that as well, because I think that's something that can really intimidate a lot of folks like, "Maybe I don't have the right education, the right credentials," so it seems very accessible industry to get into. I know for myself, I mean, coming from the tech industry, I did not know anything about insurance, and let me tell you, I have learned all the things, and that is, I can definitely attest to what you just said, I have learned them all on the fly as well. So that's really important, I think, for people to keep in mind is that you can be taught. You can learn it and go forth and achieve big things.  Liesel Brink: Definitely.  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Liesel Brink: And if I may, I would share that it's not always easy to break into the insurance industry, however, if you align the skill sets that you already have with the skill sets that are necessary within the insurance industry, such as detail-orientedness, follow-through, dedication to the job at hand, if you align the skill set that you currently have with those needs, you can get into the insurance industry.  Rio Peterson: Got it. What would be some kind of obstacles or some things that would make it difficult for somebody to break into the industry, is maybe not knowing anyone who's already in the industry, just kind of not having any knowledge of it?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah, I-  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. I would say not having the knowledge. I don't think, especially coming from the university, they don't really say push insurance or mention it, really, as a career path. That would be a good one. So I would think the biggest obstacle would, for sure be just not knowing it's out there and kind of where you can go from there, for sure.  Rio Peterson: And it's kind of surprising to me that they don't push that or even recommend it, because to me, insurance is pretty good industry. It's pretty fail-safe, like recession-proof when times are tough, everybody gets insurance. Everyone needs insurance, like it's really-  Amber Kuhlman: I think there's a misconception with insurance, that it's all sales.  Rio Peterson: Yes.  Amber Kuhlman: So that's another one, I mean, but realizing there's office positions as well, like what Liesel and I do, HR within insurance, or finance, or marketing.  Rio Peterson: Right.  Amber Kuhlman: It's all needed, so yeah.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, claims, we hire lots of attorneys as well, and so yeah, there's lots of different options out there, absolutely. So what would you suggest maybe for someone who was looking to get into insurance, like say they were like, "That's the thing I want to do. I want to find out. I want to break into that industry."  What would be a good way? I know, Liesel, you mentioned kind of aligning the skill set you already have. Would you recommend maybe reaching out to recruiters or HR staff such as yourself, people, operations, et cetera?  Liesel Brink: So that's a great question, because different individuals, like the hiring teams, different companies think of things differently.  Rio Peterson: Right.  Liesel Brink: For me, I would be happy for anyone to connect with me on LinkedIn. That is a fantastic way to start your network. You can connect with one individual, and then from there, you actually can learn more about other individuals within the industry. They post fantastic things from, I believe it's in invest.org, and how you can use the skills that you already have in the insurance industry. Networking outside of the computer, of the internet, it was also very helpful.  Rio Peterson: Right.  Liesel Brink: I know once in a while, we go to our business after hours for the chamber, and there are a variety of different industries, industry specific organizations that you can connect with, especially in more urban areas, so that would be a consideration. Amber, what am I missing? I know a lot, so ...  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. I mean, I would say, just kind of going back to the university, connecting with their resources. Often, nearby universities have a lot of connections with surrounding companies, and who knows, they might be an insurance company, so ...  Rio Peterson: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you both mentioned the career, the job fairs as well. It's probably a good place to make some connections. Fantastic. I know for myself, I also knew someone who worked at ALPS, and was able to make the move that way, so definitely a lot to be said for putting yourself out there and meeting people and making those connections.  So let's kind of shift a bit back to you two, and tell me a little bit of like, "What are some of the things you like best about your roles, and maybe also working at ALPS specifically?" Amber, you want to start?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah, I can start.  Rio Peterson: So I'm going to put you on the screen.  Amber Kuhlman: No, that's okay. Some things about my role that I like is really focused on the wellness side initiative that we strive for. As far as work-life balance or wellness program, really, making it a place that people want to come to and enjoy working with their fellow coworkers is kind of, yeah, a big part of it, for me.  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Liesel Brink: Definitely, Amber. The people are great to work with, what continues for me to bring me back every day, but also, for me, the type of work that I get to do, it's never the same thing every day. The process might be the same, but the individuals are different, the circumstances are different, and so that truly is what the variety is what I enjoy the most as far as human resources and specifically ALPS.  Rio Peterson: Got it. Fantastic. So talking a little bit about the wellness program, was that in place? I know, Amber, you've been here about a year and a half, but, Liesel, was that in place when you started at ALPS?  Liesel Brink: So when I started back in 2015, it was not in place. We implemented little things here and there. At that time, I believe it was once a year, we tried to do something fun, and then it went to a quarter. Every quarter, we tried to do something, and then we aligned with a tech company, and then they offered physical, mental, emotional, and then also financial wellness options, and so that kind of started us off. I believe that was in 2017, and then the tech company decided that it wasn't what they wanted to focus on, and so we then went to a homegrown kind of wellness program. That is what Amber has definitely made her own over the last year and a half, so ...  Rio Peterson: Yeah, fantastic. Amber, do you want to tell us a little bit more about the program, kind of what kinds of benefits we offer, kind of how you come up with all these awesome ideas, because I know there's always something great going on in that program?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah, yeah. I get my awesome ideas from all the subscriptions I have. I will say, all the wellness networks, for sure.  Rio Peterson: Awesome.  Amber Kuhlman: Awesome. Can't take credit for them all, but no, it's great. I love planning. I try and do a monthly highlighted activity that focuses on kind of those four functions that Liesel touched on, financial, mental, emotional, and physical, so I really try to get those all in the mix. They're all equally important.  So each quarter, I focus on one of those, and we award our employees for staying healthy in many different ways, so there is an incentive a little bit there, but they get gift cards. It's a point-based system. They get gift cards in PTO quarterly, so there's that, but it's always really nice when we hear the feedback from employees that stop by and really enjoyed a walking challenge that we had going, or earlier last summer, we did a stair challenge, and seeing everyone come up the stairs as opposed to the elevator was great. And yeah, I love seeing that, so it's good.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, it's fantastic, and it seems like that's something I noticed right from the get-go when I started at ALPS. Everyone's very engaged with the wellness program. It's a very big hit, and just the benefits offered in it are really fantastic and very thorough. It's definitely another benefit to working at ALPS. Just putting it out there if anyone seconds, so ...  Liesel Brink: But if I may, one of the important wellness aspects I find too, is the financial wellness that we focus on.  Rio Peterson: Yes.  Liesel Brink: We've partnered with a fantastic company, Best Money Moves out of Illinois with Ilyce Glink. She is the CEO and founder. They have come up with some fantastic opportunities for employees to learn more about how to save. They do monthly webinars. We've learned to, over the years, that if you help individuals understand their financials, that it could lead to less stress within the employee population. So I just want to do a shout-out to Amber for continuing that program with them because it's definitely very helpful.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, absolutely. And financial wellness tends to be something that isn't normally included in wellness, but you're so right, it is really deeply connected to a lot of the stress people experience, because financial literacy is something that we're not really taught in schools in any capacity, so it's really, really important to be able to provide that peace of mind and those tools to everyone. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.  Liesel Brink: One of the other benefits that we've come up with, well, that most companies provide is the Employee Assistance program, where individuals have access to talk to professionals for personal or professional reasons. If things are going on or they want to bounce ideas off of someone, that's not their supervisor or their family, we offer an Employee Assistance program that has an in-network list of providers that we can go to for free visits, but we've also implemented a reimbursement if our employees want to go to out-of-network providers, and that was a huge, huge implementation last year. Something brand new that we hadn't heard a lot of companies doing, so we're like, "Let's try it," and it seems to be going well, so ...  Rio Peterson: Fantastic, and you've gotten ... I'm guessing you've heard some good feedback about that program? Yeah.  Liesel Brink: So we've heard a little feedback, right? It's an anonymous program, so it's one of those things where we do get some numbers about, like if they have an intake, but we get to know other information other than that. So it's great that we are giving utilization. We have, I believe, 13% utilization rate, Amber, where the national is four to six usually.  Rio Peterson: Whoo, that's fantastic. Love that people are taking care of themselves and that they're able to do so.  Liesel Brink: Exactly.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, it's fantastic. So what are some of the other kind of benefits and perks that we've got here, working at ALPS? I know there's quite a long list. Do you guys want to take us through a couple of them?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. One of my favorites, I'll highlight, is the Lifestyle Spending Account. Coming from a different company, that's a benefit I haven't had before. So the Lifestyle Spending Account, ALPS gives us funds monthly that we can utilize towards a variety of things, whether it's an event ticket to go to the movies, or maybe a concert. Pet insurance can go towards that, or just your typical gym membership, so it's great.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, my standing desk. Thank you guys.  Amber Kuhlman: Yes.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, I'm a big fan of that program too.  Liesel Brink: Nice. For me, we have an Adoption Assistance Program. We also offer discount interest rates through SoFi, and we provide a high-yield savings options through that SoFi option too. We do a 6% match at 100% for our 401(k), so that is something, and we're fully vested as of our first contribution. So for me, those things have been very beneficial for ALPS employees.  Rio Peterson: Yeah. And it is something that I've really noticed about ALPS too, is that as an organization, we are very invested in our employees, not just well, their employees, but in their futures as well, whether that is moving on to the next company or into retirement. I mean, I know that a large number of our staff has been at ALPS for 15, 20, 25 years, so it's really, I don't know, reassuring and nice to see that we are so invested in everyone regardless of where they're at in their career path. I don't think a lot of companies think about that, so ...  Liesel Brink: Yeah, Amber does a great-  Rio Peterson: It's [inaudible 00:27:46]-  Liesel Brink: Yeah. Amber does a great job with the training and development, and ensuring that our continuing education classes are getting credentialed for continuing education. It's one way we support our employees in licensure, and then we also encourage individuals and have supported them in earning their additional certifications of their choices.  Rio Peterson: And I think we do student loan assistance as well, don't we?  Liesel Brink: We do have a Student Loan Assistance program.  Rio Peterson: Yeah.  Liesel Brink: And we-  Rio Peterson: Then, we do all the things. There's too many things to list. We do everything.  Liesel Brink: I mean, we do employee photos, fun photos, so they're not the stuffy headshots, which is super fun. We have an employee that has a hobby to take photos, and they've been so kind to provide us with photos of employees, so that's super fun to do.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, and they're so well done too. They're really nicely shot. That's fantastic. So we've got just a couple more minutes here. I think, first of all, what are some of the roles that are currently open at ALPS, if anyone out there listening is interested in checking us out?  Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. I'll highlight the business development representative that we have open, specifically outbound. So we are looking for individual to come on and do sales. So you're interested in that, definitely connect with us on LinkedIn. It is also posted on LinkedIn, so check it out. But yeah, I'll let Liesel highlight the other one.  Liesel Brink: Yeah. We are looking for a claims attorney. This position does require an individual to have their Juris Doctorate, so that is an important aspect of this. We will train an individual and get them licensed as an adjuster. However, we do need them to have that Juris Doctorate. We do hope and ask that they've had five years of experience working in the field of law, because what they'll be doing is helping our insureds during their time of need when a claim actually happens.  So understanding a little bit about how things work in the practice of law is super helpful in this role. Happy to talk to someone about that. If they have more interest, they're welcome to reach out to us. I don't know if you want me to put my email, lbrink@alpsinsurance.com. Happy to have that conversation.  Yeah, but if someone already has previous claims experience, we'd love to have that talk too. So yeah, reach out. Yeah, or if you live in Montana or want to move to Montana, it's a great opportunity.  Rio Peterson: Yeah, Missoula is fantastic. It is a really fantastic spot. And so we've got, LinkedIn is a good place to reach out. We have a career section on the website, yup, so we can reach on your website.  Liesel Brink: Correct.  Rio Peterson: Can reach out to Liesel directly at lbrink@alpsinsurance.com. And yeah, we hope that you consider a career in insurance. It's a really fantastic industry, and I mean, I'm a little bit biased, but ALPS, in particular, is a pretty incredible place to work. So that's my two cents about the whole thing. Is there anything else?  Liesel Brink: We agree.  Amber Kuhlman: Yes.  Rio Peterson: Is there anything else you two would like to add before we sign off?  Amber Kuhlman: No. Thanks for tuning in.  Rio Peterson: Yeah. So well, thank you both for joining me. This has been fantastic. And for those of you listening, we will catch you next month for the next installment of In Brief. Again, I'm Rio Peterson, and thanks for tuning in. 

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte talks about the importance of creating a succession plan and naming a succession/backup attorney.   — Transcript:  Hello, I am Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Of course, that's where our home office is, and if you ever get out to Missoula, you should stop by. It is a beautiful, beautiful area.  It's a time of year where you get to thinking about all kinds of things. We have a year coming to an end, and boy, what a crazy year this has been, huh? And a new year starting. And these are the times where at least I do, and I don't think I'm alone or unique in this, just start to do some processing, start to think about what was good about the year, what things need to be done. And also, I've been with ALPS now coming up in 26 years, and I've been thinking more and more about what's next for me. Again, I've got a lot of years left, God willing and knock on wood here that ALPS will want to continue to have me.  But I want to say a lot of years, I don't know, five, six, maybe eight more years of work here, but I also think about retiring and what's next. And there are interesting things you start to think about just looking at all kinds of stuff. And I won't get into my sort of what's personally going on with me, but it does bring up an important topic, and that's the topic of succession planning. And I want to talk a little bit more about this in some interesting ways. It's something I've been talking about writing on for years.  I can simply say it doesn't happen overnight. I'm in a community where I see lots of people. We're in a 55 plus community now down here in Florida actually. It's been just a wonderful, wonderful decision for us. But I see a lot of people in retirement. I see some that have been very successful and I have seen and visited with some where it's not working. There's different drivers behind why retirement happened for some. Some had happened earlier than they thought, think health issues as an example. Others are still very, very active in second or third careers. Just because they retired doesn't mean... They retired from their profession perhaps, but they're still doing all kinds of other things.  So I want to talk about this. The first thing I want to say is regardless of your age and where you are in terms of your practice and your career in law, it's never too early to start. We've been dealing with the transition issues and decisions and financially restructuring for, oh gosh, now it's been a good six to eight years easy. And of course, we're blessed that we have the ability to retire at some point here. Again, I can say I've worked with lots and lots of lawyers, and I mean that literally who are not financially in a situation where retirement ever seems likely, and it doesn't need to be that way. So I just encourage you to start early, particularly on this, just the savings side, if nothing else, but okay, back to succession planning. And we're going to also explore backup attorneys in this context, which is the central issue I want to focus on here.  But before we get there, being a lawyer is hard. I understand that. And it can be quite a challenge. It's an ever-changing landscape, if you will, in terms of the introduction of AI and how that's impacting things, but also different types of clients and different types of matters and all sorts of things can go on. And as some of you may know, if you've followed me over the years, whether on the blog or podcast, I've been at this a long time and I've done a lot of consulting and I have worked with lawyers that have dealt with cancer as an example. And one lawyer in particular was so involved out of necessity, don't get me wrong here, but so involved in his cancer treatment, having to travel and be gone extensively for chemotherapy. And the practice was being neglected in very, very significant ways. And there was some fallout unfortunately to that.  I have been involved with numerous lawyers that have had, let's just say, challenges with competency. When there's dementia, which is, again, it's just a very serious problem with our profession. It's not unique to lawyers, but there's a lot of issues I've seen over the years that have led to claims and all kinds of things, unexpected things happen in life, in other words, but it's just wild in terms of all the crazy things I've seen.  So I want to, again, to underscore, we need to think about succession planning. This is not something we do, again, in the twilight of one's career. I really see it as a strategic and forward thinking approach. That's what we need to be thinking about. It's going to benefit you regards to, it's obviously more important if you're in a solo space, but it's important even if you're in a small firm or even larger firms. Now, sometimes the problems, the issues that come into play as you get into larger firms are a bit different than what you're dealing with in small firms, but we do need to prepare for the unexpected. It is about, at the end of the day, taking care of our clients.  So let's move forward here and talk about some other reasons why I see this as mitigating risk, preserving client relationships, again, thinking more importantly in the solo space, but again, absolutely not limited to this, but if we are unexpectedly taken out by a car crash, I've got a story about that. Won't bore with it today, bore you with it today, but someone ended up in a coma for quite an extended time, and a number of matters were neglected. So I see this as a competency issue thinking about rule 1.1. A diligence issue, 1.3, and there's some language in the rules, particularly in commentary and at least some of the states and in the ABA model rules that talk about the diligence mandates and attorney moving forward with some type of succession planning. It's just not optional.  So I see it as an ethical obligation. I see it as taking care of one's career, reputational kinds of things. Particularly if something goes wrong, something unexpected happens, I see it as taking care of clients, building relationships, because we can talk about it. So it's about ensuring coverage in the event of some short-term health issues, but it's also about taking care of things in the unexpected deaths or long-term disability scenario too. Again, we could talk for quite some time about stories of how this has just been a problem.  So I hope that kind of helps. I know it's a little bit of a ramble here and I've got all kinds of things going on in my head, but I really hope that you begin to get a sense of the importance of succession planning from a business perspective, from an ethical perspective and from a malpractice perspective.  Let's move more now toward really what I want to focus on and center on. And it's really looking at a basic decision of backup attorneys. Now, before we dig into this, one of the things that I have found over the years is some attorneys are reluctant when asked to be a backup attorney. They're reluctant to agree to do so for a variety of reasons. But two of the more common concerns at times, I think, also used as excuses are I've got my own full-time practice, and how in the world can I handle two practices at once? Well, a successor attorney/backup attorney isn't necessarily charged with running a full second practice. In the backup situation, you're just covering for somebody for emergencies. Well, they're on a two-week vacation or whatever it might be, or whether they're in the hospital for a week or so for some immersion kind of thing. If it's an unexpected death, you're really being brought in to wind up the practice and oversee that. You're not running a full practice, you're not charged with taking on all of these clients and immediately doubling the size if your practice.  And something else to think about whether you're agreeing to do this, being asked to do this and thinking about agreeing or doing the asking. The backup attorney/successor attorney situation doesn't have to be limited to just one individual. I have seen some situations that have been very, very successful in terms of there was an untimely death. And what happened was, for instance, a group of three, four, I've even seen five attorneys will agree to be there for each other and we have this group. And so if I'm the person in this group that passes unexpectedly, the other four can share the load. One might be responsible for putting out fires, one might be responsible for contacting clients, getting that letter that goes out, et cetera, taking care of those kinds of things. So you just split, you split the workload. Can make it very, very easy.  The other excuse that I hear at times is the, well, is my malpractice going to cover me? Is there some... And again, I don't want to be sued for all this stuff. Well, first off, understand, again, in the winding up of the practice, you're really not doing anything legally. You're administering the duties of transition of client notification, et cetera. Now, I guess, at times, if you pick up a matter and once you make it your own, of course, your policy is going to be in play. But I could see there could be some situations. We try to figure things out, put out fires. Maybe something goes a little wrong here or in the backup situation. I can't say 100% for sure because policies differ between carriers, et cetera, et cetera, and the circumstances are going to dictate. But here's how I look at it.  A carrier wants to make sure that when something goes wrong, again, an emergency illness, we like people taking vacations to stay fresh because burnout leads to depression and addictions and all this. We want to see lawyers take care of themselves. So getting some vacation time is a good thing. But if a backup attorney or successor attorney isn't trying to help, good Lord, it would make no sense for a carrier to say, I'm not going to defend this, or we're not going to get involved. It's just not a decision I would think any carrier is going to be feeling good about making. That's not in their best interest. Maybe that's another way to look at it. So I just don't think the coverage issue is as significant as some want to make it.  There is language, I should say, in a number of policies that will describe or are in terms of under the definition of insured, will include a description of attorneys who are stepping in to help administer the winding down of a practice. There for backup. As long as they are doing so under the authority of an agreement of some sort, that kind of thing.  Okay, so let's put that outta way or put that out of the way. So the next thing, and I've been asked at times, what do I do? How do I go about selecting a backup attorney? And this really gets to the heart of the issue. If you're working within a firm setting, hopefully there's someone else within the firm that has the skills and et cetera that can step in. If you are one that's, and again, typically it's going to be in a small firm setting that has some unique skills, well, you're going to have to find somebody outside of the firm and name because if no one else in the firm has the ability, that doesn't really solve the problem. So you might need to look external, but let's talk about that in the context of the solo attorney.  And really what you need to do is just try to identify someone who is going to be competent. That is your obligation. So they have to have the skillset necessary to step in and understand what's going on in your practice, both as a backup attorney if ever needed, and then again, as a successor, should that ever come into play as well. They need to have good communication skills. They need to be experienced in the practice. And we need to think about, I guess, conflict concerns too. They should be somebody that isn't going to bring to the table or have all kinds of conflicts in light of their practice and yours. It can't be somebody that you're constantly on the other side of, is constantly opposing counsel to many of your clients. That's going to be problematic. So we just need to think about, again, is this person competent, diligent, a good communicator, as conflict free as possible, et cetera? And that can really be a good thing. Okay?  And I guess the other thing, needs to be somebody that's going to have the time or the ability to make the time to step into this role. If someone is constantly on the road just by virtue of their practice and being available on not necessarily a minute's notice, but being available at times, if that's going to be problematic, that might not be the right fit. So again, we just need to look, does this work for the individual that you are asking?  When we finally identify the individual that we think is going to be a good fit and this individual agrees or group of individuals, please don't overlook the importance of letting key staff know that this step has been taken care of, who this individual or group of individuals are, when and how they are to be reached so that the staff in the event of emergency know what to do. Again, I could tell stories where staff had no idea that there was a backup attorney, had no idea what they were supposed to do in a situation like this. The was a new receptionist and that was the only position she was charged with and she had no clue, was not really experienced in the legal profession or working in the legal profession and just sat there taking calls day after day. And a number of claims rose out of that because it was person injury plaintiff attorney who was in a coma for a while and some statutes ran during this time and she just sat there, had no clue. So again, we need to let people know.  Some other things to think about. You might want to have a formal written agreement with the backup attorney successor. One and the same in most instances or group, and that's document or at least outline if you will the terms of the engagement, the scope, the responsibilities. There may or may not be compensation here. And you have to figure out if there is going to be some compensation, and particularly in the succession plan, successor attorney coming in and winding up a very busy practice, that can take some work and some time. And you can deal with covering those expenses in a variety of ways, not the least of which might be some type of key person life insurance, but there are ways to deal with this. But I like the idea of having some type of agreement so that we're all on the same page and really understand what the expectations are.  And a number of times too, this can be a two-way street, if I ask you to be my backup attorney and you agree, and it might be, well, I agree to do the same for you. And so we can have these discussions and really talk about what are the roles going to be.  So it's also worth letting your malpractice carrier know. There are some carriers out there, particularly in the solo space that will request knowledge of, or you need to report who is this, other carriers mandate or require it. They may not agree to insure you perhaps in a formal designation because they want to know who to contact if something happens here again.  Some things to think about in terms of preparation. I would periodically review the plan and the agreement just because things change over time. And as you think about that, here's this other side not coming in. We've talked about, here are the roles, responsibilities, what we're anticipating, what we think we should be doing for each other, et cetera. But we should also perhaps have some type of writing. Could be a letter kept in a drawer somewhere, staff knows about, and this is primarily for the succession plan situation, but you need to think about setting forth the things that the successor attorney needs to know to run your practice, to be able to wind down your practice.  So where's the calendar? What are the passwords to key programs or applications or laptops? That kind of thing. What about signature authority on the trust account? I don't want to see money locked up. And there are different ways to deal with that. Could even be just a contingent signature authority agreement of some sort. So there are a number of things you can do here, but I have seen situations where an attorney passed and none of this was done, and a lot of time and money was needlessly spent on trying to literally hack into computers because that's where all the information was and no one had any idea how to get in. So there has to be some ways to do that.  And here's an interesting thought on this one. You can set up emergency access to password safes. More and more of us, if you're not using a password safe for cybersecurity reasons, boy, now's the time. That's a conversation kept for a whole nother day. But there's one way to do some of this. You can have emergency access and set that up. It varies in terms of what you can do and how you do it with these different password managers, but it's just another thing to think about and nothing to look at. There's all kinds of spins on this, but I'm hoping you have found something of value here and some encouragement to move forward.  The one final thought I have is at the beginning I was talking about, well, there's this piece of client communication, and I want to take that just a little bit further. I also mentioned reputation can be an issue here and the failure unit to have a backup attorney leading to mistakes because you never get out and take a vacation or take care of yourself and prioritize wellness, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You can get run down, burned out, depressed. Reputation can suffer in that way. Reputation can suffer because there is no plan. And you're in the hospital for four, six weeks in a coma, going back to that one story that I've been alluding to, and your reputation is dead there.  But there's another angle to this reputation piece, and I see it as communicating the decision. I have some language and you're welcome to email me or look it up. I have some of this on our website, but if you have trouble finding it, you can let me know. But consider putting some language in your engagement agreement. And it might say something, I'm just going to read a short little paragraph as an example. But think about the message that you're giving. So I'm a new, our potential prospective client coming in, looking and all that, we're talking and I see this language, or you might even highlight it for me in the agreement, and it'll say something like this:  While I strive to deliver excellent legal services to each and every client, I also have an ethical obligation to protect your interests during any extended absences such as a vacation and illness or any event of my unexpected death or disability. To accomplish this, I have named, of course, you insert the name for your backup attorney as my backup attorney who will be available during any extended absences or will step in to assist in the closing of my practice, should that ever prove necessary. I will personally provide you advanced notice of any planned absences, and my office staff or backup attorney will contact you with information on how to proceed should any unexpected event ever occur.  I guess I'm a risk guy, okay, I get that. But I got to tell you, if I saw something like that, I would say this attorney is really thinking through the issues and doing everything he or she can to see that his or her clients are taken care of. And he's really thought this through. I want to work with someone like that. Wouldn't you? That's demonstrating commitment, loyalty, diligence, competency. And that just speaks volumes to me. So there's this other reputational angle to it that's saying, he's thinking about this, she's thinking about this. I like this. I'm going to work with them. Then you deliver. Man, I'm even more excited and I'm going to go out and just tell people. How do you think referrals... Referrals come on reputation and good work. Good reputation, you provide great service and all of that, referrals are going to come. So I think there's an angle to that as well.  So I've been rambling on here for I don't know how long, but I hope you found something of value. I really believe that it's hard to do this at times. It's hard to get started. But I really do believe in the value of this. And once you have this taken care of, I think you're going to sleep better. I think it's going to be one less thing to worry about, and you can concentrate and focus more clearly on some other things in terms of just taking care of your clients. So name that backup attorney if you haven't. Name that successor attorney if you haven't.  And once you do, please, please take the time. Take advantage of what you've just done and make sure you're getting that extended vacation from time to time to stay fresh, to nurture the significant, important, I'm sorry, the important and significant support systems in your life. Go on a cruise with your spouse. Go visit the grandkids and children for a week, whatever it might be, because wellness is so, so important in our profession too. It just helps you stay sharp.  That's it for me. I hope you found something of value, and please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything I can ever do for any of you. You do not need to be an ALPS insured to visit with me. There's no costs or fee to visit with me. If there's something I can do, hey, I'm here. My email address is mbass@alpsinsurance, ALPS Insurance, one word .com.  Have a good one, all.  Bye-bye. 

In this episode of ALPS in Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares his 25 holiday risk tips to keep your law firm's cybersecurity happy and healthy as we roll into the new year! Transcript:  Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at Alps, and welcome to another episode of Alps In Brief, that podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. As you can tell, it's the end of the year and I'm trying to get ready and set for the holiday celebrations and whatnot, just having a little fun.  So I thought about what to do for this month's podcast. I thought, why not share my 25 holiday risk tips as a countdown. And these are risk tips for 2023, the end of 2023, and maybe we'll do this every year. Who knows? We'll see. Let's jump right in, shall we?  Number one, don't wait for that after Christmas sale. Make sure your firm's security software and operating systems on terms of all the devices, the servers, the computers, the laptops, everything. These updates need to be current systems need to be patched, and the reason is I just want to make sure you're properly protected during all of that online holiday shopping.  Number two, the turkey helpline. I remember back in the day, they used to have these shows you could listen to, and my memory was it's on the radio, but you could listen to people calling in. They record some of these crazy calls to the Turkey hotline. I remember a woman very upset that her bird tasted like soap. And apparently what she had done was read in the instructions, you should clean your turkey before cooking it, then rinse it out, that kind of stuff.  And apparently she used a lot dish washing soap and that's going to taste like soap. That's not how you clean a turkey, but I always got a kick out of that. But sometimes things don't work out quite as planned when it comes to the holiday bird, and some people really don't know what they're doing with these turkeys. And there is a turkey hotline out there to help you out, use it.  Well, in a similar vein, if you have no idea how to properly secure your smartphones or other devices, the files that you have in cloud storage, even your home router, if you're using it for work, rest assured there's a support line for you too, and that's just called your IT support. Whoever he/she/they may be, please don't hesitate to reach out and get the help that you need.  Number three, untangling the lights. As you search your attic or your basement, wherever you have your holiday decoration stored, remember to protect and organize your firm's virtual storage space so your digital files don't end up sort of in a similar mess. I remember year after year for a lot of years, trying to untangle all of these light strings and checking for the bulbs, etc. It's just a headache, just a headache. So, let's try not to let that happen with our client files that are virtually stored.  Number four, make a list and check it twice. And before taking on a new matter, make certain that you and your client are in total agreement on the scope of representation, and that might even include discussing what you're not going to do. And then of course, make sure that you thoroughly document all that in writing because after all, memories really can be short. I mean, even Santa, after all, why do you think he has a list.  Number five, up on the house top. Some of us excel at navigating a snow covered roof to hang the lights. Boy, there's some guys around here, I've seen this here, I'm thinking, these guys don't excel and you're just worried that dickens that somebody's going to take a fall. But on others, you really do need to learn that the annual trip to the ER can get expensive.  The point of all this is no one excels at everything. Learn to say no when you really know that you should don't dabble and don't take on clients that you can't work well with. Otherwise, the control of your professional life is going to end up in someone else's hands and that someone else could easily be a problem client that just isn't worth it.  Number six, let's talk about Santa's laptop. If you're traveling for business or a family gathering, always carry your laptop with you rather than checking it with your baggage, because sensitive information, perhaps your naughty and nice list, could end up missing. I really can share over the years when I look at some of the cyber claims that we've had, stolen laptops, lost laptops are not uncommon. So really try to stay in control of that as you travel.  Wrapping the gifts, when it's time to wrap up a client matter, tell the client what your file retention policy is and document what they want to have happen to their file at the end of your file retention period. This is one of the most common calls that I get to this day. What do we do with these old files? Because we've never dealt with it. We've never informed clients what to do or what our policy is. And taking care of that at the time you know where your client is and you're closing a file can really solve a lot of headaches down the road. Or I should say prevent a lot of headaches down the road.  Number eight, to Grandma's house we go. If you need to check in with the office on your way to wherever you're traveling, remember to use a VPN when traveling. This is especially important if you're going to be using open public wifi, if you're using a hotel signal or even a signal at a friend or family's home, you need to encrypt your data stream in these situations. It's just essential as I see it.  Number nine, remember the reason for the season. Providing pro bono legal services is really a wonderful way to not only bring a little holiday cheer to someone else, but it really may just change their life. Don't minimize it. Give back.  Number 10, hang your stockings with care. According to the most recent ABA profile of legal malpractice claims, almost 52% of reported claims in recent years were based on a substantive misstep, such as a failure to know the law or properly apply the law, and conflicts of interest. So don't dabble and don't short shrift your conflict resolution process unless of course you enjoy finding coal in your stocking.  Number 11, no two snowflakes are alike. As with client expectations, no two clients are going to be alike either. Really take the time, learn to listen, ask the questions, try to determine each and every client's unique legal needs as well as their desired outcomes in order for you to meet their needs as best as you possibly can.  Number 12, don't become Scrooge. If a client becomes delinquent on their account, investigate early, and either work out an alternative arrangement or get out if you can. Allowing someone's past due balance to soar when they are already unable to pay and then suing them for your fees when you're finished could result in a haunting tale of a malpractice counterclaim. Not fun, not good.  Number 13, bells will be ringing, while a wonderful sound this time of year. Be careful not to have an alarm sound due to a shortfall in your trust account. Never allow the proceeds of a check to be dispersed prior to that check clearing. And remember, there's a difference between a bank saying, "The proceeds are available," and those funds being collected in good funds. And often that difference is five to seven business days and can even be longer in some instances. Caution is in order.  Number 14, look out for the Grinch. Take the time to ask what can be learned from an experience with one of those problem clients, once the representation of course has ended. The failure to do so often means that another Grinch could be in your future. If you don't learn, you're likely to make the same intake mistake again. Ask the questions, look for the learning.  Number 15, not a creature with stirring. To make certain no unwanted creatures are stirring in your office network, confirm that everyone in the office knows to never open an email or click on a link sent from an unknown source. Better yet, institute an ongoing mandatory social engineering training program that everyone must attend, everyone who works at your firm, including you.  Number 16, let it snow. Clients will tend to more readily pay bills that are sent on a regular basis and that provide detail on each charge. Tell your story in the process of creating and presenting your bill. There is a huge difference as an example between saying, "Research five hours," and "Research case law on inviting nuisance, five hours." Let the client know the value they are getting, what they are getting, for the money that they're being charged.  17, the ghost of files past. When it comes to computer files, delete is not always what it seems. If you don't want the recovery of deleted files rattling around late at night, you really need to electronically shred all that data by using a program that will overwrite it, thus making it unrecoverable. So before you recycle those phones or donate some laptops or whatever it might be, don't just delete files. You need to digitally erase them.  Number 18, It's a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, if you recall, saw what his town would've been like if he were never born, such a great film. If you're a solo, however, what would happen if you were no longer around? Name a successor attorney to ensure that your clients and their matters will be properly cared for should the unexpected ever happen to you. Then sleep better knowing that you did the right thing. Succession planning folks is absolutely an essential obligation as I see it. Please take the time to do so if you already have it done so.  Number 19, The Little Drummer Boy, just listening to some music last night. It was that time of year, once Thanksgiving rolls around, my wife has a rule, Christmas music is it until the end of Christmas. But bang that drum to get your message across. Make sure your colleagues are in step with the confidentiality rule. No files, for example, should be left accessible after hours.  No one should use open public wifi networks or free email accounts like Gmail for professional purposes. And don't talk about client matters in public places. Sometimes maybe just a little review. Get the staff together for a 10 or 15 minute meeting over the lunch hour, have a little pizza or something. Maybe do this monthly. But just these gentle friendly reminders really can help keep the rules and our obligations fresh in our minds. That can be very, very helpful and very beneficial.  Number 20, how about those New Year's resolutions? Enjoy the holiday party season more by learning what callback phishing is and how not to fall prey. Then relish in knowing that you now have a cybersecurity leg up on most of the other attorneys in the room. You really will. If the FBI just issued an alert talking about callback phishing, so binging it, Google it, or you might even go to a wonderful site. This is just an excellent, excellent resource.  It is Know Be4, K-N-O-W-B-E, the number four, knowbe4.com, and look at some of their resources that are available for free. You could search callback phishing on their blog, and I assure you, you'll get some information and it's well worth knowing about.  21, the night before CLE deadline, fulfill your CLE requirements on time. You might look with the Alps. We have a lot of CLE out there, online, on demand, and if you're not familiar with it, it's www.alpsinsurance, one word A-L-P-S, insurance, one word, .com/cle. After all, that December 31st deadline for some of us is fast approaching.  22, setting out Santa's cookies. When do I remember those days? Our kids are all grown and adult now, and we are Brady family, but we had five kids in our blended family, and I do remember, and it was a lot of fun, setting out the cookies and doing all the things that we did. For many families, this is one of the last things done before the kids are tucked in and that little detail counts.  Similarly, once a matter is closed. Don't overlook the last important detail of properly preparing a file for storage. Use a file closing checklist to make certain that all the closing tasks are taken care of. If you don't have a file closing checklist, I invite you to get one of ours. I have one available on our website. Again, it's alpsinsurance.com, and you can click under resources and there's a section there for sample forms, a sample checklist, and you will find a file closing checklist there. Perhaps that might be helpful to you.  23, giving thanks. You really are being honored. Every time a client places a new matter in your capable, competent hands. Honor them back by sending a thank you note at the conclusion of every matter. Just say, "Thanks, it's been a pleasure." You may find that referral and repeat work just starts to go up and maybe even soar, because you understand and remember who has hired who.  Give yourself a gift, and this is so, so important in my mind. Remember, one of the best ways to serve your clients well and truly to keep your practice thriving is to prioritize taking care of yourself. After all, gingerbread, which I love, always tastes better when life is good. Take care of yourself, and don't forget to nourish the relationships that you have with your support systems, whoever they may be. You want them around years from now as well too. So take that time. And finally, 25, we're just looking through the years. I have been in this role of risk manager here at Alps just shy of 26 years, and I really have felt so honored and blessed to have had this opportunity. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not going anywhere. I hope to be here for a number of years yet. We'll just see.  But it really has been just an incredible honor to serve as a risk manager, as your risk manager, to be a risk manager and a resource in the legal community at large. So with that in mind, I'd simply like to say, may your holiday season be both merry and bright and most importantly blessed. I hope you found something of value in my short, quick countdown this year and stay well. Take care of yourself. Bye-Bye.   

Mothers understand each other. In this episode of the ALPS In Brief Podcast, Attorney Abigail Benjamin talks with ALPS Account Manager Meg Ratzburg and Underwriting Manager Leah Gooley about the hardships and triumphs of being both a mother and an attorney — and how legal culture shifts like ALPS' new Parental Leave coverage help to better accommodate women who want to bring their best to both worlds (and not have to leave law practice). — Transcript:  Leah Gooley: Well, hello and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Leah Gooley and I'm the underwriting manager here at ALPS. And I'm here with Meg. Meg Ratzburg: Meg Ratzburg. I'm the account manager for the states of Georgia and West Virginia for our ALPS insured. Leah Gooley: And Meg is here, both of us are here to introduce Abigail Benjamin. She is an experienced West Virginia attorney and one of our insureds and is here to share an amazing story with us. So with that, we'd just like to turn it over to Abigail to tell us a little bit about your experience, starting with how you began in a solo practice of law. Abigail Benjamin: Yeah. Oh, okay. You guys just see me. This is kind of an eclectic story, so you just let me know if I'm going too much in the weeds, but I'm almost 50. This practice has been going on for seven years and I sort of did the traditional college law school graduate at 25, found what I thought was my dream job in public interest law, and then had two kids and I ran into that barrier, I think we're going to talk to later about being a female attorney with young kids. And I want to say it wasn't just a time crunch. It was wanting to show up for my family and my kids in a way that I wasn't just exhausted and overwhelmed. So I didn't get that support and I just chose my kids. And at age 40, I had made what I thought was a very happy life, not practicing law. I had six kids, ages 13 to 1. I was growing kale in my backyard. I was writing fiction, I was following politics and on the news, living in a corner of my home state of West Virginia, about 70 miles from DC and God bless anyone from dc but there's a lot of lawyers in DC and there's a lot of unhappy lawyers in DC. So I was very comfortable not practicing law. And The practice came out when I was 41 on a base of a very ethereal idea and some very good, wise people giving me thoughtful advice. And so the first start was in my faith tradition, Pope Francis is our head, and he really encouraged us Catholics to lean into this idea of environmental justice. And I had been a nonprofit lawyer. I was very keen to economic issues and worries about justice with the poor, but I hadn't really, really thought about economic justice issues and how that impacts both poor Appalachians and people of color around the United States. So I just had this thought, but again, raising kale, homeschooling six kids, I took a one-shot volunteer opportunity, limited, limited, and I volunteered at an environmental film festival called the American Conservation Film Festival. And I saw this film that just blew... It knocked my socks off. It just really opened up my eyes. It was about a water crisis event we had in West Virginia. It was the Elk River Crisis. And this was the interesting part about art and film. I definitely was somebody that was educated in the audience. I knew what my state's problems were. I read the news. But seeing this timeline, as a lawyer, I was just like, oh my gosh, this was not an inevitable catastrophe. What happened is we have these giant chemical plants storing chemicals, very dangerous stuff, right on the waters that we all drink from. And it was two rust holes the size of quarters that dumped all that toxic stuff and one half of my state's population lost their drinking water. And it wasn't the regular boil advisory where it was an inconvenience. You put the pot on the stove for 30 minutes and you have drinking water. You could not bathe in this water, you could not wash your clothes. The smell coming out of the taps was making people sick, skin rashes. And all of the environmental protocols were followed. They called the spill line, they did this stuff, but it was these local small businesses in Charleston. It was an ice cream shop, Ellen's Ice Cream, that was making their ice cream for the day. And this terrible smell came in and they were like, "This is not good." And they called the public health coordinator. And that's what started this looking at this environmental issue. So I was amazed at that film and the discussion around it and I was very interested as a lawyer that this catastrophe, people had known for about seven years that this firm was not following protocols. And they were calling in complaints, like nuisance and complaints about smells and spills, but they didn't file a lawsuit. I mean, it was just sort of stacking up and stacking up. And so, as somebody who was a lawyer, I was like, "Man, I wonder if encouraging lawyers to take these small cases and looking at environmental protection, not as, I mean God bless them, Sierra Club or these kind of large swaths, but that individual boots on the ground thing." That's what really got me excited. So I called up my property law professor who I had not talked to in 10 years, at the University of Wisconsin, and he's super cool, and let me know if I'm going on too long in the weeds. Leah Gooley: This is amazing. [inaudible 00:06:08]. Abigail Benjamin: He's actually South African. It's so weird. But he's South African. His name was Heinz Klug and he worked with Nelson Mandela. He helped to do the South African Constitution. And he actually ended up being my law professor now 20 years ago because his work against Apartheid was so dangerous there was a price on his head. So he had to come to America to save his life and ended up falling in love with an American girl who taught sociology law. And so he just found himself in Madison, Wisconsin and was my property law professor. So I called him and, again, just supposed to be a one-shot deal. I'm like, I have this amazing film about my home state of West Virginia, and I think it'll really jazz up the 1L's in your class, and I want to come share it. And we had this amazing meeting of the minds, and that's what happens with business, I think, it's this synchronicity. And he was like, "Abigail, I get you." He's like, "This is just in Africa." And honestly, I was kind of offended as an American. I was like, "No, no, no, no. I know West Virginia's weird, but we're 70 miles from Washington DC. You have your problems over in Africa, but it's not that bad over here." And he's like, "This systemic problem, the way that justice can fail to get implemented on the ground, this is systemic, this is worldwide, and I think you should come." And so again, retired lawyer for over 10 years, I had never been on an airplane. And he sent me an airplane ticket and a really nice hotel room to come to my law school to give this presentation. And I was really humbled because my friends who had stayed on that linear path, I mean they were partners at law firms in Milwaukee and Chicago. And here I was getting the red carpet rolled out to come back to my law and speak. And so the idea of my practice, it really came from my South African professor, a visiting law professor from India, and then one of the environmental law professors who just happened... They were a little younger than me, but grew up in Tennessee and really understood the thing that I was seeing. And so that kind of weekend conversation about this idea I had for a practice, and I initially didn't think I had the resources, the time or the money to start my own practice. So I was like, I need to fundraise. I have a great idea for a practice. And the idea for the practice was not somebody that came in from the top down like Sierra Club or Natural Resources, not that they're not doing great work, but in West Virginia, there's a very much stiff resistance against outsiders telling us what to do. Leah Gooley: Sure, sure. Yeah, that's common, I'm sure. Abigail Benjamin: There's real pushback against like, "What's this Clean Water Act?" And so I thought having a native child that's in the community, that is going to rotary meetings, and I do a lot of acting, so is on community theater. And when I go and do my presentations in court, which are some environmental, but quite honestly are a lot of basic property rights, I don't get dismissed as the outsider. I'm really representing how these harms are hurting us as a community. And so I thought I had six kids, that disqualified me. I was trying to find a new grad and I was like, "Hey, I think you could do this for $60,000. I'll fundraise. I'll call my friends and we'll put this together." And God bless that person from Tennessee because he kept saying, "This sounds like a you project. I don't have a student at 25 I can just fling into this Appalachia to try to make a change. This sounds like a you project." And I'm like, "Well," I'm like, "I'm too busy. I've got these six kids." And so just that idea of not "I can't," but shifting a question to "Could I do that?" And I'm really lucky. My husband was really supportive, my kids were supportive. I had a group of community people that I was working with on the heroin issue, because Appalachia, we got a lot of stuff wrong, but one of the things was the opiate epidemic. And they really just held my hand through that nervousness phase of I'm going to sit down and retake the bar exam in West Virginia for the first time at 41, and I'm going to show up. And I ended up taking the bar exam in a hotel that overlooked that river, that inspired me to do the thing. And so within a couple of days after I passed the bar exam, I had an opportunity because there's not a lot of pro bono lawyers out here floating around in West Virginia. So I got a call from an environmental group to join an action against a state gas company that was doing a monopoly. They were trying to build a natural gas line over geography that we thought was unsafe. And I just went in to do a speech in front of a group of people, and one guy just literally took off his hat and passed it around, and they threw in $800, enough money for me, because I didn't need money for me, but I had to pay the court reporter. And so we got a deposition from a really good scientist about damage to the Potomac River, which is the drinking water for not just us in West Virginia, but for all those poor people in DC. Leah Gooley: Talk about grassroots. That's amazing. Meg Ratzburg: It's like they needed you and you needed them. I love that. Abigail Benjamin: Thing, Well, again, I jumped into this lawsuit. I was number 17. I was the 17th lawyer in this lawsuit, the only one who was living in the area. Everybody else was down south in Charleston. And the only one representing what I feel is the people. And I was so poor I didn't have a working printer. So I went to Kinko's and they were my law office, and I would print out the 19 copies I needed and stapled it and sent it off, but it ended up working and we got an environmental concession and I got to get on TV. And so just that type of feedback, I think of having an idea, having really solid people encouraging you to go to that untraditional idea and then having that success. Anyway, that's how I got started. Leah Gooley: That is an amazing story. Meg Ratzburg: I love that. Abigail Benjamin: It's very weird. Yes, it's very- Leah Gooley: Not focused. Meg Ratzburg: I love it. Leah Gooley: The fact that you provided a local solution from a local person with community support, as Meg noted, in a non-linear [inaudible 00:13:20]. Abigail Benjamin: And supported by that international perspective. I mean, who would've thought about that? But that's the beauty of it. Meg Ratzburg: It was universal, yeah. Abigail Benjamin: I think, lawyers, the analysis we can carry to something, we can be from very different backgrounds, but we can be working on the same solutions. And that's just so exciting to me. Leah Gooley: And not for a shameless plug for ALPS, but our focus is solos and small firms, and that's the value that those solo firms you can provide in that capacity with this organic idea that you put together. And that's really, we're very proud to be able to support attorneys in that position with the pieces that we have, the risk management, the affordable policies. That's really awesome to see that, especially in your local community. That's so exciting. Abigail Benjamin: Yeah, yeah. And I would just say the importance of my work with environmentalism is it's really important to be a solo because I would be conflicted out of all of these interesting cases if I was in a larger firm. And also just for me, personally, trying to balance having kids and having a practice, I'm the boss, so I don't need to ask permission to move back a meeting to take care of my kids. That's just built into the practice that I have. Again, we'll talk about how ALPS is really special to this story, but it's nice to have those big firm tools and expertise, but still preserving for me the passion and the interest that really drives me to be a good lawyer. Leah Gooley: That brought you out of retirement. Abigail Benjamin: Yes, yes, yes. Leah Gooley: Well then this feels like an excellent time to talk about your experience as a female attorney and more specifically your experience as a mom and that piece of the story. Abigail Benjamin: Again, I had started this dream of a practice thinking basically that my having kids was finished. And about 10 months after I had started going back all jazzed up about environmental issues, my husband decided to take a job as an academic. He's an art professor, and so it was really great for him to switch out of being a long distance commuter to DC and teach, his love, but he lost half of his income. And so suddenly this project that for me was just sort of, oh, interesting, volunteering and pro bono, I suddenly had to literally get the grocery money for the kids. And so I transitioned. Thank goodness ALP started me on that little first flights program. And then I moved in organically. And then two weeks after I signed my commercial lease to move back to my hometown and open up a more standard solo practice, I found out that I was surprisingly pregnant with my seventh child. And it was really awesome, but it was really scary because suddenly I had this commercial lease and I had run into trouble earlier in my career balancing, I felt like, kids and law. And now suddenly I was by myself and having to do that. And, Luke, who's awesome, but I had a high-risk medical pregnancy with him. And I ended up on bedrest in a hospital, really trying to run my law practice, brand new law practice, with a locked file cabinet in my hospital room and some phones. And I was able to do it, but I didn't have that sizable kind of war chest, that backup. Again, just like daily bills I was paying, but I didn't have enough to pay my ALPS insurance premium. And so that was so beautiful. Luke was born and he was premature, and he and I were here but still shaken up by the experience. And I reached out to Meg and I just told her my situation and I said I was a new mom and I had this premature baby and that I wasn't going to be able to meet that deadline. And she reached back out to me and said, and this was the line that was like... She said, "I remember those days. I remember those days and I'm going to look..." And she worked out the payment plan for me. But getting that affirmation, I think, from the corporate identity of a malpractice insurance, having them have that caring central thing about caring for me as a person and willing to bet that this was just a temporary hiccup for me and I was going to be a great client moving forward. It just meant the world to me. And I actually, I don't know if I shared this with you, Meg, but I used the confidence from our exchange to go talk to a local banker who was also a woman in my town, and I got a better line of credit. So it really affirmed to me that the practice of law was valuable for me as a young mother, and it was okay to ask for accommodation so that I could stay mentally healthy, be there for my kid, and also serve my clients. It was a fragile time for me, and I really just appreciated that vote of confidence. Leah Gooley: That's so awesome. Meg Ratzburg: I love that. That just touches my heart. Even when you sent me the email I cried through the whole office. I'm kind of a crier. Abigail Benjamin: So the backstory is I sent a thank you note to Meg when my little son, Luke, who was the premature baby five years ago, when he celebrated his fifth birthday, and he's super healthy and happy, and I was just like, "Thank you, because I have this healthy baby, but I also have a healthy law practice and thanks for not making me have to choose one or the other." Meg Ratzburg: I love that. Women and mothers understand each other and can support each other. I love that. Leah Gooley: Everybody take a minute. In the backdrop of law that you mentioned earlier where that can just be a conflict, trying to show up for your kids and your family in a real way as you also balance some pretty heavy expectations in the larger law firm space can be so overwhelming, especially to women who have the mantra of doing it all and some of that context that it's hard to mentally work your way through. Clearly you said, "Well, at some point I'm not going to do that. I'm going to step away." And that's not what the law profession needs. And we see that in that women are a majority now of law school students, but after five years start to drop out of the professions for a lot of the same reasons that you've talked... So very interested to hear more about your thoughts on what some of those challenges are for women in law and where we or the law community might be able to meet some of those challenges. Abigail Benjamin: I'm so glad you asked that question because this was exactly my story. I had gone from a really small town in West Virginia, 5,000. I went to a women's college, Smith College out of Massachusetts, and I went to a really good public interest law group in University of Wisconsin. And I had gotten the plum job. I worked as legal service attorney. I worked with a lot of women, and everything seemed to really fall into place, from being 25 to 29 for four and a half years. But when I got pregnant with my second child, I felt exhausted. And one of the things that makes me upset is we, as attorneys, we are expert at managing expectations and delivering conflicting things. We're experts at crisis management. I mean, at least my practice, but I think a lot of other people, it kind of feels like an ER doctor. You plan to work on one thing and a client called and they have an emergency, and so you're going to shuffle your day around. And those are exactly the skills that you need for balance in terms of having a lot of kids or just having a creative life. I mean, I got to do Wizard of Oz this summer with my kids, and let me tell you, those two weeks that we were in tech rehearsal, not a lot of law was getting done. But those kind of shifts, that's really normal as a lawyer. And when I look back, I'm upset at myself at 30 because I felt inferior, that my child needing me or being pregnant or asking Meg for an extension because I had a premature baby and had been working for three months, that's life. And that's a healthy, well-rounded life. And it's just amazing that right now in my stage of life, I had a mom that died of cancer after two years of treatment, and my elderly dad needs some help. And it's weird, judges and other lawyers are so much more calm about giving me elder law care, flexibility, than they were about me giving birth and having kids. And I don't know how much is my uncomfortability asking for that, but once I started as a solo, I really had this idea that my husband and my kids were my first eight clients and they got the top eight slots of my day. But that also means I can handle about 30, so there's a whole bunch of work that I can do for the community, and occasionally somebody has a deposition or I've got a hearing, those clients bump up and they trump my five-year-old. But most of the time my family gets the top billing and I'm really comfortable handling the rest of the time. And so the issue then, honestly, right now at 50 isn't so much balancing my being a mom versus being an attorney. It's really making sure that I'm being healthy for me, because I tend not to put myself in the mix. So trying to be healthy and sustainable, keeping up my exercise program, eating right, those kinds of things, I struggle with much more than telling a client to pause for a minute while I talk to my kids. And I would also say, when I was growing up, I thought having kids meant you had a career disruption, very small, when they were little, like zero to three. But my teenagers, I swear, need me way more than my five-year-old. And it's like the teenager is fine until my 20-year-old's in college, and then suddenly I'm at the door for work and you've got to stop and take that moment and connect with them. But that's where being a solo or a small firm is perfect because it's very, very rare that I have to be in my law office at 9:00 in the morning. I can take those moments to connect with them when they're ready. And I still feel like a great lawyer if I've spent 30 minutes with my teen and show up at 9:30 instead of 9:00, and so- Meg Ratzburg: You're probably a better lawyer, because you're taking care of what you need- Abigail Benjamin: Exactly. Meg Ratzburg: ... so you're present for your client because your life's taken care of. Leah Gooley: Yeah yeah. Meg Ratzburg: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Leah Gooley: Abigail- Abigail Benjamin: So I would say... Oh, go ahead. Leah Gooley: Oh, just asking what advice would you give to a 25-year-old, 30-year-old attorney in that position, male or female, facing the crux of kids versus work? What advice would you give them? Abigail Benjamin: I would say try your best not to see it as kids versus work, but what makes you a healthy human being and how can you practice law in a way that's healthy? I made the mistake of, I had female role models when I was 25 just starting off in law, and they were awesome attorneys. Their lives with their families did not look anything like how I wanted to be. I had really amazing managing attorneys, but they either had the swap where the husband was the kind of 1950s spouse that did everything, and they were in the office for 80 to 100 hours a week, or they outsourced. The nanny came and picked the kid up in the morning at 5:00 AM and then had them until 7:00 and fed them every meal and stuff. And not that that's bad, but the idea of a lawyer sitting in the office for 100 hours a week, and I would say 85-plus was very normal for me in an 85-person public-interest law job. I don't think that makes for healthy people. That's unsustainable, I think, when you have a tiny newborn that's waking you up. But I wasn't living a healthy life when I was newly married, but it didn't hit me as bad as when I had this little one-year-old who, even when I saw them, I was so obsessed with worrying about my cases and how tired I was from this stuff. So male or woman, just really try to find lawyers that are healthy, that are energetic, that are doing awesome in the courtroom, but you want to, A, have time to take you out for a beer or a coffee, and then are interesting to talk to over a beer or a coffee. It's more than just can you practice law well in the courtroom? That's what I feel like. So it's finding a sustainable practice. Leah Gooley: That is such great advice. And so, for the current atmosphere, right in the profession, being able to talk to attorneys in general to say, be a whole person, have a well-rounded life. Meg Ratzburg: A whole person. Leah Gooley: The attorney wellness right now is a moderate crisis. People are in a tough spot. And so being able to have that message to folks is so important right now, reinforced from folks within the community, people who have made those difficult journeys. Yours is so inspiring in that way. The weaving and being able to be back into a position where you're providing value, you're providing value to your family and yourself, and you're- Abigail Benjamin: And everything's Meaningful. And Meg was saying the time with my kids and my teens, that's making me a better attorney because I'm a more fully engaged human. Yeah. Leah Gooley: Yep. Abigail Benjamin: Yeah. Leah Gooley: Beautiful. That's so great. Let's see. Those are the questions in general we had wanted to wrestle with. Is there anything else that you wanted to add just in your experience in this, again, really inspiring journey to attorneys now or just in general to the community? Abigail Benjamin: Well, I just want to give a shout-out. My bar association has free Zoom meeting. It's for mental wellness. It's really about health and it's run by a therapist. I was initially kind of nervous to join, but it has been amazing. And one of the nicest thing is we have a judge on there, which was kind of very nervous. You're not used to seeing the guys in the robe as you're like, "Yeah, I'm struggling with my teen today," or whatever. But it was really humanizing to see people of different ages, different backgrounds, vastly different sections of law. I mean, I think I'm a little guilty of really talking mostly to other attorneys that are in my same skillset, but it's so amazing to see people struggling with this idea of how can I practice law, do good to my clients, but also in a way that's sustainable, that's healthy for me? And I would say 90% of all lawyers that I practice with, and COVID has really helped. I think we're pretty human. We're in a small state. I think people are pretty gracious about giving extensions or helping a client really find a good fit between... I might have somebody that has a case, but I'm not the right lawyer for them, so I'm going to reach out and find a referral to them, kind of that humanness. But I would say there is 10% that is kind of jerks and that has that sort of adverse priority relationship even when we're not in court. But this wellness group has helped me have confidence where I'm like, "Dude, you're just not on my team." I'm going to keep my armor up in the velvet glove and the professionalism. But it's allowed me, I think, to feel more confident, again, as that human being. The other thing I would say, again, just call-out to ALPS. It's amazing as a solo to put a team together. So even though I'm alone, I have Meg and ALPS. And ALPS is great because, for me, I have ADHD, ALPS is like, "Get your records together, girl." I mean, there's these firm, always write the engagement letter, always say when you're off the case. And these kind of, it's almost like a managing attorney role, so that helps me. My interest is obviously talking to people and solving the law. It's not necessarily administration, but ALPS is that person that's helping me make sure that I hit the things I need to do to stay protected and it gives me confidence. Leah Gooley: Awesome to hear that. Abigail Benjamin: And I have a team. I have financial advisors, really helpful with therapists. I have a lot of friends that are therapists because a lot of what we're doing in law, it's very emotional. I might know what to do, but trying to handle those clients that are... I mean, they come in with property law issues and I mean, they're crying. I mean, it can be really traumatic. And so that's what I like. I might be alone, but I have a team of people that I can look to for my clients, but also I can look to for myself. And I'm always interested in learning how to do things better. The one thing I would say for attorneys that I think I found because I took this little detour, I think it's very, very important to stay intellectually curious and not just go to CLEs, but watch PBS documentaries and go to theater plays and act. My husband and I right now, we're taking an adult tap class on Wednesday nights, and our kids are dancers and we suck. I mean, we are like [inaudible 00:32:54]. But we're out there learning the shuffle step and doing our little things. And I mean, it is so healthy. I'm almost 49, he's 51. It is so healthy to be in something that is not your skill level. And I think attorneys, we're interested, curious bunches, and it's sad if we get burnt out or tired or always having to be the leader, the one with the answer. Again, I think mental health is important. Exercise, diet is important, but keeping that curious, playful kid, the person you were before you sat through contracts law as a 1L, keep that person alive because that's really who people respond to. And then I think they trust me in my community to have answers for complex things because they see me as a human being and I'm out in the community, so that's my- Leah Gooley: Awesome. Abigail Benjamin: [inaudible 00:33:59]. Meg Ratzburg: Great. Leah Gooley: Well, to wrap things up, we have a couple of lightning round type questions, if you're game. Abigail Benjamin: Okay. Leah Gooley: Are you a dog or a cat person? Abigail Benjamin: Cats. I'm a cat person. Yes. Leah Gooley: A cat person. And what are you reading right now? Abigail Benjamin: Oh gosh, so much. Actually, with all my different interests, we have a family bookstore that's kind of like our family farm, but this is a West Virginia, I swear I didn't know this question was coming. This is just on my... I use books like I use law. I have my other stuff too. But Pearl S. Buck is a West Virginian who actually wrote very sympathetically about the Chinese, and The Exile is actually a portrait about her mother. I lost my mom. My mom died after a two-year battle with cancer in January. And it's been really helpful not just to take time off my practice to go to grief group. That's good, too. But it's been really helpful for me to read a lot of books where people are reflecting about their mom. I feel a lot more connected just hearing about other people's stories. Leah Gooley: That's beautiful. Thank you. Abigail Benjamin: Thanks. Leah Gooley: Last question. Do you see any of your seven kids going to law school? Abigail Benjamin: Here's the thing. My husband is a digital artist and art professor. And so they really had no... I mean, Mom's job was boring compared to Dad's job of making animation and stuff. But my 16-year-old has just really fallen in love with history, and it was like the first time she told me she had opinions about President Andrew Jackson. I was like, "What?" Leah Gooley: What you doing, girl? Abigail Benjamin: Yeah, yeah. And her... they're all ballet dancers. It turns out that one of her good friends is really excited to become a criminal defense attorney, AKA Perry Mason. So that has been adorable. So she secretly, I think after I joke that her ballet career, either when she's 40 and she retires from ballet or she gets injured, she's in line now to take over my firm, so that was okay. Leah Gooley: Succession planing, starting early. Okay. Abigail Benjamin: [inaudible 00:36:27]. I love it. Leah Gooley: Well, I couldn't be more grateful for your time with us today- Abigail Benjamin: Oh, thank you. Leah Gooley: ... for sharing your stories and such great advice. Wonderful to talk with you today. Just a huge thank you to you. Meg Ratzburg: Yeah, such a delight, Abigail. Abigail Benjamin: Oh, thank you. Meg Ratzburg: Thank you. Thank you very much. And good luck to everyone out there. Leah Gooley: Great, thank you. I'll just say to our listeners, just if you have any questions for ALPS, if you're insured with us, please reach out to your account manager, like Meg. Meg Ratzburg: West Virginia or Georgia. Leah Gooley: Absolutely. I'm happy to answer any questions. As Abigail had mentioned, there are some serious risk management, How to Run a Solo Practice resources on our website. It's alpsinsurance.com. There's some great blog posts, videos, articles written by our claims attorneys who are on staff to handle claims that come in from our insureds. So really great resources. If you have any questions or want to know more, please check that out at alpsinsurance.com. Thank you again from beautiful, cold Missoula, and we will see you next time. Meg Ratzburg: Thanks. Thanks, Abigail. Leah Gooley: Thanks, Abigail. Abigail Benjamin: Thank you, guys. Bye-bye. Leah Gooley: Bye.  

In this latest episode of ALPS In Brief, ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares some vital information about the Corporate Transparency Act as it relates to the practice of law ... as well as some other spooky insights.  A Brief Statement of Correction from Mark: “During this podcast I stated that under the Corporate Transparency Act, BOI reports were to be filed annually. That statement was incorrect. The correct requirement is that reporting companies have 30 days to report changes to the information in their previously filed BOI reports and must correct inaccurate information in previously filed reports within 30 days of when the reporting company becomes aware or has reason to know of the inaccuracy of information in earlier BOI reports.”  — Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Hello, I am Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana.  I was just out in Missoula just a couple of weeks ago and visiting the home office, I had a wonderful time. And I will have to say now that winter's kind of moving in here and it's nice to be back in Florida. But it's always good to get back to the old stomping grounds, if you will.  It's November now, and I have been trying to think about, okay, what would I like to share with all of you this month in November? And I got thinking, well, it's November and they're also... I just felt that there are two topics that I'd like to talk about, two that I think a lot of lawyers don't know that they need to know a bit more about these two topics. And so given that it's the month of November, the theme is what two things that you don't know that you need to know... get the play here? No, I'm just having a little fun.  So anyway, let's get to it. The first, we've just had October pass, and that is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. And I'm sure some of you're probably just dog-tired of hearing about cybersecurity, and it's just one of these topics that, man. I know, I know, I really get it. But I wanted to follow up. So one of these topics is going to be sort of cybersecurity related and just explore another topic here that I just think is very, very important. And it really deals with backups in light of ransomware. And I'm sure we've heard all kinds of things about ransomware. If you follow any of these stories going on and education going on in October.  And for those of you that don't know, maybe I should stop very quickly. Ransomware, just as a reminder, it's these rogue programs that can be downloaded unintentionally by anybody in your office, your staff, another associate, partner, anyone, just being tricked into doing something that wasn't in their best interest. Clicking on a link they shouldn't have, downloading a document or opening a document that they were tricked into opening. And it may look legit. There's some stuff here. But it also comes with this payload of malicious software. And it will encrypt all of your data, sooner or later. It can sit at times. But it will again encrypt everything and then eventually you get this little ransom note that says, if you'd like access to your data, again, you need to pay this amount in cryptocurrency by such and such a deadline. And if you don't, you're not going to get your data back.  As an aside, I would encourage you never to pay this because even if you get the decryption key, sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it only decrypts part of it and you need to pay more. Sometimes you can get some of your data back and then they'll say, "Oh, by the way, we want another ransom because if you don't pay us, we still have all your data. We upload it and we're going to sell it or we're going to post it online."  It's just a heck of a mess. Well, one of the best ways to avoid having to pay ransom if you get hit with something like this is to have a good backup. And for quite some time, I've been talking about backups and I will share what I've been saying. But there's a change, if you will, in play, in terms of recommendations, in terms of what best practices are with your backup process. So I'd like to get us there to what this new change is and just to create some awareness.  So initially, what I've been talking about and many others that do these kinds of things that I do in terms of trying to educate on cybersecurity, we talk about a backup process. And this has been sort of state-of-the-art for a while now. It's three, two, one. And I kind of have this little spin on it. I call it three, two, one plus archive. Well, what does that mean? And it means three copies of your backup in two separate media, one of which should be offsite, preferentially in the cloud. Okay, three, two, one. As an example, you might be backing up to an external hard drive and then also having a set of backups on Google Drive or IDrive or whatever your cloud backup provider might be. So you got it. You got the three, two, one. Now, one quick side note, if you are doing something like external hard drives, once you're done with the backup, please make sure that you disconnect. You pull that USB cord out.  Because if you leave this always connected, the ransomware, should you ever get hit, and let's knock on woodier and hope that that never happens. But I assure you there are a number of firms that have been hit over the years and it's getting worse and worse. But the ransomware is going to scan the network. And if it's sees that we have a backup drive here, it's going to encrypt the backup drive too. So it's not good. The goal is to have a good backup so that you can recover and restore data that's encrypted because IT will come in and just delete all this stuff and rebuild from the backup, and we get off to a fresh start. So that's the ultimate goal.  Now, I sort of add this archive spin, which is okay, so I may have some... let's say I have one, two, three month backups and just sort of rotate if you will, and that frequency might work. Sometimes you want it to be a little more, sometimes it's daily, weekly, whatever your process. But you have these rotations. Well, I would suggest keeping occasionally one, if you will, pull it out of the rotation and keep it as an archive.  So let's say you have month one, two, and three, but then periodically take one and just sit it out there and it'll eventually become 6, 9, 12 months old. And you can sort of rotate those a little bit too. Now, why do I like an idea like that? Well, some of these programs are designed very intentionally to sort of sit and they will infect backups and whatnot. Again, because they're trying to make sure you have nothing to rebuild from. So if you have some archives out there that are a little bit older, the thinking is, okay, if your current backups are all destroyed because again, are not available because it's encrypted and just useless, you may have something that's six months old, but at least you got everything, you can restore everything up to six months. You see, I'd rather lose six months worth of information than everything. So I sort of like that as an extra little sort of precaution.  Okay, so that's the three, two, one plus archive. The new thinking is now three, two, one, one, and I'll explain that in a minute. I still might put an archive out there, but I'm going to make what the second one is sort of these archives. So let me explain. We have three backups, two media, one should be offsite, preferentially, in the cloud. The second one is what we call an immutable backup, I-M-M-U-T-A-B-L-E. Immutable backup.  Now, what is an immutable backup? Well, it's interesting, and I'm going to have some notes here as we go through some of these things. But an immutable backup, it's basically a copy of your data that cannot be altered. It cannot be deleted or changed in any way, even by a system administrator, users, applications or systems that created the data. This is really locked down. And when you create this backup, you're going to put a clock on it, a time. And so it will remain if you will, locked for whatever time period you set. Now, can you appreciate what's happening here? So if you can't alter the data, you can't delete the data. Ransomware programs, wiper ware programs and things will be unable to affect that at all.  So it's locked. And now you have the ability to make certain you're doing as much as you possibly can, in other words, to make sure you have a good viable backup. Now, one of the things that I like about this is, again, it could even prevent an accidental deletion by somebody doing something silly or some employee that you've had a falling out with and he or she wants to do a little damage and start delete things. It's not just ransomware, but I love this idea. So when you lock it too, we talk about it, and I just love this phrase, I guess. We talk about these backups as being worm protected now. An immutable backup is worm protected, and I just love that word. What does that mean? Well, it means... I got to look here for a second, I'm so excited. Write once, read many times, write... WORM. Write once, but you can read it as much as you want. The data is there, you just can't delete it, you can't change it, you can't encrypt it, you can't do anything with it as long as that lock is there.  Now, eventually you want to... I would not set these locks if you go indefinitely because sooner or later, I assume you want to replace them with more current versions. And if you just keep building, so you have some cloud storage, but these backups can be fairly significant in size. And if you have these things out there year after year after year, so I would not block them up forever. I might think about six months, nine months, because that can become your archive. And so just maybe setting it maybe every year and just hold them for a year and let them sort of, once the lock expires, that clock expires, you can delete it. But I think that is an outstanding idea. I'm a big fan of immutable backups.  Now, one thing to think about here, again, the temptation can be, well, if we take this step, we can start to relax a little more because we're always going to have a good backup. This is our guarantee, our insurance policy, if we ever get hit, we can recover. That's not necessarily the case, okay? There's no such thing as 100% guarantee.  Just as an example, you heard me talk earlier about how ransomware can sit sometimes for extended periods of time, just infecting things. So your immutable backup, if the network has the infection already, so when you back it up, you're backing up the software that's going to encrypt everything. So there's just one example of how this isn't 100% perfect. But boy, it is as close as we can get, based on me. But in terms of what the IT world can do to try to help you recover and keep you from being taken out by some ransomware, this is as good as it gets right now. So I strongly encourage you to think about immutable backups. I will share, I have not had any real time to really dig into these programs in terms of making any type of recommendation. All I can say is these are separate providers.  You can't just work with your regular whatever cloud backup program you typically have and say, I want to make this immutable. Now, that may change at some point, but right now, the companies that are doing this, as far as I'm aware, are all companies are specifically selling or offering this service. I would encourage you, if you want to look at this, just to speak with it because she, they will know your systems and can make some recommendations about what service or product might work best for you. But I really truly believe that immutable backups really are the way to go. And I see them, and I'll just be very honest here folks, in terms of what is happening in the world today, geopolitically, things are getting crazier and crazier.  And there are things happening in the cyberspace. So I think the risk that we are talking about here are going to go up, and that is already supporting that. It's going up very, very rapidly. So I think this is why I want to talk about it right now. I think having some knowledge of is there something else I can yet do that really may help protect me as things just get wild here for a while that it might be worth doing? And you can't do that without knowledge. So that's number one.  The second issue that we need to talk about is the Corporate Transparency Act. I don't know how many of you're familiar with the Act or not. And boy, this is not going to be a primer on on all the things that you need to know about the CTA. But let me just share a little bit because more of us as lawyers need to know about the CTA than realize, and I'll explain why here. But the Corporate Transparency Act was passed in 2021, and basically, it requires the disclosure of identifying information of people operating certain US-based business entities. And a key reporting requirement coming, in beginning of 2024, is unfortunately going to affect many small businesses. And it's my understanding that's somewhat unintentional, but it's where we're at.  There's law firms, particularly the solo and small firm space are going to be caught up in this. That's just the way it is. Now, the ACT is really in response to just, a lot of things have been going on with money laundering, tax evasion, financing of terrorist organizations, et cetera. And so this act is one of the things done in response to try to cut down and get some additional information. So here's the interesting thing. Who needs to comply with this act? And it's a domestic reporting company, which is this term [inaudible 00:17:18] in the act. But basically, it's any company that is created by the filing of a document with a state Secretary of State, or similar office under the law of the state or even an Indian tribe. So it includes corporations, LLCs, LLPs, and the list goes on.  There's some deadlines here. If the reporting company existed prior, so if you're firm, and obviously if you're in a firm now it's existed prior to 2024, you have until January 1st, 2025 to file your first... what do we call these BOIs. And it's just a beneficial ownership information report. And in terms of what's required to be reported and how you report this, it's fairly straightforward. But I first off want you to hear that a lot of you that are in the solo and small firm space are not exempt from this. The act actually has, I think 23, 20... let me look here. Yeah, 23 specific types of entities that are excluded from reporting. None of them are small law firms and other types of small businesses. Now, the one thing that could get some of you out this reporting requirement is if you happen to qualify as a large operating company.  Now, what does that mean? You need to employ more than 20 employees who are working in the United States for more than 30 hours per week. So you have to have 20 employees that are all US-based and work 38 plus hours a week. That your office or your firm is physically here in the United States, and that you report more than five million in gross income and federal income taxes each year. So if you meet those three requirements, you're considered a large corporation. A lot of law firms aren't going to meet that. But you know what your operation looks like, so there may be a possibility of not having to comply.  Again, the first thing I need you or want you to be aware of is that you yourself may be subject to this act. If you happen to be formed, and I've actually been talking with some lawyers who are in the process of forming law firms, and if they form their law firm after January 1st, '24, any business has just 30 days to do this report, and it'll be an annual report. So some awareness there.  Why do I bring it up? I bring it up, one, again, so you don't naively miss an obligation to report because there can be some significant or serious consequences for not reporting. But I also want to talk to any or all of you who are out there that may have clients. You've set up some businesses or you will be setting up businesses. You need to understand the Corporate Transparency Act, who needs to report, what needs to be reported, when does the report need to be made.  I guess if you really want to go in this direction, you certainly could... it's a new service that you could add and help all these clients that would be subject to the act to follow through on the reporting. And if you want to go there, hey, great, that's awesome. Obviously, don't dabble here, come up to speed. I'm just giving you the lightest stuff. I have not done major research onto this, and I'm still coming up to speed myself. But I've learned enough that we need to be aware.  But I could also see similar saying, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be responsible for this. Because think about there's an ethics opinion the ABA put out. I think it's a Formal Opinion when a 491 came out, I believe, about two years ago. And again, it talks about that as lawyers, we cannot allow our clients to use our services in furtherance of a crime or fraud. There's some language and rules too, RPC 1.2 has some language along those lines. The opinion made it clear that we can't even turn a blind eye here. We have to have some responsibility, we have to be asking questions.  So if you want to dig down in the CTA and then also look in terms of managing risk, I encourage you to take a look at the Formal Opinion 491, and then think about the rules. 1.1, competency. If we are going to be competent, we have to know what questions to ask to make sure that we're not helping someone launder money. 1.2 is in play. We just talked about that, we can't allow our services to be used to commit or furtherance of crime or fraud. 1.3, diligence is going to be in play. 1.4, we have an obligation to communicate. Hey, this is not okay, explain the legal ramifications of the things that you're doing, if they refuse to follow your advice and want to continue on with some type of fraud or crime, 1.16 is going to be in play, withdraw and get out. 1.13 is going to be in play in terms of just representing the entity. 8.4, misconduct is going to be in play.  So there are a lot of rules here that we need to be aware of so that we're making informed decisions. Do we want the responsibility to assist all these clients in filing this, the BOI, the business ownership information, report? Because there's all kinds of identifying information and it needs to be accurate. Then if you are lied to or something's incorrect, that can create some exposure for you. So I would want to be a little concerned about that. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm good. Hey, if you really want to come up to speed and you feel very competent in helping all your clients do this year in and year out, God bless, go for it. If not, I would want to at least make sure that clients, particularly current clients, are made aware of the act, and then I would want to document that you are not going to take on that responsibility to help them comply with the requirements under the act.  I would just not want to leave this sitting out there unaddressed because particularly, if we have some ongoing relationships with any of these clients, and that's fairly common, and they're harmed at some point by not filing this document, they're going to turn to you and say, "What the heck? You're the lawyer. This is your fault. I had no idea. I thought you're looking out for me and my best interest or our company's." You see where this can go. And a claim like that's going to have some legs, folks. It really could. So I strongly encourage you. Let's think about, be intentional about what we want to do. Do we want to advise, not advise, help with these forms, don't help with these forms? And then document that the client has been informed and that we either are or we are not. So those are the two things that are the November knows.  So I hope you found something useful from today's just ramblings of a risk guy. And as always, if you have any questions or concerns about either of these topics or anything else that I might be able to assist you with, please don't hesitate to reach out. My email address is MBass@ALPSInsurance. ALPSInsurance.com. And you don't need to be an ALPS insurer to visit with me. There's no cost and visit with me. Again, I'm not a risk manager for ALPS. I'm hired by ALPS to be your risk manager. So that's it, folks. Bye-bye. Have a good one.   

Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana.  Okay, today it's just me, and we're going to talk about managing cyber crime risks and really looking at the whys behind what it does in terms of obtaining cyber liability insurance. And I really want to dig into this a little deeper. I still get a lot of questions about insurance, what it does, what it doesn't do, and is it necessary, and the list goes on and on and on. So let's hit that topic.  Before we jump into some of the specifics of using insurance to manage your risk, I want to set the stage again, I always start my cyber programs with some information. Let's look at headlines from 2022.  In 2022, 255 million phishing attacks occurred in just six months. Now this is a report done by SlashNext, and they analyzed billions of link based URLs, attachments, natural language messages in email, mobile, and browser channels over six months and that's what they found. And that's a 61% increase in phishing attacks compared to 2021. That's pretty significant. They also recorded a 50% increase in attacks on mobile devices. And I really ask that you pay attention and try to appreciate the significance of that. Cyber criminals really are moving their attacks to mobile and personal communication channels to reach employees. The big attacks right now are scams and credential theft. They're the top of the list or the desired outcome with these mobile attacks. And a lot of this will be a phishing and smishing, using SMS text messaging as the attack avenue for a phishing attack, if you will. Smishing is combining SMS and the word phishing, so that's how you get to that.  The FBI has reported that cyber criminals are tampering with QR codes in an attempt to steal victim funds. A lot of people will say, "Well, I'm not going to be that exposed to this stuff, and how frequently is this all this going on?" I got to tell you, it's getting a little crazy out there. Remember QR codes, for instance during the pandemic, particularly as things started to open back up and you go out to restaurants. And instead of handing you a menu, they'd have that little QR code, that little box that has all the dots and dashes and little squares and things in it. And you would scan that and it would take you to the menu or a webpage. Well, a lot of these can be faked. People will just create a QR code sticker and put it over.  Think at a parking lot and you go to scan something to pay your bill, your parking fee, and if you're misdirected to a site that looks like the site that you would expect to pay your parking bill for the evening, but it's not, you've just turned over your account information to somebody that doesn't have your best interest in mind. We've seen it in parking tickets, creating fake parking tickets. And again, it'll have the local parking authority logo and the little yellow envelope and they stick it on your windshield. And again, ah, good lord, I got a parking ticket. They make it very convenient to scan the code. It's not real. So we got to be careful.  We're even seeing QR codes being sent via email pretending to be a multifactor authentication process. And the emails may even mimic corporate logos, law firm logos, it could be anything. And people are falling prey to this. So it's just another crazy unusual attack vector that a lot of folks out there really aren't aware of.  There's also a report that 79 million malicious domains were flagged in the first half of 2022. Please understand what that means. 79 million fake websites. Banks, could be anything, anything at all. And again, they're going to look very, very similar to the real thing. That's 79 million opportunities for anyone at your firm, you or any other employee or attorney practicing at your firm. It's just an opportunity for them to do something innocently, naively, but it's just getting scammed, getting taken advantage of.  The final thing I'll throw at you here in 2022, the A Legal Technology Survey results reported that 27% of participating law firms reported experiencing a data breach of some kind.  So I try to share all this to get your attention, because we need to always remember that IT support isn't the last line of defense. You and whoever else has access to your office network is the last line of defense. And this has consequences, and it really does. The consequences, you really need to care because as a lawyer, you are a valuable target, particularly those of you who practice in the solo and small firm space. I know a lot of lawyers don't believe that. They just think we're not going to be on anybody's radar. It's a rural practice, as an example. Well, come on, there is no such thing as rural on the internet.  And you're considered in the so small firm space sort of the low hanging fruit because the cyber criminals know that you don't have typically the financial wherewithal and oftentimes the deep understanding of everything that could be done. I think the financial wherewithal piece is probably the bigger piece because you just can't throw the same kind of money that a company like Microsoft does around their cloud, protecting your data there as an example. So you're sort of viewed as the low hanging fruit.  And you really need to care because I got to tell you, it's only a matter of time. Robert Mueller, if you remember, the former director of the FBI, famously said, "There are only two types of companies, those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked." But almost actually at the time he said that, that kind of statement was out of date. It really should be something more like there are only two types of companies, those that have been hacked and those that don't know they've been hacked. I mean, I'm not trying to be melodramatic about it, I'm just sharing. It's not if, it really is when.  Now this presentation really isn't about all the things that you can do to prevent becoming a victim. I have lots of other materials, podcasts, CLEs, webinar, all sorts of stuff that can go there. I will share that there is a checklist, a cybersecurity checklist available, if you have any interest, on our website. Just go to the homepage and under resources, scroll down a little bit, you'll see sample forms of checklist. Check there and you'll go in and there'll be another link to checklist and the cybersecurity checklist is there, and that might be useful to you.  But I do want to discuss the risk associated with not being proactive with your cybersecurity efforts. And just as an aside, this really in terms of cybersecurity, proactive efforts, that really does need to include social engineering awareness training, even if you're just a true solo and it's you. You need to stay abreast of what's happening. So I'll just throw that out there.  Okay. Some of the risks your firm faces by someone, anyone at your firm, not doing their part. This really is an all hands on deck kind of situation. Well, let me just read some of the things that can go wrong in terms of the types of risk. I mean, we're sort of talking about the legal and financial risks, but there's legal liability to others, employees, clients, third parties, for loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of personally identifiable information. And there may be legal liability for the theft of client funds. Think wire fraud or business email compromise, being tricked and scammed into sending typically larger sums of money to the wrong bank and just a cyber criminal. Legal liability for the theft or loss of third party corporate information. Being subject to regulatory action for the failure to comply with state breach notification laws. Having to cover the costs of responding to and recovering from a breach. Damage to your reputation. Loss of revenue due to a breach. These are things to take pretty seriously. I mean, this can get crazy fairly quickly.  I would encourage you to pay attention to this. The typical costs of a network breach for small businesses is currently around 200,000. And I will share the device theft, think of smartphone, jump drives, laptops, et cetera. So device theft of these mobile types of things. Wire fraud and ransomware are really common problems we see for law firms in terms of the lawyers and the firms that we insure.  So as an aside, and just again keep your attention in play here, there could be a coverage problem. Think about, a lot of lawyers have fallen prey to various types of financial fraud. But let's just talk about this in the context of wire fraud, being tricked into sending money to the wrong bank because a routing number has been changed and you weren't aware that that change occurred and didn't do anything to try to catch it. And the lawyers will immediately call in and say, "This is malpractice. I got to file a claim." Well, I'm not so sure that that's the case. Theft of funds is a property loss, and malpractice actually doesn't cover property losses.  So wire fraud, theft of funds, can be in many instances an uncovered loss if the only way you're trying to ensure for that is through a malpractice policy. Read your policy. This is not unique to ALPS. These policies weren't intended or designed to cover cyber crime. Now, we'll explore that a little bit more here in a bit, but generally, I mean, that's not the purpose behind it. It's really to cover you for professional negligence in the practice of law.  Okay. Now, let's talk about the fallout. So let's assume, I'm not going to look at this never happens, but we'll see, that there is some type of breach. And I'm not talking about wire fraud here, I'm talking about a data breach so that someone really is in the system. What does that mean? How does this play? Well, you need to understand, we're going to start, if you will, with the response and system recovery. So someone needs to come in, typically a forensic team, IT forensic team, that typically is not your IT support. These folks typically know a great deal about how to protect you, but often don't have the skillset to do the forensic piece once there is a breach. That's a different group.  So they're going to come in and they need to understand the breach, try to figure out what happened and terminate it if it's still going on. There may be programs that have encrypted your system and as you try to clean that up may still be there and that can encrypt again. So they have to terminate, try to clean up. This team is going to try to figure out the who, the what, the when, the where, the how. Really understand.  Well, while all this is going on, you don't have access to your network. They need to image typically the entire network. And that's something that doesn't happen... The preserving the evidence of the crime, and it helps them evaluate and understand, and that doesn't happen in half an hour. So you're not going to have access to your systems and your data while this is going on. Now, how long can that take? It depends on the type of breach and what's going on. If it's just a lost laptop that has some passwords on it, they could probably do a remote kill and try to evaluate was that laptop and any passwords used to access the network? So that may be relatively brief. But if there is a major ransomware attack, as an example, and everything's encrypted, it could be days to even several weeks. It just depends.But we need to think through that, and how would that impact your practice? Some it may not be too bad, others, it could really be a pretty devastating event.  So once all that's done, you understand, okay, man, they're starting to build the system back. Phew, we're going to get through this. It's still not over. Every jurisdiction in the United States has their own unique breach notification law and you need to comply with these. And you need to understand too what states are in play. It's not about, well, I practice here in Florida and that's it. If in your database there's information from clients and third parties, and just the list goes on and on, of people in multiple surrounding states, you may have to comply with those state breach notification laws as well. Typically, there's some cost of notifying all the people that have been impacted by this. The cost of compliance. Do you want to pay for credit monitoring? The list just goes on and on. Reputation management, et cetera. This can get expensive. So that can be managed obviously, but I want you to hear and understand, a breach can be significant. It's not just the loss of money, whether that's a ransomware payment or wire fraud, there's lots of other things that can go on.  And you need to think about, there's all kinds of information in your files. There's just gobs of information out there. So again, don't minimize the consequences of a data breach.  Now the good news of course, and where I said I'd go with this was, that you can manage this risk with the purchase of a cyber liability insurance policy. And of course, I would always couple that with following through on cybersecurity best practices. You don't get a reference to a lot of things in that checklist. There are other proactive things you can do, making sure that there's robust security software running on all the mobile devices at work or anything that used for work. So work from home folks, if they're using personal devices, we need to protect these things. But let's focused on this insurance piece.  At the outset, I do want to share that the purchase of cyber insurance, depending on how much coverage you'd like, the type of coverage you're looking for, how big your firm is, this discussion, sort of tangential discussion on security best practices, getting back to that checklist, is important because an insurer may make it a requirement that you do certain things. You may have to have multifactor authentication in play. They're just going to be looking and asking questions about, what is your security posture? What steps have you taken? What processes are in play? Do you use out-of-band communications as an example to verify the accuracy of all wiring instructions prior to wiring funds? So there are a variety of things that can be important here.  So the accuracy of the information you provide in terms of the application going through the process is going to be very, very important. You don't mislead. Don't lie. Say, "Well, I know this is what they want to hear, this is what they want us to do, and we try, but this is our intent." If post breach an insurer learns that you in fact weren't doing all that you said you were doing on the prevention front, you may have a serious, serious coverage problem. So I do want to focus here just a side moment on these security best practices. That can be very, very significant.  But what basically does cyber liability insurance provide? What do you get for your premium dollar? It's really looking at providing coverage for the type of losses I had talked about a bit. Commonly, you're going to see these policies cover business interruption, as an example. So that would be covering the loss of income and forensic expenses sustained during the period of restoration after the breach. Now, that coverage may be contingent upon a short waiting period. Media liability. So that's things like copyright or trademark infringement, malicious defacement of a website, and liable.  Data recovery. So we're talking about the reasonable and necessary costs incurred in order to regain access to, replace, or restore data, or the reasonable and necessary costs incurred in order to determine that the data cannot be accessed, replaced, or restored. So I think ransomware as an example. And then sometimes you might even pay for a decryption key that don't do much, or you might've been impacted with wiperware and your data's just been erased and destroyed. So there's some costs in terms of trying to figure out, what can we get back and is it doable?  Privacy breach response. So that's the expenses associated with complying with relevant breach notification laws. We had talked about that. Look for a policy that includes coverage for the cost of privacy counsel, forensic investigators, and notification and credit monitoring services.  It will also provide typically, again, data and network liability. Now, these are the damages and expenses related to claims resulting from a breach of data in your control or a third party, and damages and expenses resulting from a security breach. Examples of a security breach would include unauthorized access or use of network resources, a denial-of-service attack, an insertion of malicious code, if somebody downloads something and it's maybe a key log or just tracking what's going on your network, and the transmission of malicious code from your network, so someone's using your network to harm somebody else.  Crisis management. This is the expense associated with bringing in outside experts to investigate the incident and fix the problem. And with some policies can include the cost of a public relations consultant.  Cyber extortion. This is the expense associated with investigations and paying for the return of or gaining back access to data. Now, one thing to be aware with cyber extortion, it is pretty common in the cyber insurance space that you need permission in advance from the insurer to make that ransom payment. It has to do with regulations that monies can't be paid to nation states. You don't want to pay the Iraqis, as an example, their military. And they're very involved in ransomware. So there's some issues there. But I'm just making you aware of that little side note, but typically money is available in terms of reimbursement.  Fraudulent instruction. This is a loss resulting from the transfer of funds after relying in good faith on an instruction that was a misrepresentation of a material fact. Now again, coverage may be contingent upon an out-of-band communication taking place. Again, if you're not familiar, an out-of-band communication is, let's say that the wire fraud instructions come via fax. So that's the inbound communication channel. An out-of-band communication channel means we changed the communication channel for an outbound communication in an attempt to verify the accuracy of the information that was received in the inbound communication. So incoming fax, wire instructions. I pick up the phone with a previously verified number from whoever sent the fax, and I will read the information, Hey, Sue. I just want to verify, thanks for sending over the fax, got everything. Is this information correct?"  Because these things can and have been and will continue to be intercepted and changed. So if a call comes in, it could be a deepfake audio. And I'm telling you folks, this has happened. You're not talking to who you think you're talking to so you have the information. So use a different communication channel to reach back out and confirm. That's an out-of-band communication. That's what we mean by that.  Some other benefits from cyber liability insurance. It can cover regulatory defense and penalties. These are the expenses and penalties that an insurer is obligated to pay as a result of a regulatory proceeding that arose due to a data or security... My tongue is getting twisted today. A security breach.  And finally, payment card liabilities. So it might be PCI fines, the payment card industry PCI fines, costs, expenses. An insurer is legally obligated to pay as a result of a data or security breach.  So these are some of the common coverages you will typically find in a cyber liability policy. And again, that's some pretty thorough stuff and can really help you manage the risks and get through this, in again, the event that there is a significant data breach of some type.  Now, a few things to keep in mind and just be aware of. There are going to be exclusions for war and state sponsored attacks. I would think that wouldn't be much of a surprise. But the current Russia-Ukraine war is one obvious example as to why. NotPetya, which was... It looked like ransomware. Russia released it into the wild prior to the onset of the war, but leading up to it, in an attempt to really do some serious damage in Ukraine. But it just spread and went global. And that NotPetya was what we call wiperware. It looks like ransomware, acts like ransomware, but the intent is not to hold your data ransom for some payment, the intent is to wipe your data, just get rid of everything. That's not good. And it is nasty, nasty stuff.  Also be aware that these policies cover data. They don't cover hardware. If you have a lightning strike and your server's just toast, a cyber liability policy isn't going to respond. That would be something you'd cover under your general insurance, your business owner's policy or your commercial package, whatever that might be.  Some common exclusions just to be aware of, breaches that occurred prior to the effective date of the policy. Now there's a growing move in this space to kind of be a little more liberal with that in terms of this insurance space because it just just very difficult to try to figure out when these things occurred.  But if you are breached and you know it, and you come and buy a cyber liability policy, the house is already on fire, that's not going to work. You would have to have absolutely no idea that a breach occurred. Because sometimes these people can be in your system for months and sometimes even a year or more. That's just the way it is.  Insider attacks. If somebody in your employer, another attorney in the firm, just makes bad decisions for whatever reason and does a lot of damage, again, insider attack, that's not going to be covered.  And some policies, think about what I'm about to share here, phishing scams are often not covered or maybe subject to a sublimit. And really what that's talking about and getting to is yet again, wire fraud business email compromise. It's the loss of funds. Other examples might be someone who stripped it and buying a bunch of gift cards to pay something. Turning over credit card information.  You might ask if there's a social engineering endorsement available that might pull some of this back in. And again, if there is coverage under the policy, typically it's a sublimit and it's not going to be as high as the general limits of the overall cyber liability coverage that you might purchase. So for example, let's say you buy $250,000 in coverage, the sublimit on these kinds of theft of funds might be just 10% of that, so 25 grand. You could also look at getting some coverage under a crime policy, and that's probably the most effective way to try to get this covered. But every carrier is going to be different. I'll come back to that here in a moment.  Also, an attack resulting from a failure to correct a known vulnerability. So if you are continuing to use outdated systems because hey, Windows 8 still works wonderfully, even though you know that it's no longer supported and there's no security patches and up where, as a result of that, you're not keeping systems current and patched and there's a breach. If you're using unpatched systems, outdated systems, that may void coverage for anything. So you need to just be aware.  There are different types, different ways I guess to say, to get into this. A lot of malpractice carriers have what I would say an add-on. It's sort of in part.... Maybe the best way to say is it's some type of cyber endorsement to a malpractice policy. And that's not bad, don't get me wrong. It's better than nothing. But understand these endorsements, these add-ons, often come with lower limits and less broad coverage. And part of the reason that that's the case is due to limited, and at times even no, underwriting being involved in that cyber insurance piece. You can opt in. Sometimes it just is automatically there depending on the carrier. So again, it's important to have some type of cyber coverage, but I need you to understand if you're not really reading these policies, these endorsements, and really understanding what they do and don't do, you might be running with some assumptions. I really prefer to see a freestanding cyber policy.  And just as a aside real quick. I shared that this add-on and the automatic, if you will, endorsement is in some malpractice policies. You'll also see that at times in some business owner package policies as well. But again, the same issue is in play. It's not as austere. Just not as broad. Limits aren't going to be as high. So I would encourage you to look at standalone coverage.  How much? Boy, that is a tough one. I would say in the solo and small firm space, I would want to at a minimum be looking at a quarter to half a million, and understanding that we're talking about the expenses and consequences of a data breach as opposed to theft of funds. I'm going to look at theft of funds perhaps at a higher amount separately, just depending on how much money you're moving through your accounts.  And also, just as an aside, some of the cyber policies, even the standalone policies, will cover theft of your funds, but not theft of client funds. So if money is accidentally wired, firm money wired to a wrong vendor making a payment or some sort out of the operating account, okay, cyber will cover that. You wire 850,000 of client funds out, the cyber policy may not cover that at all. So you really need to ask and look into this. Because it's again another reason to look at a crime policy or a crime endorsement and see what you can do there. You may need to have several different policies in play even to get to this total that whatever you're looking at.  If you can get to a million, even better. But again, I don't know enough about your individual practices and firms in terms of how valuable is the data. How much do we have here? That's something you're going to have to maybe talk with an underwriter or a marketing person with, business development person, with your insurer, to really gets a better ideas of what to do there.  The final thing I want to throw at you is just know that these policies differ, at times substantially, between insurers. So it's worth at times shopping the market a little bit. Prices can be quite variable as well. A lot of the variability goes with just what coverage is being offered. If you have a policy that's going to cover your money and client money as an example, that's going to be more expensive than a policy that doesn't cover any loss of funds in terms of wire fraud and these phishing scams. So again, you have to make sure you're comparing apples to apples.  But know that this is a very dynamic market relative to life insurance and lots of other... They've been around for decades and decades. This is new stuff. And the risks are changing almost daily. It's very difficult for an insurer to really understand what their exposure's going to look like two or three years down the road, based on what the risk analysis is today. Who knows? AI as an example. How is this going to change things? How significant will deepfakes become? They are already in play, so please... But I'm just trying to share, can you appreciate how challenging it is? An insurer has to set premium on an unknown risk. It's changing and evolving very quickly. So that's why you will experience and see great differences perhaps in coverage, differences in premium, et cetera. So it's really worth sitting down and talking with someone about how to move forward and what might be best for your situation.  So that's really all I have on cyber liability. I hope you found something of value. And I like at times to go back and say, "What are the takeaways here?" And the biggest takeaway for me, if I'm sitting in your shoes, if you already have not done so, I strongly encourage you to consider adding cyber liability insurance to your insurance portfolio. In my mind, I just honestly have seen too much. And I truthfully can say I've been involved post breach with a number of firms in a number of different situations, and more than a few really never recovered. The financial hit was just too much, and that was that. So I want to make sure, my hope is that you hear, that there's some learning that we can obtain from the experiences of others. So I'll leave it at that.  Again, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. If you ever have a need, desire, concern that you want to talk about, please don't hesitate to reach out. My email is mbass@alpsinsurance.com. You do not need to be an insured to visit with me. There's no cost. I'm hired to be a risk manager for the bar at large. I'm hired to be your risk manager. So if there's ever anything I can do on cybersecurity, explaining insurance, and a lot of lawyers have questions about legal malpractice insurance and other types of coverage, happy to talk. Ethics, malpractice avoidance, [inaudible 00:41:54], whatever, I'm here. That's it. Bye-bye all. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana.  I'm delighted to have, as my guest today, Bill Harvit, and Bill is the chairman of the Succession Planning Committee at the West Virginia State Bar. And I'll tell you, as a risk guy, succession planning is a huge issue, and it seems to me, in recent years, more and more states are starting to move a little bit on this topic, and for good reason.  Bill and I are going to have a chat about succession planning, and I thought it'd be fun to have Bill not only because of his involvement with the committee and all this going on in West Virginia, but I think, folks, it's important, too, to hear from another practitioner, from somebody that's out there. I've been in this risk management space for 25 years, and I'm sure some of you are tired of hearing just from me, and I like to have different types of thoughts. Before we jump into this, Bill, may I have you take just a moment and introduce yourself. What do listeners need to know about you?  Bill Harvit:  Oh, probably not a lot. No, I'm teasing. I've been practicing law for ... this is my 37th year, coming up on 37th year. I've represented both plaintiffs and defendants through the years, but principally, I've been involved in toxic torts, mass tort litigation, through the years. And, unfortunately, I had a situation, back in 2017, that thrusted me into this succession planning situation, and Mark, it's not because I didn't prepare. We thought we were prepared and we were not. It's a very important topic. I thank you and ALPS for focusing on it. And, listen, to the extent I can help anybody not go through what I went through, I'm happy to do so.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Are you able to share a little bit about what happened and what brought you into this?  Bill Harvit:  Sure. I had been practicing, in fact, I had a firm for 25 years, and my partner and I, as I said, did a lot of mass tort litigation. And literally, one day, I'm not kidding, in April of 2017, I knew he was having some issues, but he walked in and literally said, "I'm done," and walked out, and we had about 5,000 files that were open, again, because we did mass tort litigation. They weren't all 100% open. Some were just waiting on settlements and bankruptcy defendants and things of that nature. It took me two and a half years to wind down that firm and deal with all of the issues that, hopefully, we're not going to get to all of them, but hopefully at least touch on a number of the issues. I lived it, and I will tell you it's probably one of the most stressful times in my life.  And, just in this same vein, that happened to me as a lawyer, but it also happened to me as a non-lawyer. When my father passed away, he and my mother operated a small women's clothing store in southern West Virginia, and not unlike a small law firm, they each had their own duties and responsibilities. And, when he passed away, of course, they had no succession plan, and I had to step into that. I've learned it both as a lawyer and as a non-lawyer.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, what I appreciate about this story is there's this temptation, as I see it, among the bar at large, is succession planning really is an issue that we need to focus on in terms of solo lawyers and the rest of us don't really need to worry about that. And you are so right. I've seen problems in firms of five, eight, 10 lawyers where we have these unexpected, unplanned for transitions, whether it's an untimely death or somebody just saying, "I'm done." All kinds of things can come up here that create some problems.  I was also interested, as we were talking a little bit via email, you had mentioned that West Virginia is in the process of considering some rule changes, and specifically, as I understand it, really making it clear that the obligations to plan for one's succession, it does go beyond the solo space. Am I correct in that?  Bill Harvit:  Yes. Yes. And the reason, let me just cite a couple of statistics, Mark, and you probably know these, but I was a little surprised by them. But, according to the ABA profile of the legal profession in 2022, 40% of lawyers are over the age of 45 and the median age is over 46. The other interesting fact to me, from Thomson Reuters, was that 85% of lawyers are in firms of 10 or fewer and 60% are in firms of three or fewer. And what happens in those situations, I lived it, is when there's a triggering event that disrupts one of the lawyers, then it falls on the others. And I can tell you, I was unable to take new cases, I was barely able to finish the ongoing cases I had because of all the issues that I had to immediately address.  And, listen, these are not isolated events. People think, and when they think of triggering events, they think of death or maybe disability, but triggering events can even include technological disruptions. There's a lot of talk about AI and generative AI, and there is going to be disruption in many areas of our field. There are a vast number of triggering events that can affect the operation of small firms.  But, yes, you are correct. West Virginia is looking to expand the rule to five or fewer because, let's be honest, the economics of the practice of law often dictates, in small firms, that each lawyer practice in a separate area, and that was the case in our firm. But, if you've got one lawyer that's doing domestic relations and another that's doing personal injury, another doing bankruptcy, and then you have a lawyer that's doing something else, say, securities work, well, none of those other lawyers are going to be, I think, competent to handle those files. That's why it really does affect small law firms as well.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I love the term triggering event. I think that is an outstanding term. But you're so right, and folks, I just want to underscore coming at this from a risk perspective, again, "Well, we're a family here. We've got four or five lawyers and good staff and all, and there really isn't ..." But what does happen if we're a firm and I'm the divorce lawyer and I'm out for whatever the triggering event is and I'm out permanently, can you appreciate the challenges that this puts everybody else in? We really do, I should say I really do, and outside the group, believe this, we really do, as a profession, need to take this issue very seriously and do something.  But, now then, the question becomes, Bill, what does that mean? Where do we start? I'm sure you get some calls and some conversations, I hear this a lot too, and is there a difference, I should say, between what a solo needs to do or what a small firm needs to do in terms of where to begin? What are your thoughts?  Bill Harvit:  Well, before I address that, let me tell you what happens if you don't begin the process. In West Virginia in particular, Rule 3.9, administrative rules, is going to require the Supreme Court to appoint someone. As we sit here today, we all have the privilege of making these very difficult decisions while we're in what I call business mode. While things aren't normal, nothing's normal in the practice of law, but while things are basically normal in our lives and we can devote the time to it, if we don't do that, then either we or someone else appointed is going to make those decisions when we're in what I call crisis mode.  And, when you're in crisis mode and you're making decisions, or someone else is making decisions, about whether you need an extended reporting endorsement, for instance, and I'm not plugging ALPS here, but it's a very important issue, and we can talk about that. It's hugely important. But, if you're in crisis mode, or some third party's making that decision for you, then you're in trouble. Now's the time to seriously get started doing that, and it's not easy because this is more of a process than it is an event. And I try to break up succession planning into basically two stages, what I call short-term succession planning, where you're going to get in place the people you need, you're going to do what's necessary to protect your clients, your heirs, your staff, your co-counsel, your partners, and we can talk about that and focus on that, and I think we should immediately.  But there's also a long-term component to this where, and again, it takes time, but where you preserve and enhance the value of your firm, which, a lot of times, is one of the most important assets a lawyer has, in order to transition that firm to new people, whether it's from retirement or whether it's because of a triggering event. We'll never get to the issues on the second part because it just takes so much more time to talk about.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, let's talk about these short-term, more immediate things. What comes to mind? I'm reaching out to you and saying, "Hey, there are two of us here, and we understand, but I have no clue what to do." Where do we start?  Bill Harvit:  Well, there's quite a bit of literature out there. In fact, I just did this, in fact, I wrote it down, I wanted to look, if you ever use Google Scholar on the peer-reviewed literature, well, I had to do this before our podcast, I entered in Google Scholar, I entered succession planning and limited it just to the last 10 years. There were 84,000 articles on succession planning. Then I thought, "Well, okay, those include just general business, so let's limit it to law practice succession planning." Well, there were 28,100 peer-reviewed articles out there.  There's plenty of literature just that's available, but also I would encourage people to contact their bar associations. We're, I think, pretty progressive about moving this issue forward. Oregon, the Oregon State Bar has some wonderful documents online. Again, I think West Virginia has good documents. We're still working on some of ours. Virginia has some really interesting documents on how to incorporate the successor into your will, durable power of attorney, things of that nature. Really, the first step is appointing a successor, and I think you got to give that a lot of consideration. And that's going to, I think, depend upon the type of practice you have, how many partners you have, how many cases you have, and that sort of thing, because you want to appoint someone who's competent in the area of the cases that you handle.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Exactly, and that's an obligation. That's an ethical obligation. You can't just go out and find anybody. I want to underscore, folks, again, we are talking about small firms. If we could go back to I'm the divorce guy and nobody else in the firm does divorce, I know who in the area we could reach out to, and I should take on that responsibility, here are a couple of names, and perhaps I agree to do this for another colleague, another divorce attorney in another firm. It can be reciprocal in other words, but don't leave this, don't leave this. It can create all kinds of unexpected headaches.  The other thing that I want to underscore for all of you is I've had lots of conversations over the years with particularly solo attorneys in all the consulting work that I've done, and even in a lot of the lecturing around the country, but it's awfully hard to find somebody. And let me share a couple of thoughts, because I think part of the problem is there's a misunderstanding about what the ask is. There's this fear, and I'll just make this as a solo because that's the most obvious or clear example, there's this fear, if I pass and Bill is going to be my backup, my successor, that, well, that means that Bill's going to come into my practice, take it over and run the practice, and he's already got his own full-time practice. That's not what the ask is. The ask is to administer the winding up or the transition of my practice. Sometimes this could also be solos agreeing to do this for each other.  You have backup attorney possibilities that can come into this as well. But here's another thought. There's no rule that says I just have to find some guy like Bill to agree to do this. I've been involved in situations where four or five solo attorneys get together as a group and just say, "We'll share these responsibilities." Turned out there was a situation a number of years ago where a lawyer was a member of a five ... group of solos that agreed to be the successors and backup for each other. And one of the younger guys, was early fifties at the time, was involved in a deadly climbing accident, and the other four guys stepped in and divvied up the duties. And it was a very smooth transition, was very emotionally hard for them all, they were all great friends, but the process worked.  I'll just share some thoughts there. Please don't hesitate to say yes, really understand what your obligations are. I want to be clear about that. Bill ...  Bill Harvit:  Well, let me just add something there-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yes, please.  Bill Harvit:  ... because when I said and mentioned finding someone competent to handle your files or to transfer your files, that's not my requirement. That's the rules of ethics requirement. If you look at Rule 1.3 under diligence, comment five, it specifically says, "In the event of death or disability, the duty of diligence may require a plan that designates another competent lawyer to review client files, notify each client of the lawyer's death or disability, and determine whether there's a need for immediate protective action." I'd love to take credit for it, but that's not my original thought.  But let me talk a little bit about some of the things that a successor is going to need to do.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay. Please.  Bill Harvit:  Yeah. I have a good buddy up in the northern part of the state, he and I went to law school together, and years ago, if he would've called me and said, "Would you be my successor?," I would have, knee-jerk reaction, absolutely would've said yes. He's more than two hours away from me. I never would've given thought to some of these issues, and now that I have, it just wouldn't be reasonable for me to do it.  The duties of a successor, number one, are to review the files as soon as possible and triage those files to determine if any clients need assistance immediately. They're going to have to notify those clients immediately because, under the rules of ethics, the client has to approve of the lawyer who's going to handle the file. Triaging those files, extremely important, and talking with the client. What if the client says, "No, no, no, I've got another lawyer that I want to handle it?" Well, that succession lawyer is going to have to prepare that file and get it to that client as soon as possible, probably going to have to notify the court if there's an ongoing matter. All of this is not going to be done in a day. It's just not going to happen.  If there's property that the attorney has, and I'm not talking about closed files, I'm talking about open files, that needs to be returned, whether it's money, whether it's original documents, those are going to have to be returned to the clients. And then later, obviously, there's going to have to be an audit of the client trust account. You would hope your successor is going to collect any outstanding fees and expenses in cases, but they're going to have to know where to look to find that information. They're going to have to do an accounting, a final accounting, probably prepare tax documents, close bank accounts, and here's a big one. They're going to have to review your files to determine which files have to be retained, for how long they have to be retained, and in what form they need to be retained, and this is huge. And I'd like to talk more about that, but there also may be other things specific to your particular practice that a successor's going to have to do.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay, and thank you for sharing all that. My response, as a risk guy, folks, understand what Bill is sharing, in my mind, creates another proactive step that we need to take. Not only do you need to name a backup attorney, it really becomes, I think, a responsibility to develop some type of informational manual, some type of procedure. It's like, "Here are the passwords to get into the key systems. Here are the key systems. This is how the office works." What I would encourage you to do is ask yourself, say, "If I had to walk into my practice today not knowing ... what do I need to know?" You see what I'm trying to go? You know what your practice looks like.  You really need to set forth just an instruction manual, for lack of a better term, on everything the next guy coming in will need to know to do the things that Bill just set forth. Absent those kinds of instructions, it can be far messier than it needs to be. I've been involved in situations where they absolutely had no idea what the passwords were to get into anything, and you're spending time and money, precious time and money. There may be a fire, in other words, in a client file, but if you can't get into this, they're trying to pay somebody to hack in and break it, see what we can do, and that's just crazy. What-  Bill Harvit:  Well, Mark, not to interrupt you, I'm sorry, but I have a list-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Please.  Bill Harvit:  ... I have a half a page list here of things, but I won't read them all, but you're exactly right. If your successor doesn't know where the information is that they're going to need, then you're just slowing the process down. And let me just mention-  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Please.  Bill Harvit:  ... something about funding, because this, to me, is huge because people don't think about this, but during a transition from a triggering event or even retirement, you are going to have to have money to operate that firm. In my case, it was two and a half years, and we were fortunate enough that we had money coming in on cases that I could afford to do it the right way. But let me talk about some of those expenses if I may, because, when that triggering event happens, that office has to continue to run. Your key personnel have to continue to be paid salary and benefits, mortgage has to be paid, all of the operating expenses, who's going to pay for that? If you buy life insurance or disability insurance, most of the time, the lawyer is buying that to protect him or her and their families. They're not thinking about using those funds to transition their office. Those are huge, but let me point out some of the other expenses that I learned about.  Our firm, as I said, was 25 years old. We had taken over from some older lawyers that had retired. As a result, we literally had thousands of files that were in paper form. And it's not because we didn't periodically review them, it's because we had files where we represented infants, we had estate files, my predecessors did a lot of estate planning, so we had to keep those files, proprietary business information that was in files where we had represented businesses. And let me mention something again, you and I haven't talked about this, I have no stock in ALPS, if there is even stock, I'd have no interest, but if you don't maintain a file that you have a potential claim on, then you're likely to run afoul of the insurance company, because if you go out or your successor destroys a file that you got a bunch of notes in that you need to defend yourself for a claim of negligence or other malpractice, you're in trouble.  It's not only the infant files and settlement documents, estate, somebody's got to go through those files and determine what you're going to keep. Now maybe I'm talking too much, but I want to get this out. We had so much paper that I wanted to convert it to digital because I didn't want to pay to store it anywhere. The cost of converting it to digital shocked me. It was $35,000. Well, if you don't have a sinking fund or some way to pay for this, don't expect your successor to pay for it. Your heirs are going to end up paying for it. There are different mechanisms that can be utilized to set up a sinking fund or provide funding to do that. But these expenses are huge.  And one more I'm going to mention because it was another huge one, and that was the extended reporting endorsement. And, again, I have no connection to ALPS, but because of the type of practice we had, it was important for us to purchase an extended reporting endorsement, and it was quite expensive. And the other point I'll mention about that is I think we had maybe 30 days to make that decision. Some of the policies, I've been told, you have to make the decision when you cancel the insurance. That's right.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That's right.  Bill Harvit:  Is your successor going to know that? These are huge issues that affect not only you, but your family and others. Anyway, I'll let you talk now. Sorry about [inaudible 00:27:13].  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, it underscores, and when we talk about the extended reporting endorsement, that's tails, a tail policy is what the vernacular is, but there is no such thing. It's not a policy. It's extended reporting endorsement to the final policy that's enforced. But, again, my takeaway from what you're sharing, Bill, is these expenses, instructions, letting people know about the insurance company, and timing and all these things, if you don't do this, particularly, again, in the solo space, but it's not limited to the solo space, zero planning, what ends up happening, you dump this on the lap of an unsuspecting spouse. And I have talked, more than a few times, these unsuspecting spouses that are just grieving and so angry, so angry, "How dare my spouse leave me with this mess?" And you know what they end up doing? They end up getting a truck and just throwing everything away, files, everything.  Heaven forbid a claim comes up and there's no file and nobody thought to call the carrier and get a tail. Now what you've left your spouse may not be what you think it is or had hoped it would be if there's a viable claim here. I am not making things up. Again, I just want to underscore the importance of being proactive about succession planning.  Now, Bill, we're coming up here on the end of what we have time for today. Is there a final comment you have before I jump with a final comment?  Bill Harvit:  Yeah. You mentioned the spouses, and I just want to not make it about me, but I do want people to understand, as a [inaudible 00:29:14]-year-old kid just out of college and my father passed away, here I was in crisis mode trying to deal with that store, the most stressful time in my entire life. Think about that for your spouse and your family when you're not planning for what's going here. The two important points are get started on the process now, not today, yesterday, get started on the process, and the other important piece is think about how you're going to fund it, because that's huge.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree, absolutely agree. Well, thank you. My final thought is just to say, Bill and I could sit here and chat for easily another hour, there are just so many things to talk about, but I want to underscore Bill's comment. There's a lot of resources available on the ALPS website, alpsinsurance.com. Look under resources, we have a succession planning page. Many state bars have followed suit with what Oregon did a number of years ago, and there are some guides out there that are outstanding. I think most of the guides come under this heading of succession planning, planning for your death or disability, and are available through state bar websites.  And, if your own bar doesn't have anything available, don't hesitate to look at other bar websites. These resources are easily usable in your own jurisdiction. You may need to change some language a little bit from South Carolina to West Virginia or something like that, but that's an easy ...  Folks, I hope you found something of value today. I do appreciate your listening. Bill, it is a pleasure to have you join me. Thank you for taking a little time out of your day. Maybe we can do this again at some point. I'd like to continue the conversation. There's so many things-  Bill Harvit:  Mark, I would love to, I would. It's so important, and I really appreciate ALPS focusing on this.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Well, we're trying to do what we can. After all these years, I've seen too many situations where just being a little proactive in planning could have changed some things.  That's all we have time for today. Folks, thanks for listening. Appreciate your coming. Bye-Bye.   

Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today, I thought I'd talk about subscription and legal practices. They've been around for a number of years. I would not describe them as just this massive rush of lawyers moving into this subscription practice space, but in my experience in recent years, there's been a lot more interest in it, and it seems to me there's a movement, a growing movement toward this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fallout and all the experiences in terms of hybrid work and working from home and things that happened as a result of the pandemic. We're more and more open to, as lawyers, more and more open to really saying, "Can we do something different here?," because different has worked in other spaces, again, going home, and doing virtual practices for a while, and all these changes that occurred. I also think there's a recognition that a move toward more client-centric practices is beneficial financially, and I think a good thing, and this, in terms of the subscription legal practice model, is one way that I think you can create a client-centric practice. It's certainly not the only way. I mean, even traditional practices can be far more client-centric, but I like this model surprisingly, I think some folks, I think a risk guy, or a malpractice insurer speaking to a representative, a malpractice insurer. Malpractice insurers may not like these kinds of things for a variety of reasons, and no, I've got to say, I do. I really do. We need to understand, however, some of the risks and some of the ethical issues, which is really driving my interest in talking about this today, but let's start off by really just sort of defining what a subscription practice is, for those of you that really haven't dug into this or looked at it a whole lot. It really is what it sounds like, and so many of us in today's world are users or consumers of subscription services of a variety of types. Netflix, as an example, would be a great one. Some of these food companies, they send you all the ingredients to make your meals once a week or once a month, these subscription services. There's lots of things. So the market's very used to this, and as it relates to law, we're really just talking about a lawyer or a firm, offering clients certain legal services on a recurring monthly fee. It's a subscription. Now, what would be included in this subscription? Well, all kinds of things. I think it's, lawyers, we can be a creative bunch, and so I can't limit it to this, but generally, you're going to see some things. There may be availability, so for whatever the subscription fee is each month. If I'm a prospective subscriber here, I might be thinking, "Okay, you're describing I'm going to get two hours of consultation with you a month. I might get two additional hours of a document review of some sort. I might get access to online forms, access to you for some drafting.' Again, we can say a document or two and describe what that is, or a certain number of hours toward drafting." Again, we can say a document or two and describe what that is, or a certain number of hours toward drafting. You could offer, I'm sorry, prerecorded videos on relevant topics, in other words, some type of library of educational resources. It could be articles, and just the list just goes on and on. The point is you're trying to create some type of value for the subscriber, and in terms of what it does to you, I mean, think about it. You start to have a little bit more reliability in terms of a steady income stream. I think the model is an excellent model. I also think it can work particularly well in something like the nonprofit space. I mean, a lot of nonprofits out there that really can't afford to hire full-time, in-house council or even full-time outside counsel, and then honestly, they may not need somebody full-time, but the legal services they need can be expensive. Well, hey, if you have six, eight, 10 nonprofits all subscribing to your services, and you're creating a model to meet the needs of small nonprofits, now, here's something I think can work. So that gives you sort of a quick overview to get a sense of what subscription practices are all about. The first thing we need to kind of look at, though, or think through is just identifying, "Are there ethical issues here, particularly issues that would get in the way that would make this problematic to say the least?" Now, there certainly are some ethical issues, and we're going to discuss them here, but I don't see them as problematic in the sense of preventing anyone from moving in this direction, but what do we really need to think about? Well, I think at the outset, if you have multiple clients, and that's the whole purpose here of subscription services, we have a potential for conflicts, and we can talk about how to deal with that, so with the conflict rules are going to be in play. We also have the fee issue. Is it going to be reasonable, and how do we determine what's reasonable? What about advanced payments? Rule 1.15 is going to be in play. So what do we do with these funds when they come in, and how about if... How do we end this? I could, as a subscriber say... After a while, I'm kind of done. I'm just not interested anymore, and you could say, "Boy, Bassingthwaighte has been a subscriber that has just tried to take all kinds of advantage of me and is just so high-maintenance, and I'm not getting anything out of this." You're just, "I'm costing your money than it's worth." So there may be reasons and times where you want to end a subscription. You might find that the whole model has been mispriced and you need to kind of shut this down, and rethink, and relaunch in a different type of model. So how do we conclude all of this stuff? So those are some of the ethical issues. 1.16, declining or terminating representation, 1.15, safekeeping funds, 1.5, setting fees, reasonable fees, and the conflict rules. I think those are the biggest ones that we need to deal with, but, okay, so let's start to kind of get into this a little bit and figure out. I think it's worth starting with 1.5, and that's talk about, "How do we price?" There's not a standard formula here. I think you're going to need to look at the specific language of the rules in the jurisdiction where you are going to offer these services and are licensed to practice, and figure out what is reasonable, but I think it's very doable. You need to... I don't want to say, there's going to be a difference between, "Okay, if I am on the standard hourly billing model, I don't think pricing and thinking through is going to work in the subscription model, because why offer the subscription if your billing is going to be the same as the hourly kind of analysis?" What you sort of have to do is sit down and figure out, "Okay, how much of my time is available?," so if I'm going to offer two hours of consultation, a couple hours of contract review, and my availability. So in other words, I may, as the subscriber, may use or not use these services that you're going to offer, but in terms of the two hours every month, I may just not need that, but I'm also, I have availability to you if I do. So you start to factor in, okay, so the value that you're offering is access to you, some limited services, and perhaps these educational things, whether it's the forms, the access to some type of documents, or some DIY kinds of things, whatever it might be, and you kind of have to look at all that and try to hit a number that works, so you're going to have work through that. Again, I can't give you a standard formula, but I think it's worth making, valuing yourself or valuing your subscription based upon access, and I would try, I think honestly, to do a little discount here. You're exchanging, if you will, the full service hourly billing kind of cost model to ongoing, consistent, regular monthly income, so it has to make financial sense to me as a subscriber. So there's just some things to think about. I can't give you the magic number here, again, a magic formula. I've seen some situations where it might be 100, $200 a month, and in other situations I've seen lawyers charging several thousand, five, 8,000 a month for services, but what the subscribers are getting for that five to 8,000 is, really, some pretty significant work, but it's still going to be less expensive to the subscriber then, and typically, these are going to be businesses at this tier, I think in most situations, but the business is still saving money by going on this subscription practice. So you need to find that magic number that's sort of a win-win for both of you. The more interesting question is ethically the safekeeping of funds, when, in other words, if you start to get a subscriber and these monthly fees are coming in, what do you do with them? Do they need to be put in a trust account? Can they be earned upon receipt? Can you make them non-refundable? There are a lot of ideas out there, and you certainly want to get the steady income and make it easy for you and easy for your subscribers. The problem here is the ethical rules really don't address specifically this model. The one thing, and again, you're always going to have to check your local jurisdiction in terms of the RPCs here, I would strongly advise never to use words like non-refundable in... I don't care what your model is. To me, it's more of an issue, "Are we going to put it in trust or not?" I think I sort of like this hybrid approach. I would argue that the funds that you charge monthly are earned upon receipt because there's this retainer component to it. It's not a true retainer, because a true retainer is just a client paying you to be available, and then any work that they ask you to do, subsequent to putting you on retainer, you charge whatever your rates are, so a true retainer is solely for availability. That's kind of what we have here, but it's a hybrid thing, because in addition to getting access to you, whether I use it or not, in a lot of these situations, I'm going to have access to this library, to these other resources on day one, and so if you describe what I get as the subscriber for the subscription, in a way, clearly saying, "I get access to you, I get access to this library of resources," or whatever other perks are out there on the side, and you have access to me on day one, and you have access to library on day one, well, I would consider that earned upon receipt. Now, there still could be some arguments that ... Ethically, some jurisdictions may not like that. Well, I see two workarounds with that. The first would be you can charge at the end of the month, so then, it's earned upon receipt because they got what they are paying for by the end of the month. They've had their month of access. Some say, "Wow, I'm giving away a month for free." Well, yeah, I get that. You could take the payment upfront, put it in trust, and then take it out of trust at the end of each month. You might take the first payment only and keep it in trust, and then, so they pay at the start. On day one, they pay. You just hold that in trust, and then at the end of each month, or at the first of every next month, that keeps moving into your account and you sort of just keep that first payment out there, I guess for a while, 'cause I don't want to keep the hassle of moving money twice every month, sort of maybe let something sit. Again, you'd have to check with your local ethics council in whatever jurisdiction to, again, talk through that, but I think there's a strong argument for having it earned upon receipt if it is described like this in terms of clearly identifying what you get. Okay, there are some other ethical issues that we can talk about, but before I sort of... Instead of hitting them directly, I first want to let you know that there's an interesting ethics opinion that came out of Maryland, and it happens, if you're interested in this opinion, it's docket number 2020-01, so issued in January of 2020. It's worth taking a look at, but it's the only opinion that I'm aware of that really sort of dug into subscription practices and try to address some of these issues, and I think the advice set forth in that opinion is well worth looking at. So I'm going to share sort of the key things that clients must be made aware of, or potential subscribers must be made aware of before they sign on the dotted line, okay? I'm sharing this because I think this addresses reasonably well, the issues that arise ethically. So there are nine items that this opinion talks about. The first, the specific services to be provided in exchange for the subscription fee must be disclosed and any limitations on the client's use of these services within a particular service period, so we need to set forth that information in an agreement. The client, or potential subscriber here, I keep saying client, needs to understand the method by which a subscribing client may request such services and the timeframe within which such services are to be provided, "Is this monthly?," "Is this quarterly?," that kind of thing, okay? The benefits of a subscription, which would reserve your availability for representation, but which would also compensate you for providing the specified services upon request and without additional charge. So really saying, "What do I get for my subscription fee?" You need to detail that. The risks associated with this form of representation. Now, and they go on and say, "It may be hard to predict all the risks associated," but you have to inform them of some minimum type of things, conflicts of interest as an example, and other legal issues may later arise, which could preclude you from rendering some or all of the services. Conflicts, let's talk about that. You can't represent two clients that are directly adverse. An example might be you represent some corporations and you help register a trademark for one of the companies, and then later on, one of the other companies, it's a client. A subscriber asks you to register a competing mark. Well, you can't do that, okay? So we can describe what happens here. If a conflict arises, perhaps you disclose it, you'll refer we're able, the client, the second client, to another attorney to handle certain specific matters. Depending what's going on, you may not be able to stay with the second client at all, and so you need to withdraw entirely and end that subscription. So the details, the specifics are going to matter here in terms of what's creating the conflict and how you can resolve it, but I think it is resolvable, and we can get around, if you will, the hot potato drop, where particularly, when you're having joint representation... That's where it comes up most in terms of the hot potato drop. If you're out for one, you're out for all. Well, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case when we're talking about situations like this, because we're disclosing upfront. View it as informed consent. This is one of the ramifications. There may be situations that you can't control because clients self-subscribe, and if you identify down the road a conflict, they agree in advance that they understand you may refer or you may have to withdraw. So I view this as informed consent, and so there are different approaches here in terms of how you describe this and what clients are going to be asked to waive, but again, practice areas, et cetera are going to dictate some of this, but I think it's doable. I really do. Some other things that the Maryland Opinion talked about, you need to describe situations in which additional charges would apply for any of the services listed and whether additional retainer agreements would be required for more extensive work. The way I see that is, and I see this as a beneficial thing to do upfront, so I'm a subscriber and I see that I get these two hours of consultations or last-minute touch base if needed, I get contract review, document review, whatever it might be, but I know that there are going to be times where I'm going to need more work, but that's not going to be enough, and so you should describe and detail, "These are the limitations. This is specifically what you get and what you don't get for the subscription price, the subscription fee." "If you need additional services along these lines," and you're going to know what most clients are going to need, "Here is the list. If you need additional hours, if you need additional documents drafted, whatever it might be, here are the rates." I would suggest sort of offering and letting people know so they can see some of the benefits, in other words. "Here's the friend and family/subscriber discount. Our subscribers get that special price." "If you weren't a subscriber, having this service provided by me would normally cost you this," and it's another way to demonstrate value add of the subscription. So I think there's real value in doing that to help both in the sales piece, but also in the risk management piece so that we don't get into these arguments about, "Well, I thought I'd get more ..." Let's just make it very clear so this subscriber can make an informed decision, about whether or not to even do this. Since these fees... So going back to what the Maryland bar is recommending, additional things, setting forth that since these fees will be earned, irrespective of whether the client actually requests such service, you want to advise subscribers that the plan may not work to their advantage if they do not use available services, at least on a somewhat regular basis. Help them understand the risks, the benefits, the pros and cons, okay? Then, you should also describe the circumstances under which subscription fees will be refunded to the client, including a provision that fees would, at a minimum, be refunded if the attorney fails, if you fail to render some or all of the services requested, okay? I would couple that with notices of the clients, right to cancel the subscription at any time subject to the refund policy that you come up with, okay? So let's talk about that a little bit. You will see in some models, and I'm just making numbers up here obviously, but let's say the subscription is $100 a month. If I sign up for a year, my subscription's going to be discounted even more and maybe it'll cost me $1,000 for the year, as opposed to $1,200, and I'm in for six months, and then I'm not using this in the way I thought, or you decide, "Bassingthwaighte's using it way, way too much," and this subscription is going to be terminated before the year's out. So you haven't earned the full year, right? I've only been in six months, so you would want to refund half because I didn't get the benefit of the full year subscription. So that's an example of why I don't like these non-refundable kinds of things because bars are very consistent on this one. If you haven't earned it, you can't keep it, and even calling it non-refundable doesn't change that. It's just an example of just what we need to think through. Then, if you're going to deposit into your operating account, in other words, treating the subscription fee at the beginning of the month as fully earned upon payment, if that is permissible in your jurisdictions, some jurisdictions, it should be, and in others, it's not going to be because it's not going to be viewed as earned, they don't see things quite the way I and a few others do, but just disclose what's going to happen to the fund, that the fees will be deposited into your operating account upon receipt subject, of course, to a refund of the entire subscription fee if you're not available or unable to provide the specified services. I could see, "Well, what that..." Could be anything. You get infected with ransomware and you're out for a while, and you couldn't follow through on any of this stuff. You have an unforeseen illness of some sort. I mean, life happens, in other words, and there can be times where you can't follow through, but again, you're just disclosing. You're being very direct and upfront, transparent, that's a word of the day, about the money situation here. I like that opinion because it really does give us a sense of how to navigate these waters. What it doesn't really get into a great deal, other than to say the client has a right to cancel the subscription, I think it's also worth setting forth that you can cancel the subscription. You might talk about why, whether the difficulties with a particular client, you're changing the focus of your practice, you might even need to reevaluate the terms, but I think it's important to let people know that you also, like they, have a right to cancel. You have a right to cancel too, and let's talk about what happens there, and particularly again, with the money, and my suspicion is the same policy, refund policy, et cetera, is going to be in play regardless of who terminates, but I think it's worth addressing because it's too easy to focus on all the things that might happen with a client and taking care and making sure they're fully informed, but then not thinking about, "Well, wait. What happens if I don't like this either?," speaking on the lawyer side of this. So that's sort of the gist of subscription practices and some of the ethical concerns and how I might think through the ethical issues and resolve them. I really do find the Maryland Opinion helpful. I just want to keep underscoring because I think it's a worthwhile process to go through in advance, to really sit down and think through these issues and write an agreement that really discloses all of these things. It helps us, as lawyers, get a handle on, really, "What are we doing? What are we offering?" I think it's also then, just going to prevent disagreements and misunderstandings, perhaps is a better word, from arising with subscribers down the road. The one other little thing we could talk about briefly, and my apologies here, I wish I could give you a black and white answer, a very clear answer, and I can't, but I can give you something to think about. The interesting issue here is, "Is malpractice coverage going to be in play with a subscription practice?" The answer isn't as clear as I'd like it to be or I would hope it would be. I think in general, yes. When you are in an attorney-client relationship, which you would be, but let's make sure that your subscription model is structured that way, because they have time with you, availability and all that, you are going to be delivering professional services using the skillset that you have as a lawyer to these clients, and they are all clients of your practice, so the subscription practice has to be part of... Sometimes it's all, and that's okay, but more often, it tends to be part of a practice, but don't break this off into a separate company. I mean, you can, and we could talk about that in a minute, but if you want your malpractice policy that you have with your firm, these subscribers need to be clients of the firm, and they can be subscription practice clients. So I think if we've got all that, I think we're pretty good. Here's the rub, you need to look at sort of the definition of professional services, and is offering, as an example, do-it-yourself forms, that any subscriber can just come in and pick and use on their own without any involvement, review, advice from you about, "Does this fit the need or not?," some are going to argue that's not the practice of law, that's not professional services, and policies aren't going to respond. That's more of exposure. You're sort of a publisher's exposure, something along those lines. You're making written materials available, and that's using your own risk kind of stuff. So there's not going to be a bright line on that when, in my mind, there's a bit of a difference between offering some forms, but advising clients to meet with you for, even if it's just a 15-minute discussion, to make sure that this form accurately addresses the legal concern the client is hoping the form will resolve, take care of. So that, to me, is very much down the middle of the road of practicing law, and if it's just freestanding forms, and they may not even get access ... So I'm really trying to draw a line here that's a little clearer on explaining or demonstrating the risk, but if we have just this site, where solely forms are made available, and that's all they get for their subscription, and they can just get in and have access and you're never really involved, you could say, "Well, I could be involved, and here's the subscribers discount for legal services," but the subscription doesn't include that at all. And so as a subscriber, I start using these forms. I never get involved with you, and I sue you, at some point, because I don't know what I'm doing with these forms and made all kinds of mistakes. That malpractice policy isn't going to come into play there. Now, you certainly can ensure for that type of risk, and it's probably easier, in a situation like this, to split things out and have sort of a separate company that is just doing this exclusive DIY model without any attorney involvement there. You can get insurance on both sides and I think be pretty good, or both pieces of that, but it's when we start to blend this in various ways, we can get a little muddy. The best I can do is to say, as you work through looking at the model, and should you want to go in this direction, reach out to your carrier and have some discussions, and look at policy language, and try to identify and work through any coverage issues that might come up. I just hate to see you run with an assumption, that because this is done at the banner of a law firm, that coverage is automatically there. Lawyers are not insured for everything they do under the banner of a law firm. Look at exclusions and policies. Financial advice is an example, obligations that arise under contract. There's all kinds of things that can come up. A wrongful disbursement of funds, that's a property loss, that's not a professional negligence problem. So there are all kinds of things, and this is just another example of something that isn't necessarily covered. I just don't want to see you run with an assumption. So we've been at it here far longer than I thought we would. I hope you found something of value with this podcast. As always, if you have questions, concerns on this, or any other topic, please do not hesitate to reach out. My email address is mbass, B-A-S-S at alpsinsurance, one word,  dot com. mbass@alpsinsurance.com. Hey, folks, it's been a pleasure. Have a good one. Bye-bye.  

We have extremely exciting news for you all — Rio Peterson, who you may already know from Clio — has joined ALPS as our Bar & Affinity Partnership Strategist! Mark sits down with Rio to welcome her to ALPS and hear about her new role!  Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to our first video podcast recording of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. You'll notice I'm sitting here with our guest, Rio, and more about her in a moment. Now that we're on video, a couple of things. For those of you that listen you finally get to see a little bit of what the remote office in Florida looks like. Maybe I'll have to do a little camera spin at some point. But I'm also thinking we need to maybe post some videos or a short video of the beautiful historic Florence building in downtown Missoula, Montana. People keep hearing about this. I do have as my guest today Rio Peterson. Rio is someone I've worked with on and off through the years when she was at Clio, and she is now a very valued new member of the ALPS Corporation here. We're going to be talking a bit about that. As we were talking, Rio, I'm based in Florida, as many of you know. Rio is based in Vancouver, BC, which makes us... This is a unique podcast. We are the two employees, I think, the farthest apart. Here we are. Rio Peterson: I think so too. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Kind of an odd little thing. Really, folks, what I wanted to talk about today, I do some presentation, I've been doing it for a lot of years, on the basics of lawyers' professional liability insurance, and some programs on how to buy, really explaining what coverage does and doesn't do. Really digging into the ins and outs because so many lawyers, I think, really don't even know what their coverage is until all of a sudden a claim arises. That's the first time they pick it up and oh my gosh, oh my gosh. It's worthwhile knowing what your policy covers. But I also talk about value adds, and when you're thinking about purchasing insurance, looking at or asking the question, what are you getting for your premium dollars? There really should be a bit more than just the peace of mind that the policy can bring. Companies are doing all kinds of things and today we are going to talk about some of the value adds that ALPS has. So before we jump into this a little bit, Rio, could you just give us a little bit of brief background, a verbal bio, and I'll share a little bit more about myself, but I'd love for you to start. Rio Peterson: Yes, absolutely. Thank you first of all for having me. It's very exciting to get to span the Continental Divide with you today. I came to ALPS by way of Clio, which is a Canadian-based legal practice management software tech company. I was at Clio for about five and a half years where I managed Clio's Bar Association Partnership Program. Clio and lots of other companies just like ALPS partner with bar associations across North America to really provide value to their members in the form of lots of different ways, which we'll talk about shortly. But as part of that role I did a lot of public speaking, a lot of education about best practices for running a law firm, and just kind of a lot of event attendance, different things. But ultimately it was my job to make sure that the relationships we had with these bar associations were mutually beneficial, that everybody was winning when we partnered together. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Folks, I don't know how often or how far we've really driven down. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS. I've been with ALPS now... It's been over 25 years and always been in the role of risk manager of some sort. What that term means or has meant over the years has changed a bit, but I have done a tremendous amount of consulting with firms of all shapes and sizes all over the country. Do a lot of content creation, a lot of CLE development and lecturing, a lot of writing, some podcasting, those kinds of things. I really view myself as a content guy and I've had a lot of fun. One of the things that we do is a major CLE tour every year in Virginia, and it's up to 14. I think the highest we got to was 18 events, three-hour events in one tour. But the unique thing about this is I get to write movie scripts, and actually go up to the Virginia, and we hire a professional crew and actors and all this. I just never thought. I've written now I think 20 separate films and that's just been a lot of fun. I share that because again this risk side has been supporting bar associations as well. We do that in conjunction with Virginia State Bar and it's been a very, very successful program. Okay, Rio, let's get back to you and what you're doing. If my memory serves, I love your position title. You are, and make sure I'm right on this, the bar affinity partnership strategist. Rio Peterson: Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That's just awesome. It sounds very dignified and very just this special thing. Can you explain really practically, day to day, what does that mean? I guess I'd like to know two things. One, what is your interest in this, and then why is this important? What is the value add for any insured? So let's just kind of explore all this. Rio Peterson: Yeah, fantastic question. So it's interesting, I sort of fell face first accidentally into this role and this line of work. Something that really, really appeals to me about it is I'm very passionate about relationships, building relationships. I am also a big fan of helping people succeed. There's a lot of, I think, gaps that lawyers experience in their knowledge when they come out of law school and they're looking to run a practice. My role really allows me to be hands-on with helping to provide some guidance, and extra resources and support to help those legal professionals thrive. The way that that kind of comes about is, well, I mean, as we all know, bar associations tend to hold a level of authority and a level of guidance, and lawyers tend to look to them for those things. So it's very obviously advantageous for any partner or any company to partner with a bar association and get their stamp of approval. That's the ideal because if the bar says you're good to go then very risk-averse lawyers are much more likely to give you a second look and give you the time of day. But it really is about a lot more than just getting that stamp of approval. I mean, that's only a small part of it. When I think about partnerships, I mean, they are just that. They have to be a mutually beneficial experience for everyone. If we were just to go to the bars and say, "Hey, just give us your stamp of approval and then you'll never hear from us again," well that's not really the greatest experience for really anybody. I mean, what is the bar getting in exchange for that stamp of approval? So my role as a strategist is to really come up with a strategy, a way, a plan to maximize those relationships in order to provide additional value to our partners that they can then pass on to their members. So for example, with content, I mean, we're talking about content and how you provided a lot of risk management content. I mean, a lot is an understatement I feel like, but that's kind of a strategy, I guess, or a way forward that I would consider to be adding value to our partnership. A lot of bars have... They're running on a small staff. They don't have the resources to create extensive amounts of content for their users. They often don't have a staff member who specializes in something like risk management. So it's for me to identify those opportunities to then say, "Hey, my partner, I can provide you with this. I can give you these resources, I can give you this support so that we are both flourishing as part of this arrangement." Mark Bassingthwaighte: So what I'm hearing is is there's two pieces to this. We're looking at providing resources that are going to be beneficial to members of the bars that we partnership with, but we are also, am I hearing correctly, really trying to support the bar associations themselves so that there's a value add to the bar. I'd really be curious, what are your thoughts? I hear some discussions at times traveling around the country and just talking to lawyers in all sorts of settings. There are some that will say, "I just don't see the value of a bar association," and there's some complaints. "I'm paying the dues," and all these kinds of things. I truly would be curious, what are your thoughts? Do you see bar associations as serving a purpose? Do we really... I'm not sure how to say it. Does this make sense for a company like ALPS to do this? I don't know. What are your thoughts? Rio Peterson: Yeah. Oh, I love this question. I love this question because it really is, I don't know, a topic that a lot of bars and a lot of legal professionals have been wrestling with in recent years. I mean, we've seen so many changes with bars like the California Bar becoming... Is ununified the right... Deunified? Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Rio Peterson: Yeah, right? Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, that works for me. Rio Peterson: You know what I'm trying to say, right? Well, we see a change in bars and really, just as you said, their role and their level of importance is being questioned. So my personal opinion is that yes, the bars are very important. They provide professional guidance. They ideally should be providing support to solo and small lawyers who are running their own law firms who are not sure what they're doing, who are trying to make a go of things. I do think they have a very important role to play, but something that I see frequently is that the way in which the bars view themselves hasn't really changed. A lot of, say, the mandatory. If you can count on members having to join, why would you change the way that you are delivering value and service to your members because they don't have a choice to be there? So I'm not shocked that a lot of lawyers and legal professionals are questioning whether or not the bars need to be, or whether or not they should be as involved as they are. But really I do think it comes down to those bars needing to evolve with their membership, needing to connect better with members, and see really what post-COVID legal practice looks like and how they can better meet those members' needs. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. Again, in a lot of the programming that we do in terms of CLEs and really pushing some of the ethical boundaries in terms of exploring them and looking at just business models and all kinds of things, I have always been one that says it's more important than ever. And I think about even the evolution of ChatGPT and where AI is going. There's a lot of folks out there saying, "This is going to be the end of lawyers and the end of legal professionals, paralegals," and all this stuff. I'm not sure I go that far, but it is important. Where I'm going with this is that I think lawyers too have been... Lawyers at large, there are going to be exceptions to all of this, but as a profession, we tend to be slow in terms of adopting and changing business models. You keep saying, "The billable hours got to die," and it just doesn't seem to die, just as an example. Rio Peterson: Just slow down. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But we do need to continue to evolve with the changing needs of the marketplace. And I think bar associations struggle with that too, because their marketplace is the bar at large, but they have struggled with trying to reinvent themselves and trying to figure out where to go. And I hear you saying, and I really think this is... I'm 100% behind what I hear you saying is one of the things that a company like ALPS can do is be a partner in helping work that conundrum, work that problem. Let's figure out how because I think too carriers need to continue to evolve and change. How ALPS did business 25 years ago and a little longer, it's very, very different from how we do it today. Making online applications. We have this, "Give us 20 minutes, we'll give you a quote," kind of thing. That's unheard of 20 years ago in this space. It's just absolutely. So exploring the relationships and trying to figure out what we could do with bar associations is a value add to the bar and I think is a value add to us. I mean- Rio Peterson: Yeah. So- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, please. Rio Peterson: I hope you don't mind if I just... Mark Bassingthwaighte: No, no, no. Rio Peterson: I really do think that kind of helping bars navigate the need to update, and adjust, and change is really an excellent kind of place for ALPS and companies like us to really come into play and be a part of that. Bars, they're like snowflakes, just like legal professionals. They're all different and they all have different challenges and different changes in modernization that they need to make. The great thing about ALPS and about other companies is that we're out in the world and we get exposed to a lot of really different experiences, lots of different kind of content, just a whole galaxy of different opportunities and knowledge that we have that we can then pass on to our partners and really help them navigate these divides. For example, with reinventing events post-COVID, I mean, we have so many partners who are struggling with this. And as a company who attends a lot of events, as a company who hosts its own events, we have a lot of knowledge and information that we can share with our partners in order to really help them reinvigorate that, and increase their engagement and bring members back into the fold. Mark Bassingthwaighte: One of the things, folks, that I shared earlier, I'm very excited to have Rio join ALPS. As I see it, man, when I think what Clio loss and what ALPS gained is just... This is a win, big time. There's a lot of excitement, a lot of energy. Trust me, folks, excitement, energy is just... Rio's all about that. It's just such a joy and a lot of fun. Do you have some just, how do I want to say this, kind of off the cuff, off just rapid fire even kinds of things? What ideas, what thoughts, what direction, where do you want to go with this position, let's say, in the next two to three years? Let's take, well, certain realities. There's sometimes some fiscal realities, whether they're corporate or whether they're bar side, but if you could flash this wand and make the changes, where do the bars need to go? We talk about reinventing themselves. What are your thoughts about how does this value add come back? Rio Peterson: Yes, yes. Well, I mean, ultimately I would love for ALPS to be kind of the authority on a lot of different topics and obviously the first choice for bars to turn to when they have questions. I think I could address this question in two different ways. First of all, for the program in terms of ALPS, right now we've got 19 partners. I would love to see all 50 states at some point. That would be my big dream. If I could just wave my wand, I would love to see that happen. I feel that there are a number of different levers that can really be used to grow the program and really increase the impact that we have through advertising. Obviously content creation and sharing is central to that. Also fiscal incentivization, financial incentivization, some kind of maybe revenue sharing. We'll see. Who knows? There's some interesting ideas we could play with, but lots of different options. Oh, I see the wheels turning. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Do you see tech leadership coming into play at all here? Is there a place for that? Rio Peterson: Oh, absolutely. I think ALPS is kind of perfectly primed to partner with tech companies. I think really in a similar way that we partner with the bars too. If you think about it, having coverage and having insurance is a central part of running a firm. But when you partner that with say legal practice management software or something that's going to help you stay on top of your communications and reduce ultimately the risk that you have for claims, that to me is like a match, just a perfect match. Then you've got this kind of unstoppable partnership of two, three, maybe even multiple companies who provide excellent content, provide kind of a holistic view of a law firm. Really, yes, I think that's a fantastic opportunity and exciting frontier I would love us to explore more. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. You know me. I can get a little crazy and wild at times. Rio Peterson: Oh, me too. Mark Bassingthwaighte: One of the things that I've been playing around with of late. Folks, some of you, if you hear me over the years, I'm not a high risk-taker and I'm also very private. I'm not one actively involved, at least in my personal life, on all sorts of social medias. Our kids always say, "Well we have nothing to hide, Dad," and I said, "Well, it's not about hiding. When you put everything out there people can take advantage of this information." But the point of all this- Rio Peterson: I think we could- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, I- Rio Peterson: I'm sorry, go ahead. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I made a jump. I decided because I keep... We're State Farm people and our agent is a good guy. "Mark, you got to start using this drive safe app." And I'm thinking, I don't want them tracking me all over. I just don't think so. I finally have been convinced, so I'm playing around with this- Rio Peterson: Oh, you hopped on board. Mark Bassingthwaighte: ... This drive safe and just exploring and all that. What about the equivalent of a drive safe app in the malpractice space? Rio Peterson: Oh, yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Wouldn't that be interesting? Rio Peterson: Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Could you tie that in with the bars? I don't know, but I just thought... I'm sitting here going like, okay, my head just starts popping. I get all these crazy ideas, but why not? Rio Peterson: Yes. And I find that idea really, really interesting because I think it also ties in really well to working with tech companies as well, being more of an integration partner as opposed to just an affinity partnership. Then that's also an incredible value add to provide to bar associations. Kind of back to our point about where I see the program going and with bars, I think the really the biggest thing that the bars need to hop on board with is opening their minds to the ideas of those types of possibilities. Thinking completely outside the box, what is something different and new that we haven't even thought of? Really also starting to see vendors, to see companies as a resource for that type of thinking and for those types of ideas. Not to toot our own horn, but we've got some great ideas as you just mentioned. Mark Bassingthwaighte: We do like to think around here, and it's one of the things I really love about ALPS, just as an aside. I don't stay at a company for 25-plus years just because. There's a lot of good things going on in this company, but one of the things that I really like is there's strong encouragement to think "outside of the box". But it's for real. We're not checking off a box. Let's everybody think outside the box and now we'll go back and do exactly what every other- Rio Peterson: And then we're done and we don't have to do anything. Mark Bassingthwaighte: No, no. You're not going to stay relevant in the market. Change is... So what we're talking about and hoping and trying to help bars do, we also live by the mantra. We really do. We're- Rio Peterson: Yes. And I- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes, please go ahead. Rio Peterson: Oh, sorry. I was just going to say along those lines, I mean, I was at Clio for five and a half years and it was a really incredible experience, but I considered very, very deeply about joining ALPS. It was a decision I took very seriously, and that was something that was really, really appealing to me, is this embracing moving forward. And not just change for the sake of change, but intentional, encouraging people to think bigger and think about how we can implement those ideas and actually moving forward with them. That was just a really big draw and selling point to me. That's been my experience thus far in my two months at ALPS. That's absolutely been the experience. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Very good. I want to share just a little bit about myself and start to wrap here, but then I want to come back to you because I think you're going to be good with this. Folks, one of the things I want to share, and I need to be better about getting this message out. You have heard me say for a long time that I am a risk manager here at ALPS, and I really want to let you... What does that mean? I am not a traditional, if you will, CRO, chief risk officer. I am not hired to manage the risk of this corporation. I am hired to be your risk manager. I am hired to be a risk manager, if you will, for the bar at large. You do not need to be on the opposite shore to visit with me. You can reach out anytime via email or our phone. There's no cost involved. If you have a question or concern on ethics, risk management, practice management, cybersecurity, on and on, I will do the best I can to help. If I don't have the answer on the top of my head I will try to do what I can to get it for you. So that said, let me just share what our phone number is. It's (800) 367-2577. You can just call in and ask to speak to that risk guy because Bassingthwaighte can be a hard name to remember, but Mark. B16 is another good one. You may also reach out to me at mbass@ALPSinsurance.com. Feel free anytime. Now to kind of tie this back to what we've been talking about here, again, folks, Rio is just a rockstar in my head. This is such a good point of evolution, continuing evolution for the corporation, for ALPS and where we're going to go. When she says, "I'd like to see 50 bars," I don't know if we get the 50, but I'm not going to bet against her. But I would invite you, and Rio, I think you're going to be open to this, if any of you folks... We are talking about value adds and I agree with Rio. I think bar associations still can be very, very relevant, and I think serve a great purpose, but do need, and some struggle with this more than others, but [inaudible 00:27:13] how do they remain relevant? What does that mean? What is the value add? We are in a position where we can help. Let us help you. If you have some thoughts or ideas, "I would love to see ALPS do this with our local bar," how can we help? I invite you and encourage you to reach out to Rio, and Rio if you would share your... I assume you're good with this. If you would share your email address as well, and any closing thoughts that you have, and then we'll wrap. Rio Peterson: Yes. Yes. So to your point, it is literally my job to help our partners be successful, and by extension their members and legal professionals be successful. This is something that I have quite a bit of experience in, and frankly, I just really love helping people succeed and helping organizations succeed. So yes, please reach out. Absolutely. I've got lots of great ideas. We have a fantastic team here that is just ready and willing to offer any support that we can. So please email me at rpeterson@ALPSinsurance.com. Yes, I would love to hear from you. I am more than happy to answer questions. You want us to come out, want Mark to do a fantastic CLE. They are incredibly interesting and hilariously well done. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, thank you. Rio Peterson: Yes, so if you're looking for speaker, sponsorships, anything please reach out. Yeah. Happy to help. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, Rio, it's been a pleasure as always. Rio Peterson: As always. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And we're going to be seeing each other multiple times on Teams and all the other things we do. But I look forward, we're going to be getting together on the road here in a, I don't know, another six, eight weeks. But I look forward to seeing you in Virginia. Actually, we may be in Denver. I'm going to see you in Denver next week. Rio Peterson: Oh, oh yes. That's right, that's right. Mark Bassingthwaighte: There we go, so. Rio Peterson: We'll see each other in Denver. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Sounds good. All right. It's been a pleasure. Rio Peterson: All right. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Thanks all. Rio Peterson: Thank you so much, Mark. Mark Bassingthwaighte: We'll see you later. Bye-bye. Rio Peterson: Bye everyone.

Ready to grow or start a law practice? Let's cover a few common situations where a lack of insurance coverage will come into play.  — Transcript: Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at Alps. Welcome to another episode of Alps In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today, it's just me. We're going to talk about concerns with growing a practice, developing a practice, and looking at four situations where lawyers are again, just taking steps to build or grow a practice. Sometimes they're not always thinking through the ramifications of decisions being made. I'm not here to try to convince you not to do any of these things. Some are far more common than one or two of the other things. I'm all in on trying to grow and develop a practice, building just from the very beginning. There are all kinds of situations where we want to perhaps make some changes. I want to again, explore the ramifications. What we're going to talk about are contract lawyers. We're going to talk about ancillary services. We're going to talk about what I call the licensed rental problem. Then an interesting thing that I've seen a little bit more of, of late is creating different names for a firm. We'll get into that at the end. Let's jump right in. Contract lawyering has been around for quite a while. Again, it can be very, very appropriate, it can be very beneficial, can be a great way to start some things, at least to bring some money in. There are some things that you need to be aware of if you're ever thinking about becoming a contract lawyer. I want to talk about three specific situations. The first is going to be, and I think this is relatively common, you're going to be engaged full-time by one firm and held out to the general public as being exclusively associated with this firm. You're a full-time contract lawyer. I want you to think about coverage, because if you want to be insured, you need to be added to the policy of this firm. Sometimes the firm will refuse to do so, or for some crazy reason, is unable to do so, and then they turn around and say, "Well, we expect you to purchase your own policy." Does that solve the problem of coverage? It actually doesn't. We need to understand how coverage works. Basically, you are not insured for everything you do as a lawyer under a malpractice policy. When we talk about attorney-client relationships and just professional services, let's narrow this a little bit here. Coverage is predicated upon you being in an attorney-client relationship providing the legal services, professional services to a client of the named insured and the name insured is going to be the firm. If you go out and buy your own policy, the name insured is you, assuming you're a solo here, or the name of your solo firm. When you're in a full-time contract situation, you're never providing legal services for your clients. You're always providing legal services for clients of this firm. It's a false sense of comfort. They think, "You don't know. You don't care." You don't have coverage in most instances. There may be some exceptions, but you really need to look at the language of your policy, make sure you understand just what's covered and what's not covered. Purchasing coverage here isn't going to, in most situations, give you any coverage. Again, I would personally only step into this situation if I know I'm going to be added to their policy and I'm just going to share, this is me, I'm a risk guy. While trust is a good thing when it comes to this, I would want the firm to provide documentation that I've actually been added to their policy. Suffice it to say that I've seen a couple of situations over the year of they say one thing, but what actually happened was something entirely different. I'll leave it to that. A second thing you'll see sometimes is, and this is relatively common in the contract lawyering space, is the contract lawyer will be temporarily engaged by one and sometimes two or three firms, but never held out by any of these firms as being associated with the firms. The general public just simply isn't aware of your presence. Now, again, if you want coverage for this, the firm or firms should you reach out to their carrier and provide notice, take care of any premium that may be due and you're all good. Sometimes again, they'll say they're unable or unwilling and suggest you get your own coverage just as in the other situation when you are held up full time and all of that. If you get your own coverage, you're not going to be covered if any of these clients sue you. I've also shared that these clients really don't know you're there. The exposure would come, well, does this firm sue you? If we have pretty good documentation that this firm has retained you, you have an engagement letter with them to provide legal services to them, et cetera, et cetera. We can document, this is a client of yours. Your coverage, your policy should be in play for when the firm sues you. Because that's the only person, the only entity that really knows you're involved. That said, here's an interesting question, is coverage really necessary in this situation? Now, again, I am not advising, I am not recommending, you got to make your own judgment calls on this one. Here's something to think about. Again, assuming there's zero client contact of any kind with clients of the firm or firms you're working as a contract lawyer with. Clients are never made aware of your involvement on any matter. The firm or firms accept full accountability and responsibility for your work product and all of this is commonplace in this type of business relationship. The risk of having to deal with a malpractice claim is really going to be extremely low, even from the firm. Instead of assuming they're just going to fire you if it turns out you don't know what you're doing. I'll let you make your own judgment call on that, but it's some food for thought. The final situation I'll talk about with contract lawyers is you're engaged part-time by a firm and held out to the general public is being associated with that firm. While also trying to establish or you're still involved in running your own practice and you're doing this for a little extra revenue, whatever might be going on here. How does this play? Well, in this situation you're going to be working for two firms. The firm you're contracting with and your own solo practice. Thinking about again, coverage only covers you for work done an attorney-client relationship on behalf of a client and the named insured. There's two firms, so you really need to be on two policies. The firm policy or your contract lawyer with, because again, you're being held out as associated, the public is aware. Then your own policy for work you do on behalf of your own clients. Now, we're good to go. Except sometimes again, the firm your contract with refuses or is unable to add you to their policy. What do we do here? Well here, there's an interesting, if you will, work around. You might consider working with this firm not in a contract relationship but in a co-counsel relationship. Now, you need to do this in accordance with the rules of professional conduct. We have to make sure the clients are aware of the fee split and documentation to retaining two discrete firms. I document for the client roles and responsibilities of yourself and your co-counsel who's doing what. That can work. We have documentation here now that all of the work you're doing is done on behalf of clients of your firm. That can work in some situations. I can't speak for what these other firms are going to do, how much work, but that can be very beneficial. My one caution is prior to stepping into a co-counsel relationship, because in essence, you're going to be creating a partnership, if you will, for every joint matter that you're working on. I want to make sure that if this firm, particularly if they are in the lead, if you will, during the majority of the work, I want to make sure they're insured for their own missteps. Because if they happen to be bare and there's a malpractice misstep that they've even made, you're going to be brought in because you've created this partnership in this matter and your policy is in play. If there's a loss, you're the one that might take the financial hits, so to speak, and have to deal with the fact of it, that there's a claim and deal with surcharges and all that. Well, they just say, thank you very much for the coverage and go on. This really does happen. It's not extraordinarily common, but I've seen this very situation multiple times in my 25 years with Alps. I would want to document before I enter any kind of co-counsel relationship that the firm I'm about to co-counsel with has an adequate level of coverage for the matters that we're taking on jointly. How about we talk about ancillary services now? I get innovation, I get how markets change and what consumers want and that drives a lot of this, and I'm good with that. Hey, reinventing ourselves is how you stay in business over the long term. If you can't grow and change with the needs and the wants and the desires of the market, that's going to be a problem. There are some issues, and again, we're going to talk a bit about this and primarily it's about coverage. Ancillary service says is one thing lawyers will turn to in terms of trying to reinvent themselves. Let me give you some examples. Often, it's about wanting to offer both legal and non-legal services under the banner of your law firm or under the banner of the practice. I will see things like a practice that does regulatory compliance and consulting in the cybersecurity sector. You might see this in employment law, in consulting or investigation services as the ancillary piece. Business formation and consulting in the business sector. You might see lawyers and non-lawyers setting up several businesses. The plan is to offer legal services and investment advice, perhaps insurance sales all under the banner of a common trade name. All of these things that I'm talking about are real examples that I've seen or been involved in over the years. It might be a lawyer planning to team up with a local CPA to offer legal and non-legal services under one roof. It could be as simple as deciding to offer, do it yourself legal forms from your law firm's website. Perhaps under a subscription practice model, which makes it even more interesting. There's lots of ideas, but what's the problem? Remember, I shared at the beginning just because you have a professional liability policy, a lawyer's professional liability policy, that doesn't mean you're covered for anything and everything that you do in the role of a lawyer. Malpractice policies cover you for allegations of negligence in the performance of professional services. Now, policies are going to differ. It's worth looking at the policy that you have, what is covered under the definition of professional services? Often, it's rather broad. Mediator, arbitrator, executive, conservative, guardian, trustee. I mean there's all kinds of things. As an example, many of these policies also, because you got to look at exclusions, aren't going to cover you for financial advice given. Even though you're in an attorney-client relationship, you give financial advice to your client. That's not covered. Consulting is not a professional service that falls under this definition of professional services if you're limited to consulting only. Sometimes you're in the role of a lawyer in these settings. Sometimes you're in the role of consultant and sometimes you're in the role of both. If you're just in the role of consultant, there is no attorney-client relationship, the policies aren't going to respond. Can you start to appreciate, we need to think through some of the coverage concerns. Now, the question that I'll get, "Well, Mark, so what do I do? How do I move forward? What are my options?" This gets a little difficult folks, and I'll be honest with you. If you ever want to call in chat, doesn't cost anything. Call in chat, I'm happy to try to issue spot and try to work through. The best answer I can give you is it depends, and the specifics of what you're looking at or trying to do will dictate. If we take some simple kinds of things, the lawyer/consultant, let's use the cybersecurity space example. We have legal and non-legal services, but they're going to be offered for the purpose of this example under the banner of one and entity. It's the same desk, that kind of thing. A lot of malpractice insurers are not going to be comfortable with this and may just be unwilling to write. You may be able to go out and get a general errors and omissions policy that would cover both professional roles. Now, when it comes to the legal professional liability, this general policy solution is not going to offer as in-depth coverage, if you will, that you might see from a standalone professional liability policy exclusive to lawyers. That can work. Other times you might want to say, well, let's break this out and have separate websites for the professional services and for the consulting, for the lawyer hat and the consulting hat, for the lawyer hat and the financial services hat, whatever it might be, separate business cards. Put esquire on your business cards. For the non-lawyer stuff, separate phone numbers. It's even easier if you have separate locations and sometimes, you'll see that. If you start to create some distance between these two roles and make it clear to clients, if you have joint clients in this situation, I've got my lawyer hat on, but I have a separate contract with you for these non-legal services. You may need to remind them now and again if there's some confusion, and I would tend to document some of this. You can get your legal practice insured then through a standalone lawyers' professional liability policy. Then you can get a separate E&O policy for the non-lawyer stuff that you're doing. There's some general things there to think about. My big message here again is, as you look at models, start to think through, how's this going to play both ethically? I'm not doing a whole lot of ethics here today on this, but this particular topic in particular in terms of ancillary services, but I would definitely look into that. Coverage can also drive. Is this going to be viable, is this a model, is this going to work? Let's jump now to licensed rental. You'll see this more in the solo and small firm space. How I start to get clued in? Somebody calls in, "I got this great offer and I'm going to make lots of money. This is an opportunity and I just want to run by and make sure I'm not missing anything." Typically, it's an opportunity to affiliate with an out-of-state law firm and sometimes even an out-of-state or in-state non-lawyer owned company. Both are wanting to direct matters to the lawyers they're contracting with as a way to offer services, legal services in jurisdictions where the lawyers aren't licensed to practice or again, the unauthorized practice law because they're non-lawyers wanting to do this, but they want to create this affiliation. It may be structured as contract lawyers, it may be structured as counsel. You're going to be promised some portion of any earned fee coupled with an understanding that the amount of work you're going to do is minimal. Now, these should be warning signs. I'm going to make money for very little work, it's out of state. Start to think through the rules here on this one. Practice areas that you often see. This will be debt settlement, mortgage, foreclosures, estate planning, traffic violations, criminal expungements. Those are common areas. I'll leave it at that. Let's talk about some of the obvious things. Here, we can talk a little bit about ethics. If it's a non-lawyer owned company, if you sign on and participate here, there's a strong possibility you may be assisting a lay entity in the unauthorized practice of law. I have seen lawyers sanctioned for this to include loss of license. If it's an out-of-state law firm, that may still be a problem, because they're not licensed in your state. That's why they want you. Here's the problem. You're going to be contractually required to, in essence, essentially relinquish control of all matters to the out-of-state firm. They're not going to turn these clients over to you. At times, they're not even doing the work. They're assigning it to non-lawyer assistants, they're not properly supervised. All they want is some local lawyer to sign off and just say, "Oh, this looks good." I start to think about assisting non-lawyers to non-authorized practice law. It also, many of these models, for lack of a better word, are marketing one size fits all solutions to their legal problems. Again, they just want your blessing. If you get involved here and well, how do I want to say this? They don't want you to get involved and talk to the client about various legal options. Really look at the true needs of the client. They just want you to market and sign off on this. Again, one size fits all solution. This is going to be a violation. Professional independence of a lawyer. You are not allowed to have any. You're agreeing to this. There's all kinds of issues that can come up in improper fee splits. Again, preventing clients from having a chance to meaningfully consult with their local lawyer. Unreasonable limitations on scope and it just goes on and on. I would really, really caution you about this particular model. Now, let's get back to, again what we've been talking about with all of these situations, I have yet, well, actually I'm going to back off on that. I used to say I have yet to hear of a situation where the out-of-state firm or non-lawyer owned company provided malpractice insurance for the local lawyers. I will share that's still very, very common. I have now come across two situations where they in fact do. The only reason I will share that is I'm not here to bash the licensed rental. Well, I am bashing the licensed rental model. There have been situations where a company really is done by lawyers. The model is set up in compliance with the ethical rules and they're really looking to expand and create a more nationwide or regional presence using local lawyers. The local lawyers are allowed to be involved. The fee split model is a bit different. They are advising the clients, and it can be done in a very professional and responsible way. I'm going to tell you that is very much an exception to the norm. I'm trying to really clue you in to what the unethical ones start to look like. Again, they don't offer insurance and they are going to require every local lawyer who signs on that you have documentation of your own malpractice. Again, it's to try to make you believe that they're being very responsible and they're hoping you assume, well, that means because they're asking, and these guys know what they're doing, they're a bigger company. They know your policy is going to protect you. It's not. They don't care about you. They really don't. They have no intention of letting you get involved with their clients. Meaning, make them your clients. They're going to place severe limitations on what you can and can't do. You're simply being asked to sign off on work done by others. Let's get back to coverage. Are you in an attorney-client relationship delivering legal services on behalf of your own clients? The answer is no. You are not. You're simply renting your license to somebody else. Not a good idea. It can be very, very problematic. You're not covered for any of that. A little heads-up. A little heads-up there. The final one that I'm going to talk about is I sat out here about multiple firm names and stuff. This has been interesting. I've come across this once or twice and I don't know, the last five, eight years, something like that. I got what was going on, made a lot of sense to me. Now it seems like this is going more into the solo small firm space. Whether it's a trend, I think it's way too early to tell, but here's the gist of it. A lawyer or a small firm wants to grow and develop and create a market presence as specializing. We know what we're doing in divorce law, we know what we're doing in criminal defense or whatever it might be. We're the go-to lawyers. We want to create a business name and sometimes lawyers are starting to even create separate entities for the various practice using my name, Bassingthwaighte Bankruptcy Law LLC, or Bassingthwaighte Divorce Law LLC. I'll create these entities and I want to market myself as, I'm the go-to guy. Again, I may even have separate accounts, in terms of trust accounts, bank accounts. To me, I started sitting and my head hurts about how complicated this can be. I understand why lawyers want to do this, and I am absolutely not adverse to it. I just encourage you to think through, creating multiple entities that are just you. Even if it's you, an associate and two staff, but it's the same desk, the same address, the same phone number, everything the same. Then trying to get four policies for each of these things, you're going to have exclusions, anti-stacking language. It just becomes a headache. One to ensure, and the more complicated you make this, the more complicated or difficult it's going to be to find somebody willing to ensure all these entities. Think about the administrative headache of all of this. I sit here, I'm just not seeing the benefits of it. They're alternatives. You could do a DBA. I try to get one policy and put the DBAs as additional insureds. You might be able to get one policy with all the entities and put the entities on as additional insureds, because there's only going to be one named insured. It's going to be cheaper to ensure one firm with some additional insured names as opposed to four policies on four firms. You're going to be spending all kinds of money that you don't, and it's just a mess. A little caution there. I'll tell you, in my mind, it's even easier. I'm not even going to mess with DBAs. Well, I mean you could. I sit and say, let's just have one firm and I'm going to call my firm the Bassingthwaighte Law firm. Run with me on my crazy mind and how I look at this. Bassingthwaighte Law is going to be the mothership, if you will, and that is going to be the named insured. Now, I'm going to create some websites and it might be Bassingthwaighte Bankruptcy or I might not even put bankruptcy, or I'm sorry, Bassingthwaighte there. I might have some little fancy marketing name for divorce and for bankruptcy, these different areas that I want to look like an expert on. I have these separate websites and separate marketing, but these are just names for marketing. I'm trying to build a feeder network. On each of the sites they'll say, "This is a service of Bassingthwaighte Law. This is a service." You'll see that on the divorce page. You'll see that on the bankruptcy page. You can call it whatever you want. In other words, there is no entity. It's a marketing campaign. Then anytime a client comes in from the bankruptcy website, the divorce website or even Bassingthwaighte Law website, all contracts are signed with Bassingthwaighte Law because that's the named insured. We all are employed. If I have other staff, associates, whatever it might be, we're all under this banner of Bassingthwaighte Law. That's the mothership. Everybody, I'm very open about this. It's just using it as a marketing tool. I think that can really make life a lot simpler. I want to shut down the Bassingthwaighte, or I'm sorry, the bankruptcy practice at some point, all I got to do is turn off the website. I don't have to wind-ups this separate entity because I don't want to do bankruptcy work anymore. You see? I'm thinking long term here too. I'm trying to wrap up here now. In terms of takeaways, there really are ways and things that you can do. There are pros and cons to all this stuff. Obviously, the licensed rental model I got a little issue with. There are some situations out there that can work that are ethically sound. We need to look, we need to do some investigation on all this to understand the ramifications. The time to do it is before you've committed and set up the four law firms and go, "Oh my gosh. Now I'm trying to cover this. I didn't realize I was creating such a headache. Maybe I should've called you guys sooner." Real conversation as an aside, just happened. There it is. I hope you found something of value with today's little pontification on growing and building practices. I'm all in, I'm all for. There's lots of things that can be done. Obviously, there's all kinds of marketing things and all sorts of ways to build a practice. I did want to share a couple of things where lawyers get trapped and they get too far down the road and haven't thought through. I'm just trying to get you ahead of the curve. I have zero issues doing, heck, you want to go with contract lawyering? Hey, God bless, I hope it works out. That's really exciting. You want to go down the ancillary road? God bless. Subscription, which we really didn't get into, but the ancillary model overlaps there a bit. God bless. I'm all in. Just think through the ramifications. That's it. Please, don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns about the things that we've just talked about and want to discuss further. It doesn't cost anything to chat with me or send an email. My email is mbass@alpsinsurance.com. I'm happy to do anything I can. Hey, good talking to you. Stay safe out there. We'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.  

We all carry baggage in our personal and professional lives as lawyers. If the baggage isn't addressed, we get depressed. In this episode, Mark offers some wisdom, tactics, and examples of how to let it go.   Transcript: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I had some things happen this week that got me thinking, and so I want to tell some stories and share some insights or just responses, I guess, to things that have been going on. I want to start out with a story that goes back a few years. Sometime ago my wife and I attended a weekend family get-together out in California, beautiful home that could put up a whole bunch of us, and then some others stayed in nearby hotels, but it was a lot of fun. It really was a lot of fun. One evening, the extended family was all gathered around a huge table and the other people outside in hot tub and people on the beach, walking, things, but there was a nice group around this big table, and one of the young grandchildren there was quite a fan of Frozen, and she just was so proud of herself. We all got to talking and she had memorized the song, and I'm sure many of you are aware of the song or have heard of it, called Let It Go. She wanted to sing for all of us, and everybody's all excited. She climbs up and is standing on the sort of the center of this table, and she just starts belting out, Let It Go. She gets through the first verse and we're all just hooting and hollering kind of, "This is great," and she just says, "Well, stop, stop, stop. I'm not done yet," and she just launches into the next verse, and we're all kind of looking around and she just keeps going. She's going to sing the whole darn song. I see near the end, it becomes abundantly clear there are more than a few people that are very impatient, ready for this to be over, "Oh my gosh, it's almost painful," and I'm thinking to myself and sort of smiling. I see people really aren't listening to what she's saying. I think there's some wisdom here. Let it go. It's a little girl, enjoying, trying to entertain and just so proud of herself. We all can certainly get through a few more minutes of listening to her sing and just have a nice, wonderful evening in spite of that. So that was just a fun memory, but it's relevant to some other things that have happened and get just things I've been thinking about. I also recently listened to a presentation on forgiveness, and I must say it was one of the more, powerful is the word that comes to mind, but it just, a presentation that really struck home for me in a variety of ways. One of the things that I very much appreciated and thought was just, "Well done." The presenter was talking about that people are at times wronged by others. People are sometimes betrayed by others, hurt by others, and he wanted to sort of give a visual to this in terms of how this impacts us individually when we hold on to these types of feelings, feelings of betrayal, hurt, all of that, and so he had two people come up. He put them together, handcuffed them together, and he says, "You know, so you have a bad relationship. One person will be the person that was perhaps betrayed in the relationship and the other person, handcuffed is, together here, is the person who betrayed the first person." So you say, "Okay, I'm going to exit the relationship and move on, get a divorce," whatever it might be, but as the person walks away from the relationship, they're still handcuffed together. Now, obviously, the person that truly betrayed doesn't come along everything, but the baggage, if you will, is still there. There's still this attachment because there's been no forgiveness. You might be in a situation, perhaps an associate has a problem with a partner and has been wronged or is constantly hurt and belittled. There's just a very unhealthy relationship, and an associate just, "I've had enough. I'm quitting. I'm out of here," and you go and you start another job at another firm, and you're all excited, but there's some behaviors with a new partner that remind you of things your partner has done, and you start to immediately have all of this, sort of baggage can back up, because the handcuffs are still there. We're still bound. You want to release those handcuffs. You want to take them off, and that can be done through forgiveness. Now, I can appreciate that some might say, "Well, that forgiveness doesn't always work for me as a term." Let it go. Just let it go. We need to move past these kinds of things. Why do I want to raise this and talk about this? Well, for one, it's a wellness issue for me. We do need to learn how to deal with problems that come up in life with situations where we've been wronged. These can be obviously personal relationships, and let's talk about that for a second. Well, what does it matter if ... What's this got to do with risk management in the practice of law? Come on, guys, think about it. If something is way out of whack and not right in your personal life, unless you are extraordinarily good at walling all of that off, it's going to impact all the other aspects of your life, and I don't think anybody is truly really good at walling things off. That's why some people drink. That's why some people abuse prescription medications. We can get depressed. If we don't deal with the baggage in our personal lives, and obviously in our professional lives as well as lawyers, we're going to have wellness issues because we are unwell. The baggage has not been addressed, right? So I see this. Let's start to wrap our heads around this a little bit. It's, what types of relationships ... So again, it can be a spouse, a betrayal, somebody has an affair. It could be things aren't working well with a child. All kinds of things are being said. It's just very, very nasty. It can be a partner. It can be a client, opposing counsel, a judge. We can't help but be in relationship with others because we are human, and then when we're working and providing professional services and working as a lawyer, there's going to be all kinds of relationships that we're involved in. So I really want to share, if you find yourself focusing, holding on to the consequences of problematic relationships, I strongly encourage you to look at the possibility of forgiving as a way to move on. At times, you will find some people say, "Well, I don't want to let this go. I've been wronged," and if there's all sorts of things that can go on here, we can kind of hang on to it. Honestly, I think at times it's almost, we want to be a victim, and we sit and say, "You carry this," and you sit and say, "Well, put it this way. Do you honestly think day in and day out, year after year, the person who wronged you, for lack of a better description, is spending all their time thinking about you? Come on. They're not." It's you that is hanging onto all of this, and why in the world would you give someone else that kind of power to impact your life? Oh, my gosh, that's crazy. So I encourage you to think about taking off those handcuffs, okay? Again, the failure to do so can lead to depression, addiction, or any alcoholism. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on here. So there's this wellness piece. Let me also share, for those of you that have listened to some of my other podcasts, it's been, oh boy, year and a quarter now, maybe a little more, coming up in a year and a half, that we have moved to Florida, and love it down here. Really, really do. Well, last night I was out playing tennis and driving home, and it was a very busy six-lane road, three in each direction, that is sort of a center thoroughfare to get back to the house from the tennis facility, and it was at a dead standstill. Long story short, the entire road in both directions was closed, ended up being closed for hours due to a very, very serious crash. Two helicopters actually had to come in and land and for a life flight. I mean, this really was not good, and I'm sitting here thinking to, and I would just say, this has been my experience and a lot of others that moved down here, could talk about, "Boy, there's some crazy drivers here in Florida," and there really are. You see a lot of road rage. It's another example of ... Why do people experience road rage? I think of a lot of it, it comes on very fast, "I've been wronged, and I got to get even, and that son of a gun cut me off," and we just get ... Life is too short. I saw the helicopters go up, and by the time ... You just kind of have to work your way through. It took me two and a half hours to go less than a mile to get to where the accident was still being investigated and whatnot, and they, just so much traffic and they're trying to get around. It's a long story. I won't bug you with all that, but at one entire car, the entire roof was cut off with tools. I mean, they had to remove the entire roof of the car to get three victims out of the car. It was that bad. One, I've since learned, has died overnight. Life is too short. It's hard at times. I will readily admit that, boy, I can at times, when somebody cuts me off and I'm in a hurry or whatever it is, you just want to tailgate or do, just play games, but I also don't want to be the guy that's dead because of it, so I'm learning, and I've been doing this for a while down here, learning to let it go, learning to make a different decision, and I think that's a very, very positive thing. Now, we could also take this a little bit further and talk about civility in the practice of law. I've talked about this, written about it off and on over the years, and for me, it's a tough topic to talk about. You could sit here and say, "Was there this ethical duty? Do we all have to be civil?," and honestly, I think the answer to that is no. It's certainly something that we should all strive to be and to do, or to practice. It can be very, very difficult, but again, I start to think, "I had an interesting call actually just today," where a lawyer who has done a lot of guardian ad litem work and was involved in a divorce situation and representing a child here, and had to make a very difficult decision. "Where does this child go in terms of mom or dad?," and a good decision was made. I accept that at face value, but what happened here is the parent that ended up not getting the child is an extraordinarily aggressive and apparently has a lot of time on his hands person, and is really just doing everything in his power to destroy the professional reputation of this particular lawyer, a lot of online negative reviews, making all kinds of things up, but unfortunately, too very well-spoken, and there's just a lot of stuff, and this is hurting. This is hurting, okay? I understand that. Talking to the lawyer, the lawyer just absolutely wants to defend herself. This is not right, and she's right. It is not right, but as we talk, one of the things ... They're all the confidentiality rules, and I get, "Are we in an attorney-client relationship here?," and that's a conversation for another day, but I sit and I look at this and I say, "You know, there are some things that you can do here," but one of my cautions to you is to not engage, to not be pulled into this, to not allow someone else to have this kind of power over you. You are not going to win in a public battle. All you're going to do is elevate and create a much larger viewing audience, if you will, of this public debate. You need to take a higher road. Now, there's certainly things you can do, reputation management services, just as an example, but I would not get into the battle. Let it go, forgive. I honestly believe that that mindset, that change in mindset in and of itself will enable a perspective, a different perspective that will allow different types of responses, more effective types of responses to come into play, or, if nothing else, to at least come into your vision. You can think about that. Be civil, because other people are going to judge, are going to make their own conclusions, prospective clients, based on how you respond to this. They're looking to say, "This lawyer can't take a little heat. Oh my gosh, I don't want to hire her." As you can see, we have to look at the bigger picture. Think about situations where depositions, opposing counsel, for lack of a better description, is using all kinds of vulgarities and insulting you, and going on and on. It can be tempting to go into this road rage kind of thing, if you will, as an analogy, but if it happens over and over again, or a particular judge just doesn't work, after a while, it can really start to eat at you and really get kind of rough. It's tempting to either just feel sorry about yourself and go into this sort of victimization kind of mindset and just, "What do I do about it? I don't know. This is just too much," et cetera, and we run, but again, you're going to take the baggage with you. You're going to take the baggage. Another option is, and you'll see this at times, and how do I put this nicely, the decision is made to get into a pointless dispute. It's just, "Well, if you're going to swear at me, I'm going to swear at you," and we get into that contest. You know where I'm going with that one, but what are clients thinking? How is anyone in terms of their matter? How does that help? It doesn't. It just elevates. It deteriorates. It does all kinds of things to relationships, and most importantly, to you. Learn to forgive. Learn to let it go. Be a professional. I truly believe deep in my heart that these kinds of choices are extraordinarily powerful choices, and I believe that because it's something I have tried to practice and learn, and have been working on, oh my gosh, for years and years. I mean, decades. Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. I don't know that anybody ever will be, but I do believe in the value of it. The older I get, I don't want to keep pressure, if you will, stress on my heart. I have a healthy heart, I go play tennis, I ride bike, I'd eat, ride, and do things, but stress isn't good, and we live in a 55 plus community down here, honestly. Absolutely love it. Best decision we have ever made. Lots of friends. Just, it's been a good decision, but I also see there is a, what I would call a minority group here, and I suspect this is not unique to communities of sort of more retirement communities, as you're going to see it a bit more, of people that are constantly under high stress, refuse, or perhaps are incapable. I think that's by choice, but over time, maybe it gets to be a habit of letting things go. These folks are some of the most miserable, unhealthy people I've seen, and it's crazy. So I'm going to sort of close and just say, I don't want that for me and I don't want that for you. Life is too short. Learn to forgive. Learn as this wonderful, sweet, young, little girl, standing on a table, sang and belted out so beautifully. Learn to let it go. You'll be better for it, and so will the relationships you have, both professionally and personally. So that's it for me. I hope you found something of value in today's episode. Stay safe out there, folks, and if you have any questions, concerns on this topic or any other topic, please don't hesitate to reach out anytime. I'm not a risk manager for ALPS. I am your Risk Manager. I'm hired by ALPS to manage the risk of our profession at large. It doesn't cost a dime to talk with me, so feel free. My email address is mbass@alpsinsurance.com That is all. Bye bye.

Jackee Taylor was put into the Federal Witness Protection program as a 7-year-old after her father, Clarence Crouch, a convicted killer and infamous member of the Hells Angels, turned and became a government informant. Mark interviews Jackee about the realities and consequences the children of WITSEC face and what we can learn from them.  — Transcript:   Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. And boy, do I have an interesting guest today that I just, the more I learn and get to visit with her, it's just, wow. My guest today is Jackee Taylor, and where I first heard about Jackee and learned a bit about her story is from a very, very interesting podcast and Jackie Time, it's C 30. What's the platform? Jackee Taylor: C 13. Mark Bassingthwaighte: C 13. Thank you. Yes. C 13. But the podcast series, and it's about the 10 episodes, roughly what, nine, 10 hours, I guess, called relative unknown. We're not going to sit here and talk about everything that's in this podcast, but I will tell you folks, it is worth a listen. So if you have some time and you're driving to the office or taking a plane somewhere just out for a run, I strongly encourage you to take a listen to this. So Jackie, welcome. It's such a pleasure. Jackee Taylor: Thank you. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Could you take just a couple of minutes and share for our audience a little bit about you? What is important from your perspective that you think these folks would want to know? Jackee Taylor: Basically, my name, I'm Jackie Taylor. I was put into the Federal Witness Protection Program at seven years old in 1982. My father was a Hell's Angel, and he turned on the club and he turned informant and helped them prosecute a few individuals that were guilty of some crimes back in the seventies and eighties. Now I am basically an advocate of grown children of witness protection that are struggling with their identification issues, mental health, things like that. In a nutshell, I can't... Because my documentation has never been rectified from the US Marshals, I cannot leave the country. I cannot buy a house. I cannot go to college. There's a lot of things that I cannot do. However, I am okay, I will be okay. I've been okay for almost 50 years, but these things still are not right. I am not the only person that is struggling with identification issues that is an adult that was put on witness protection as a kid. I am not the only person. I've had a lot of people reach out to me now, and now I'm advocating for them as well. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I think that's awesome. Jackee Taylor: Thank you. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It is an overwhelming task, I imagine. You're fighting a system, but somebody needs to do it. Jackee Taylor: I am. Thank you. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Taking the mantle on is God bless. Good for you. Jackee Taylor: Thank you. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Let's back up on this story. So you're in this Witness protection program, and I don't want to spoil too much of... But you don't have a relationship with your father. Jackee Taylor: Correct. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I don't want to tell the whole story about your father, again, I just want them to listen to the podcast. Jackee Taylor: You have to listen to the podcast. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It really is worth it, folks. But you are obviously gone public. You were no... You've outed yourself, if you will. Jackee Taylor: Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And am I remembering correctly, this occurred around the age of 19? Jackee Taylor: No, actually it occurred in 2008 and 2009 is when- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh,. Jackee Taylor: The first article went out. Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: What brought you to that point? Jackee Taylor: I've struggled with issues with my identification actually, since I was a little girl getting... My mom couldn't get us into softball. She had to beg and plead. I tried to get a marriage license back in '96 and I was denied because I don't have a birth certificate. Getting into college was a struggle, thank God I knew somebody on the admissions board that I babysat for, and the Patriot Act wasn't in effect yet because that was in '95. So I've struggled with things over the years, but I was at a place where I was okay. And then my children's healthcare got canceled. They were on Medicaid. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Jackee Taylor: My children's healthcare got canceled because I could not produce a birth certificate that the marshals would... I was never given a birth certificate, so I don't have one. There's not a way that they could get me one. The judge refused to sign off on my family getting individual birth certificates. Mark Bassingthwaighte: So it- Jackee Taylor: It started affecting my children. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. And so it's a point of just saying I've had enough. Jackee Taylor: Absolutely. Mark Bassingthwaighte: The inefficiencies, all the things in terms of the federal marshals and- Jackee Taylor: Trying to call and, okay, call this number. We call this number, okay, write a letter to this. Make sure that you send it certified or registered mail. It has to be signed for that so that you can prove that it got there. I can't tell you how many letters I sent. Can't tell you how many calls I've made. And there's just been no help. Nobody seems to care. So when these people, and it's me, my sister, and my brother, we've all had these issues. But then when it starts affecting our children, and now I have other people reaching out to me because I just went public. Hey, I'm having the same issues too. Of course, I have to vet these people out and make sure that they're legit. So I make them tell me what transpired, what city was it out of, and then I verify, okay, this did happen. So tell me your story. So these other people are reaching out and they're having these problems too. So I'm not the only person, my family's not the only people out there that are struggling. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And just to make sure everyone in the listening audience here is fully aware of where these struggles come from. I understand, folks, when you entered witness protection, Jackie Taylor was not born Jackie Taylor. That's her name after going into witness protection and all the family, I think brothers, you have a brother, sister. Jackee Taylor: I have a brother and a sister. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Mother and everybody's name was changed. And no one is given sort of solid, consistent identification things that all of us take for granted. It's got the original birth certificate, we've got the social security card, the passport, and all the spellings that you were sharing in a present presentation here that, I think you said a Wisconsin- Jackee Taylor: Wisconsin social security number. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's just- Jackee Taylor: Yeah, on my passport, it states I was born in Cleveland, so that red flags certain, if I want to go get a home loan, that's a red flag. Well, why do you have a Wisconsin Social security number? But it says you're... I'm throwing flags. And that's not a good thing. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I can't imagine. Jackee Taylor: I've been stopped at TSA, and how do you explain this stuff? I got pulled over once and they couldn't find me in their system at all. I was arrested a couple of times. I know I'm in the system, but they couldn't find me. And they asked me who I really was. So that's happened to a couple of other folks that I've talked to as well. Right now, I no longer exist. This is something I didn't talk about. I no longer exist with the Social Security Department. Oh, wow. I just recently found that out. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh my gosh. Jackee Taylor: So now what? Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Jackee Taylor: I mean, there's certain things. Am I going to die? No. Does my life suck? No. Because I make sure that it doesn't, even with all of these roadblocks, but does it impede my civil rights? I've worked since 1989 when I was 14 years old. I've paid my taxes. I've worked for 35 years now. I've paid my taxes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. And you deserve this. Jackee Taylor: I deserve my- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh, absolutely. Jackee Taylor: Basic rights as an American citizen. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Jackee Taylor: That's all we're asking for. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. My mind, boy, that's not a lot to ask for. Jackee Taylor: It really isn't. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's something you guys are all owed and deserve. Jackee Taylor: Entitled to. And especially that we were- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. I honestly, I agree with- Jackee Taylor: Yeah, we were born into this. We didn't ask for it, nor did we even ask to be born, period. But we were. We were put into witness protection as children. And that's just to make it clear, that's the only people I'm really advocating for. Were grown children of WITSEC. If you're an adult and you're put into WITSEC, you made your bed, you can lie in it. Do I think that they need to be looked after too, just like my father needed to be looked after? Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But when you made this decision so out of frustration and your initial step was... Jackee Taylor: Call the newspaper. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Call the newspaper, because you were not getting any responses anywhere else. And so that really goes public. And there's been a lot of traction since that time in terms of your story, not the least of which is against this podcast, but there's lots of other things that have happened and are in the works even now. But when you reached that point, was there... It's just frustration alone and you just got to do something? Or was that balance of I would think just even some concerns about coming out of witness protection, except just safety and things. Did that factor- Jackee Taylor: I didn't feel in danger back then. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Jackee Taylor: No. I had ran into some Hell's Angels back in, I believe it was '94 or '95, and I was told that I was not in danger. It was just a random event, random occurrence that we ended up at the same social gathering. And I was told that I was not in danger. So was I nervous about the Hell's Angels fight? No. I wasn't worried for my security and my safety. But where you said, was it out of pure frustration? It was out of pure frustration. Absolute. I spent that entire day when I got the letter from the state of Montana saying that they were canceling my kids' Medicaid. I spent all day on the phone talking, calling different congressmen, calling different senators, calling different people, politicians in the city of Billings. And the buck was passed, the buck was passed, the buck was passed. John Tester's office is the only office I ever had any luck with, and I thank you for that, John Tester. We need to get back in touch. But nobody else wanted to do anything. And our current governor at the time couldn't do anything. I was just passing the buck. So right out of frustration that night, I called the Gazette. Mark Bassingthwaighte: So this is happening. It's been a little, what, 14 years? 12, 14 years since initially. It's one thing again, to make this decision out of anger, out of frustration, and gosh darn it, you're going to do something about it. You haven't run out of steam. Jackee Taylor: No. Mark Bassingthwaighte: What is driving you? Jackee Taylor: Every couple of months I get a new person or a case that reaches out to me that's struggling. Just a few weeks, well, a couple months ago, I had somebody reach out, a brother and sister that were put... I call them the kids because they're 26, and almost 30. They're not kids, but they were born children into witness protection. They're currently being threatened with, if you don't follow the rules, if you talk out of... If you tell anybody, if you gripe about the program, we're going to deport you back to your country and you will be killed. So that's not a way that it needs to be handled. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, that's not right. Jackee Taylor: It's not right. I'm worried about these kids. Like I said, am I going to die because I don't have a birth certificate? I don't have my passport current? No. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But these kids could. Jackee Taylor: These kids are afraid of their shadows. I just got a text from the sister today saying, "I have never felt safe in my life." That brings me to tears a little bit because nobody should feel like that. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, I can't imagine. Jackee Taylor: And she's just a kid. And she was born into this because of what her parents did before she was born and afters. And none of those children do. None of us deserve to be swept under the rug and be told that we need to behave and obey or we're going to be killed. Who can speak for this girl now? Because she's afraid of the marshals. I'm not. But I'm not going away. Do I want to work with the marshals now? Yes. I would like to figure out something that we can do together. I have answers. I have solutions. I genuinely care about these people in witness protection. And I cannot say the same for the marshals. And nobody deserves to feel like that. And are we a limited few? Yes. There's only about 10,000 children on WITSEC or grown children like myself. But that's 10,000 people in the United States that are being swept under the rug and have to live a secret scary life where we don't have normal rights as anybody else. Just because we were born to our parents. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I don't need to take anything away, I think. Is there an element here of healing or making peace with all the crazy things that have happened in your life? Is it trying to add a purpose? Jackee Taylor: No. No. I would say this is just more of a mission that I'm the only one who can conquer. Mark Bassingthwaighte: You can do it. Yeah. Jackee Taylor: I had a health scare last month and my kidneys started not functioning properly because of my antidepressant. You know what happens. So you got to switch it around. But I had a very dark couple of days thinking, oh my God, I'm going to die. Oh my God. What if this happens? I got to write out my will. Oh my God. Who are going to... There's nobody else. There's nobody out there that can help these WITSEC kids. What about the WITSEC kids? Oh my God, if I die, who's going to take care of... There's nobody. So I wouldn't call it a burden at all, but I'd like to get on with my fricking life someday. And I can't, until this is all rectified and they start listening, and I'm not going away. I'm using every platform I possibly can. Every person that's willing to, thank you, interview me for their podcast. Thank you very much, that this is helping. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Jackee Taylor: Because we're spreading awareness. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Absolutely. Jackee Taylor: People had no idea about how we live as people in witness protection. You do not get a new house, you do not get a new car, you do not get a briefcase full of money. You don't even get proper identification. If you listen to the podcast, you'll find out where we are actually put in Billings, Montana. And it was the most nasty hotel that you can possibly imagine. And I always say, I'm no princess. I'll stay at a second rate motel to save money, but I would not stay, I wouldn't put my worst enemy in the hotel that they put us in. It was horrible. And we didn't deserve that. Maybe my father did, but my mother and my brother and sister didn't deserve that. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Well you're the- Jackee Taylor: We're second class citizens. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But also just victims that I'm not sure what the right... You're innocent victims, if that makes any sense. Jackee Taylor: Collateral damage. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. Maybe that's such a shame. May I share, and if there are a lot of lawyers that listened to this, obviously, if anyone had some thoughts or just wanted to become involved, may they reach out to you? I should meet- Jackee Taylor: Absolutely, yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: If you would like to share some contact information or how they can reach, please feel free. If you want to have them contact us and pass something along, whatever's best for you. Jackee Taylor: I mean, anybody can reach me at any time. I'm Jackie Taylor, J-A-C-K-E-E. Taylor. My podcast is Relative Unknown. I have an email, jthood74@hotmail.com. But yeah, I actually need to know what to do with these two kids. I didn't get into it too much, but there's a lot of other people on my agenda that I'm trying to get help for. But these two kids stand out to me because they were issued two year work visa. Mark Bassingthwaighte: The clock's ticking. Jackee Taylor: The clock's ticking on this. And they're constantly being threatened today. Today she was receiving texts from the Marshalls. Well, things are changing with your two year work visas. And that's what she said. She's never felt safe a day in her life. But I need to know, what can we do for these kids? How do we get them their citizenship? Can we claim political asylum? These are the two that I'm focusing on right now. If anybody's out listening that is interested in getting involved or thinks that they might have an answer to my solution or a solution to my problem, or maybe just a suggestion, please reach out to me. Anything. I answer, everybody, I look at every email, I look at every message on Instagram, Facebook, it doesn't matter who it is, I answer everybody. But I really appreciate this opportunity to talk and tell my story. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, and you're welcome. Jackee Taylor: Our story. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Folks, this is a very sort of different focus for the podcast. And we'd like to shake things up around here and go in different directions, but I encourage you to listen to the podcast. It is just an interesting, crazy story. But I also think at times, I can't go out, at least I feel and and I think a lot of us feel this. We can't go out and necessarily change the world. This is one crazy messed up world right now. We've got the war in Ukraine and at times, these kinds of things seem so overwhelming. And the temptation is just to spur our head a bit, get comfortable, and just move along. I like, and what I've tried to do in my own life personally, I may not be able to change the world, but I can change a little piece of it. Jackee Taylor: Yes. That's exactly how I feel. Mark Bassingthwaighte: The small steps. And I just wanted to share, and I think it's an important... I never knew any of this. I always, I know that Hollywood- Jackee Taylor: Oh, those lucky guys got a new house. Oh they're on WITSEC? Those lucky guys. No. Mark Bassingthwaighte: [inaudible 00:19:59]. And yeah, that's just not reality. So if any of you out there care and have the time, or some expertise or some insights in how... Jackee Taylor: Or if you're bored at three o'clock in the morning, Mark Bassingthwaighte: There you go. Jackee Taylor: Here's a good subject. Dig into this a little bit. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. So it's an opportunity to make the world a little bit better, to make a difference in small ways in terms of what you may be able to contribute. But the outcome here can be life changing literally, when we talk about these two kids. So folks, I hope you found something of value and I appreciate your listening in. Again, I encourage you Relative Unknown. I've just enjoyed it. I've been sharing it with friends and family and we're all having just like, wow. Wake up moments. But all right, I'll let you get back to the office. Get back to your day. Have a good one. Thank you. And oh yes, Washington, Jackee. Thank you. Jackee Taylor: Oh yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: No, thank you for having me. Jackee Taylor: You are most welcome. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And thank you Paul Zuckerman. I love you. Jackee Taylor: Bye-Bye all.  

What does herding goats, surviving 3 months in the Canadian tundra, and eating porcupines have to do with practicing law? In this episode, Mark sits down with Callie Russell, star of Alone and Alone Frozen on Netflix, to discuss finding your inner strength and how to find happiness and warmth when everything seems dire.  Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. And yes, this is another one where I am back in the mothership, the main office, and it actually is just another gorgeous day here. I just feel so privileged and excited about our guest today. It's Callie Russell. And Callie was a participant in season seven of Alone. And just had, again, an opportunity to hear her story. And it's just, oh my God, it's just an extraordinary story of what she experienced. And I would also like to say Callie, just an exciting, you're such an authentic person. And just it's an honor and pleasure to be in your presence. You bring such just authenticity to being, I don't know, human or something, to me. So it's again, a pleasure to have you here. So before we jump in, can you just take a few minutes and share a little bit about yourself with our audience? Callie Russell: Sure, of course. Thanks for having me, Mark. Mark Bassingthwaighte: You're welcome. Callie Russell: And I just have to start to say I do have roots in Montana. My father and grandparents and great-grandparents are all from the Flathead Valley. But unfortunately, I went to school down in Arizona, or maybe not unfortunately, it just is- Mark Bassingthwaighte: It is what it is. Callie Russell: It is what it is. But I would've liked to spend the time in the mountains. I always loved coming up here as a kid. And so growing up, we would go back and forth from Arizona to Montana quite a bit. And growing up down in Phoenix, I didn't have the connection to the food in the land that I was really yearning for as a young person. And I made this pact to myself when I was a teenager. I said, "I'm not going to eat meat until I figure out how to hunt or fish or raise farm animals." And so that led me to be a vegetarian for over a decade. But then it pushed me into the skills that I do now. So I practice ancestral skills, and I teach ancestral skills to children, teenagers, adults. And it all started with me wanting to seek that connection to food, that connection to land. And so now, for over a dozen years, I've been practicing these skills and I've spent a lot of time out in the wilderness, sometimes by myself, sometimes with teenagers I've worked with and sometimes with my herd of goats. And so now I live, I move around, I'm nomadic a little bit, right? But I'm based up in the Flathead Valley up in Kalispell, and I have a herd of goats and I live off grid there. And my goats are milk goats and pack goats. So they're trained to carry packs. They just allow me to get out into the mountains and disappear out there. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Very cool. And how did you end up on Alone of all things? I'm thinking, and I know the answer to this a little bit already, but this is not something that you were pursuing and just, "Oh, I got to go out and do this." So share, how how'd we get here? Callie Russell: Yeah, that's right. I wasn't have any intention to go on a television show. In fact, I was sort of avoiding things like that. I wanted just to live out in the wilderness. That's what I wanted to do. So I was trying to gain the skills that would allow me to stay out in the wilderness for longer and longer periods of time. And I was just out there and I became quite feral really. The casting agent for Alone reached out to me. They found me through a friend of mine who, his name's Jim Knapp, he's a Canadian trapper. And he applied for the show, but then they didn't take him on the show, but they started asking him, "Well, who do you know? Who do you know? And what women do you know?" They were really looking for women because the casting agents were really struggling to find women that had the skills to be a part of a competition like this. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. I've seen some episodes of the show, I'd have to be honest to say, not a whole lot. And in part, my wife and I are cord cutters, so we have to be very intentional about what we want to watch. And we've been doing that for many, many years. But the premise of the show, for those of you, you're really placed out in some very rugged uninhabited spaces. And the whole point is to see who can survive how long, and the person that goes the longest, I guess, wins that season. The stories that you shared today and this whole experience, it really is about survival. And I'd love just to share and have a little conversation about the things that enabled you to survive, the learnings. I loved you shared some things about... How do I want to say this? Some people early on as I sort walked away from all of this, were making lots of mistakes and to where you're tapping out because they're ill, they're sick, and can take them out as well if need be. You went, I won't spoil anything if people want to watch this. But you went a long time. How did you do that? How can you survive? Well, you explain where you were and of the environment you were in. But I loved taking care of your feet, as an example, those kinds of things. Callie Russell: Yeah. So we were all dropped... So the season I was on, season seven, took place in the Northwest Territories up in northern Canada. And that's technically the subarctic right there. We're just below the Arctic Circle. And we were dropped in late September, so going into winter, and should we do a spoiler alert here. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That's okay, we can do a spoiler alert. Callie Russell: Spoiler alert. I was out there for 89 days and I got to spend that time really going deep with that land because we don't have any food and there's no camera crew. So everything that we're doing out there, we're self-documenting. And we're dropped very far. There's nine other participants, and we're dropped far out from each other. So we don't see each other, we don't hear each other, we're way far away. So we're out there alone surviving and living off of the land. Anything we want to eat, we have to find it ourselves. And we're self-documenting the whole time. And for me, the reason I think I was able to stay so long was the mindset that I went in there with. And I feel like no matter where you are in life, whether you're in the wilderness or you're in town, whatever, you're doing so much about, life is about mindset and the skills are important. All the skills that we hold and the survival skills that I had in my pocket were important. But I feel like the mindset piece is, there's so much power in that. And I really went into that experience knowing that the wilderness isn't a place that's out to get me, that's out to hurt me or take advantage of me. I went out there knowing that the wilderness is there to hold me and it's where I come from. It's where humans have lived for much longer than how we're living today. So I knew that I was going back home in a sense. I was going to live and rediscover how humans have lived for so long. And so I went into this experience with this really open mindset and willing to just let the experience be what it's going to be, and also let the land care for me in a way and know that everything I need is there. And going into the experience with an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset that, "Oh, there's not going to be enough and winter's coming and I have to hurry." And I did, I did have to hurry. I had to do a lot before that snow set in. But my mindset was abundance that I know it's going to work out. I know the land will take care of me. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I love that. It ties into where I want to go to when you were talking about control. And if it were me, now, I obviously don't have the same kind of skills, but I can choose how to look at a situation like this and you can sit and say, "Oh my gosh, winter's coming. I don't have a hot shower. How am I going to get through?" Versus, "I can figure this out." And it's sort of a half glass empty, half glass full kind of approach at the outset. Callie Russell: Exactly. Mark Bassingthwaighte: So let's explore this a little bit in terms of control. You had shared some stories and some insights and I love what you had to say about that. Callie Russell: Yeah. That's one of the things, because Alone wasn't my first time spending a large stretch of time alone and the wilderness. I had been spending time in the wilderness, but in places that I knew and was more familiar with the resources and the weather and all that. This definitely was a challenge that pushed me out of my comfort zone in many ways. But the wilderness has taught me, time and time again, that I'm not in control. And getting hit with a hard storm, it showed me how insignificant I am. I do not have any control over the weather. And there's so many big things that I literally have no control over. But I always have a choice. Even though I have no control over most things in life, I always have control over one thing, and that's my personal choice. What lens do I want to look things through? Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. Callie Russell: How do I want to react? And for me, it's always looking for those doorways instead of walls, looking for how is this glass full, as you say, looking for the silver lining. And so for me, going out there, I was going out there trusting that it was going to work out how it needed to work out and that everything I needed was going to be there. And you also wanted to talk about the self care thing too. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Sure, let's go for it. Callie Russell: Okay. So also the wilderness has also showed me that being in the wilderness, a lot of people think that it's this thing, you just have to suffer through it. It's going to be uncomfortable, you're going to be cold, hungry, there's going to be bugs biting you, there's scary bears, it's this miserable sort of thing. And I had learned over the years how to really thrive in the wilderness and it not be the suffer fest be very enjoyable. And I learned how to take care of myself out there. I learned the right clothes to wear, where to camp that's a better place to camp and just things that make it a more enjoyable experience. And I learned that even in the wilderness, having good self care is very important, having good hygiene is important. Making sure you're hydrated all these things. And so I took that knowledge with me on Alone and knowing if I don't take care of myself and do those little self care things every day, that's something that could take me out of this competition. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. Am I correct in saying you prioritized the self care over even some of the major tasks that need to be done? Why would you do that? Callie Russell: Well, because in my experience, those little things that's in the wilderness, a little cut, you're like, "Oh, it's just a little cut. No worries. I don't need to worry about that." But little cuts can get infected really easily. And then you have this big festering infected wound that actually, now I can't use that hand. I can't hold an ax in that hand anymore because it's swollen. But if I would've just slowed down and taken care of that cut, soaked it in an herbal tea, found some wild yarrow or something, and soaked it in there and took care of that cut right away, it would be no problem. And so it's like that saying, a stitch in time saves nine. If you take care of something right away, you're saving yourself a much bigger problem. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And let me comment on that just for a minute. Wellbeing is an extremely hot topic and a very, very important topic, particularly in the legal profession. Folks, when we think about the rate of various types of impairments and mental illness and burnout, I think the Callie's story really just underscores the significance, the value of saying, "Okay, I need to make sure that I am putting in, even if it's just a little time every day to take care of myself, to perhaps nurture," you're alone here in this, but nurture support systems, do whatever. Because if you don't focus on yourself at times and do these basics, you are going to end up... It may not be a swollen wrist in the wilderness, but it may be, I don't have the internal strength anymore to deal with all the craziness going on in my professional life and I'm burning out. So I just want to underscore these little things, even if it's just take a break and have a cup of coffee, take a little time to enjoy the sunrise, the thunderstorms in the area, roll down the window, breathe the air in and listen to that lightning and rain. It's just gorgeous if you ask me. So I want to underscore that point. You had talked too about a time where you really were struggling and you had a moment that... Can we talk about that just briefly? Callie Russell: Sure. Yeah. There's a moment out there I had where I was struggling to find food that had fat in it. And I knew if I didn't do that, I would have to leave. And I really didn't want to leave. And it broke me down. I had ,so far up to that point, had been feeling like I was in a pretty positive mindset. Challenges would come up, struggles would come up, but I was okay. I just kept going and could just keep going with it. But this sort of broke me down and I was so sad to think that I would have to leave and it not be my choice to leave. And I had this sort of awakening a moment or a moment, some people might call it a moment of enlightenment or something like that. It was pretty profound. And it's hard to really capture the whole moment in words and be able to retell. But I was standing on this cliff above this porcupine den that I was really hoping to catch this porcupine. And I kept being very unsuccessful with it. And I realized I was worrying so much about what could happen in the future, something that was out of my control if I was going to be pulled from this competition or not and that I was so sad about that because I wanted to stay. I wanted to keep being out there. And I realized in that moment, I'm so caught up in thinking about what may or may not happen in the future that I was missing out on what I actually wanted, which was just to be present and absorbed in this wilderness experience. And this lesson I've been taught many times in the wilderness, I'm not in control. But this time it hit me in a whole new way and that, it hit me, I'm not in control. And I actually surrendered to it. Instead of just in my mind being like, okay, I logically understand I'm not in control. But it hit me and I actually surrendered. I let go. I let go of all the things that I'm not in control of. And it just opened so much up for me. It created all this space within myself. And I was actually sort of freed from my own mind and able to be present in that moment and see and experience life in a way I never had before. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I love that. Why that spoke to me, I'm not a person that sort of believes in predestined fate and all this stuff, but I do believe that life, there are different ways to describe this, but things happen for a purpose. Things happen for a reason. We need to learn to listen to them and be open to where life is taking this and all this. And my point to all this is people have said to me at times, "Mark, you need to learn how to be present in the moment." And there's the mindfulness movement and I've never really gotten that. But what you explained when I was listening to it during your presentation and here now again, you really do a very good job. Just the light went on. That's what it means to be present in the moment, just to experience this now. No agendas, no worries, and just be in the grace, just enjoy. This is here and now. So I thank you for that. For one, it's just like, okay, little light went on there. Callie Russell: Yeah, it's amazing. I just realized I was the only thing in the way of what I wanted in that moment. What I wanted was to be really immersed in this wilderness experience. And I was there, but I was preventing myself from being fully immersed because I was worrying about the future. And when I realized that and was actually able to just let go of what may or may not happen in the future, I was actually able to get the exact thing which that I wanted, which was be there. And it's just so profound to realize I was the one... We always sort look elsewhere to blame circumstances and for what's going on and why things aren't working out. But just to realize every single day, I am the only one that gets to choose if I have a good day or not. I'm the one who gets to choose if I'm enjoying myself. And it doesn't matter the circumstances, all the circumstances, I'm not in control of all that. The only thing I get to choose is I still get to choose if I'm going to enjoy my day. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And again, the circumstance of being in Alone and doing all this, I mean, what an extraordinary experience. But I think these kinds of lessons, learnings are applicable to all of us. I don't need to be alone pushing boundaries like you did in such an extraordinary way. But we all have our challenges every single day and there's a lot of things we can't control. Even as simple as just like, "Gosh, there's just too much traffic and I'm late to get to the hearing," or whatever it might be. But we can control how we respond to that, what we do with it. And to me that's very empowering because it keeps the world in perspective. What would you say, wrapping some things up here, what are the takeaways? The growth, we've talked about some of this, but when you sit and say, okay, this was an extraordinary experience, 10, 20, 30 years from now, when you look back on this, how did you change? What growth was there for you? What's truly important out of all of this? Callie Russell: Well, one thing is I was started this path of learning these ancestral skills because I wanted freedom. I wanted the freedom to be able to go out into the mountains and be able to find food and take care of myself and live how our ancestors used to live. I wanted that sense of freedom. But practicing all this stuff, I realize true freedom is actually within myself, it's within my mind. And it doesn't matter how many skills I have, it depends on the thoughts that I'm thinking. The thoughts that I'm thinking are what allowed me to feel free or not free. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Got it, got it. Callie Russell: Yeah, the essence of true freedom. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Callie Russell: And another thing with working with these skills, spending time in the wilderness and working with these skills is that it's really easy to feel alone in our world. And a lot of people ask me, "Oh, when you were on the show called Alone and you were all alone in the wilderness and it was negative 40 and you only had rabbits to eat, weren't you so lonely? How did you deal with the loneliness?" And I said, "I actually didn't feel lonely out there at all. I felt way more lonely when I was a teenager surrounded by people. I felt way more lonely when I was in college trying to get through college." And I was around people all the time. I was extremely lonely because I didn't have the sense of connection that I wanted, sense of connection with community, with other people, but also with other species. There's a term that's been coined by Robin Wall Kimmerer, she's an author, called species loneliness. And that we as humans experience species loneliness because our culture, we're sort of brought up not really knowing about the natural world as much. So we don't know the different names, the different species of birds and the different species of trees, even the ones we're around all the time. And once you start making those connections with the natural world, you start to realize we're all connected and we're all a part of things. And working with this stuff is allowed me that sense of connection and time on the show has allowed me that sense of connection. And I think that it's just the web that we're all a part of and realizing we're not alone. We're not alone on our little island. We're all together, we're on the same island, we're in the same boat. And just opening up to that is, I think, so powerful and it feels so good and I'm so happy to be experiencing that and I'm so happy to be sharing that connection with other people. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Folks, one of the things that, because this is an audio podcast, there's lots of things you can't see, but during the presentation that Callie just gave here, we got to see a lot of screenshots and things from the TV show and some slides and things. Trust me when I say that this environment is beyond extreme. Just crazy, snow, cold. She's wrapped up on all kinds of stuff. But at the same time, she showed some photos of the space that she made that eventually even using her word, became home. And it's extraordinary. Rocks, they're flat rocks and she found some clay. I'm thinking mud. And builds a fireplace. And this space is gorgeous. Now still, it can get 40 below. This is not glamping. But the thing that struck me throughout the entire presentation are these wonderful just glowing smiles and the ability to find the connection and to celebrate and appreciate all that's going on. I never heard you say... Life threw a lot of challenges at you. But as you said, "I'm not looking at the walls, I'm looking for the exits, the doors to keep moving forward." And to me it gets back to just, you are a living, breathing model for me in terms of saying you listen to your life at a level I think most people will never get to. And I just think that's awesome. But I want you listening to us, folks... I can get emotional about this. She spoke to me in a very deep way. The ability to just see the beauty, appreciate the moment in the face of what so many of us would say is just adversity we could never even manage. But she also stepped in, she took the time to learn the skills. I'm rambling here a little bit. But to me, I guess I'd say it's a message of hope, it's a message of reminding us who really is in control. It's life. And other people can throw all kinds of things at us and we can't control that, but we can control how we respond. And ultimately, that's true control. So I hope you found something of value ina all of this stuff. But Callie, thank you so much for taking a little time to visit with us. Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share? Anything? Callie Russell: Well, just another thing on what you're saying, the resilience of the human spirit. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Yes. Callie Russell: And we all have that. Some people think, "Oh, I would never be able to do that." But I think we all surprise ourselves when we're actually thrown into a challenging situation that we all have a resilient human spirit. And when we are thrown into a thing that we think we can't do and we try to do it anyway, there's so much joy and empowerment coming through that other side. And so to embrace. Embrace that discomfort, embrace getting out of the comfort zone and knowing that we are all stronger than we think we are. And I know me going through that experience when I started, I didn't think it was something that I'd be able to do. It felt like it was too big for me. But I went through anyway and I came out the other end feeling very empowered and realizing I'm stronger than I thought I was. And I think it's the case for everybody. And so I think that's an important piece. And I think sometimes too knowing, when the life I was living before I started following that pull. I kind of felt this tug on my heart or my soul or something that was like, you need to be doing something else. Before I started listening to that, that I could have kept struggling through the job that I had, or the work that I was doing. But I knew there's a kind of difference between having a hard situation and overcoming it and keeping yourself in a hard... You're creating that hard situation that you know isn't good for you too. And having that courage to say, "Hey, this isn't the kind of struggle that I need in my life. What can I do to change it? How can I change my life so it feels better for me?" And I think that ties into the self care piece. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I appreciate that. Wow. Again, so much stuff. Again, wrapping all this up, to me, Callie's story and experiences is truly at the end of a day, a message of hope that when any of us are facing challenging times, get overwhelmed with work, struggling with whatever our personal demons are, take it one step at a time. Understand you are in control of you, how you respond. Look for the exits or look for the doors. Callie Russell: Doorways. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Because that's how you grow. And I do, I love this message and you found this, discovered it yourself in very awesome meaningful ways. We all have strengths in us and we just don't know. So have a little faith. Put that smile on, put your feet in the grass, just start moving and good things will come. So again, folks, thanks for listening. I hope you have a good one. And I look forward to listening with you next time on ALPS In Brief. Callie Russell: And get outside. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And get outside. I love it. Thanks, Callie. Okay folks, bye-bye.  

In this episode of ALPS in Brief, Mark sits down with Megan Hottman, the Cyclist Lawyer. At the age of 29, she did what people told her was not possible — she hung her own shingle and formed Hottman Law Office (HLO), aka "TheCyclist-Lawyer.com." This practice, she says, "is the perfect combination of passion and profession — love of cycling and legal education culminated in this practice; I'm doing what I was meant to do." Hear how Megan blazed her own trail, what's next, and how to know when to say "hell yes." Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. For those of you that have listened to my various stories and podcasts over the years, I had a short series called, Listening to Your Life. And that was telling some stories about cycling. I've done a fair amount of cycling over the years and it's a way I stay in shape and so enjoyed it, particularly in 2020 when we had the shutdown. And boy, that's how I dealt with cycling, or the shutdown, just getting out and putting on a lot of miles. That summer I put in, I think it was over 2,200 miles. So that was quite a summer. I also have an interest in niche practices. Years ago, I spent many, many years doing some consulting work and have worked with over 1200 firms all over the country. And one of my favorite practices was a niche practice of guy up in Alaska that specialized in dog sled law. And I actually pulled up to the firm in the summertime and there was maybe two parking spaces, but there are about 15 spaces for dog sled teams. It was just an interesting, interesting story, or I should say, interesting experience. So all of that kind of plays into my guest and conversation we're going to have today. I'm so pleased to be able to welcome Megan Hottman. She is an attorney in Colorado, but I really want you folks to have the opportunity to hear and enjoy listening to Megan. So Megan, please welcome to the podcast and if you want to take a couple of moments and just share anything and everything about yourself. What do people need to know? MEGAN HOTTMAN: Well, thank you for having me. What do the people need to know? Well, everyone wants to know how I became The Cyclist Lawyer. And the truth is that I was a cyclist and a lawyer and I became someone who wanted to represent cyclists in my law practice. So that unfolded really just a confluence of events, you might say. I was a baby lawyer, kind of fresh out of law school and I was also an aspiring bike racer chasing the professional bike racing dream. And I wasn't sure how to put the two together because both are very time demanding and energy demanding. And long story short, people that I raced bikes with and against at events knew I was an attorney but had no idea what area of law I practiced in. But a few of them would ask me at events, "Hey, I was hit by a car while I was training. I have no idea what kind of law you do, but is that something you could help me with?" And I realized that working for people that shared this passion of mine for two wheels, life on two wheels, was very compelling and interesting to me and helping them try to get back in the saddle after having been involved in a collision with motorists. That really is how the practice unfolded back in 2010. And I was scared to death, of course, to start my own practice. I was 29, I'd been out of law school for five years and people said, "Well, you can't start a practice of your own that soon. That's not how this works." And I just felt that to do it the way I wanted to do it and to simultaneously be able to chase my bike racing dreams, I really couldn't work for someone else and be on someone else's schedule, I needed to be on my own schedule. So that's how this whole adventure began. And here we are, 12 and a half years later. MARK: That's really interesting because again, I was referring to this dog sled lawyer and a fascinating guy, but it was the same kind of thing. He was a racer, passion, enjoyed it. And other people, he got to know that the circuits and well, I have this problem or that problem in racing. And it's just this kind of organic evolution. And I love that. Folks, this is obviously an audio podcast here and I've had the pleasure of meeting Megan in Missoula at a corporate event earlier this year, but I am so struck by the joy and the passion that you see in her face when she talks about what has happened and her life. And why I think that's important, I like that you were taking risks and really wanted to go this way. But when I hear your story and interact, I'm trying to remember the name of that, there's a Disney movie where a guy goes out and plays baseball. It's a true story, Disney eyes, but he's a high school coach down in Texas and he ends up trying out for the majors and makes it. But as he's in the minors working up to the majors, he just talks about, "I can't believe. Guess what I get to do today? I get to play baseball." And I see that in you. It seems to me you very much enjoy what you're doing and have found. The one thing I want to say folks is Megan took some risks, but they were so calculated and good risks to take because of the interest and the passion. And I just want you to hear, because I believe niche practices can be very, very successful. Not only financially, but in terms of the lifestyle, the wellness. Would you tend to agree with that, Megan? MEGAN: Yeah. I don't even know so much that it's a niche practice conclusion so much as it is doing something that really lights you up more than just the billable hour or the money in the bank. And that's true for everyone, whether they're an attorney or someone else. And even if your job doesn't light you up, having hobbies outside of your job that light you up. I think it's critical more than ever now these days, more than ever. And I'm a big fan of Dan Buettner's work, the Blue Zones, and he talks about what some of the common factors are among people that live to the age of 100 and are in good health. And one of the big ones, in addition to healthy diet, daily movement, a community of people that you are close to, is having a sense of purpose. And so we can all go to work and punch a paycheck, a pay clock, and work our nine to five or whatever, and that's important. Sure, we need to pay for our homes and our meals and support our families. MARK: Absolutely. MEGAN: And I felt the calling to it needed to be more than that for me to be successful. In this profession, it needed to be really compelling and important to me. And in addition to serving these cyclists all these years it, I think, understandably grew into a desire to make cycling safer and really within a couple years getting that clarity that my ultimate goal is to put myself out of business. And if we've made cycling so safe that cyclists aren't hit anymore and don't need lawyers like me, that would be the biggest win and the biggest victory ever. MARK: Yes. MEGAN: And like you, a lot of people came to the bike or came back to the bike during COVID. We really saw this massive bike boom. Actually worked part-time at a bike shop in 2020 just to help one of our local shops out. And the lines of customers were around the block on both sides of the building. MARK: Wow. MEGAN: Couldn't believe it. MARK: Yeah. MEGAN: And we had hoped that COVID was going to be the rebirth of cycling for the US and a re-appreciation for how it can be not just a tool for fitness and recreation, but for transportation. And it gave us a lot of hope. And instead, we've unfortunately seen a real change in motorist behavior and everyone is sensing it. There's just an increase of rage and frenzy and anxiety. People are driving fast and reckless and maliciously and we've actually seen a huge uptick really since 2021 in this area, unfortunately. MARK: Yeah, that's sad. It doesn't surprise me. My wife and I were in Montana for many, many years and just within the past year we've moved down to central Florida and I still try to ride and I get out, but I will tell you... And I've talked to, we found a physician down here, a really nice guy, and he bikes a little bit, saying, "This is a very, very dangerous area to bike," and for this very reason. The drivers are just crazy. And I see some folks out going, "They need to take a course from Megan because this is not where you want to ride." Just, oh my gosh. Well that's, talk a little more about the evolution of your practice. MEGAN: Yeah. MARK: You have these two passions and there's this organic kind of start. How did you though really finesse that to move from, this is an idea, this is a passion? And I think I know the answer based on some of the things you've just been sharing. But it's one thing to have people say, "Can you help out a little bit and do all that?" and turn that in to a full-time practice where you can pay the bills and where you can... I assume you have some staff or others that you work with. Are you solo? MEGAN: Yep. Nope, I did have a team. I'm in the process of scaling down, but we did have a team. I was the only attorney, but support staff. Yes. MARK: Okay, so how do you get there? MEGAN: Well, whether you're in a niche practice or a niche profession or not, one thing I quickly realized was you still want to be really intentional about who you're serving. And early on in our startup, as anyone is in startup mode of any business, you take whatever comes in the door and you're just thrilled that people want to hire you. And so you're a bit of a basket case, you're responding to everything and it's, "Oh, you want me to jump? How high?" kind of mentality. And that's fine for the first couple years. It's not sustainable, but that's part of any startup. And then at least for me, I started to get some clarity on, okay, yes, I want to represent cyclists. But within that group of people there's a subset, there's a specific type of case or a specific type of client that we really want to represent. For example, I don't find certain types of bike injury cases compelling because I'm so focused on changing motorist behavior that I tend to be less interested, let's say in a cyclist on cyclist collision, on a bike path. That can still be very bad and still someone's at fault, but that is less interesting to me because I'm really more concerned with how do we change the motoring public's perception of cycling. Or if someone rides their bike into wet concrete in a construction zone for example. There's definitely a claim there and someone probably made a mistake. I don't find that interesting because again, I started to get clear on what are the bigger changes and impacts I wanted to have. And even drilling down within that subset and saying, is there an opportunity here to mobilize the media for the greater good? Does this case lend itself to us going to the legislature and asking for some new laws on this particular topic or in this type of instance? Does this lend itself to us leveraging state or city financial resources to put in new infrastructure to prevent this type of thing happening again? And so just getting really clear on, yes, this particular client certainly deserves their compensation for this horrible thing that has happened to them, but can we make the impact broader than just that client? And then all along the way, sort of taking stock of, okay, have I let myself now get so spun up and so caught up in the business frenzy that I'm no longer living the life that I want to live myself. And that's easy to do too. I don't care how passionate you are about the subject matter, you can take the entrepreneurial mindset and you can let it get totally out of hand and then it can consume you. And suddenly, you wake up and you say, "Whose life is this that I'm living?" I'm making more money than I ever thought I'd make. I've reached all my goals. This is exciting and amazing and oh my goodness, this is so exhilarating, and yet I'm not riding my bike suddenly. Or my health isn't good, my sleep is breaking down, I'm not managing my own stress very well. What's going on here? So I think it's important to ask those questions too. MARK: And I agree. Wellness is a big issue for me in terms of what I do and what I've seen. So many people, attorneys and non attorneys alike, when we talk about malpractice, they want to know, "What are the big mistakes?" And those are important things to look at, but it's not the right question. I'm more interested in why the mistakes occur. And that gets into wellness. There are so much of the malpractice and even the disciplinary issues that are out there have some, more often than not, have some impairment component. MEGAN: Yes. MARK: Whether it's dementia, stress, burnout, addictions, all kinds of things. That's why the clients might have got neglected. I struggle with depression and on and on, and all these different things. So how did you balance all that? Were there things, as you start to ask yourselves these questions, am I still living the dream or is this getting a little cloudy? MEGAN: Great question. MARK: What did you do? What was your response? MEGAN: There's a couple prongs that I'd like to respond to in that. One is I noticed I was drinking too much. Nothing that affected my work, thankfully, but more than I wanted to be drinking myself. It certainly was affecting my ability to perform as an athlete. Even if you just go to social events and you have a couple glasses of wine, it totally makes your sleep garbage. And then you're just a dull down version of yourself the next day. So just noticing that I was less sharp than I wanted to be, I was less of an athlete than I wanted to be. I just really realized, my goodness, I am diminishing my own capacity with this thing that is such a central pillar of this profession. Between lawyers and entrepreneurs, everything is alcohol centric it seems. And just decided I wasn't going to engage in that kryptonite for myself anymore because I live a pretty clean, healthy life otherwise. And especially with my focus on getting good sleep, which I do believe is the foundation for a good human existence and experience, here I am undermining even my own sleep with this socialization around alcohol. So I quit drinking in the end of 2017, very much on purpose with those things in mind. And no surprise, 2018 was an exceptional year business wise, bottom line sword, I rode 10,000 miles on my bike that year. MARK: Wow. MEGAN: I competed in numerous big bike events, a lot of them on a single speed, 150, 200 mile gravel bike events. And everything went exceptionally well that year. And I thought, wow, this is what it's like when I'm actually firing on all cylinders. This is really great. And I still don't drink. And I preach the sort of alcohol free life. Not in a sense that I think alcohol is bad per se, or I'm not trying to be the fun police, I just do think it's important for us to call into question why we are so socially accepting of something that is so damaging. And in this particular profession, that 2016 Betty Ford study, that's been many years now already, that's six years old, one in three lawyers is a problem drinker. That is terrifying. And yet, when I am at legal events, I have to tell you, I conclude the same thing in my observations. MARK: I absolutely agree. Yeah, it's been my experience too in a lot of the things, you get involved around the country, the annual conventions, bar conventions and whatnot, you bet. MEGAN: You see it. So on that note, really where your question I think was going was how do you stay in alignment? MARK: Right. MEGAN: And for me, I personally, I'm not a psychologist, I am not a substance abuse professional or expert, but I personally believe that the reason our substance abuse is so high in this profession is because there's a lot of things that we are not acknowledging and addressing as lawyers and as a profession that inherently drives people to numb out because it is so overwhelming and it is so hard to face. One thing I've really become keen on observing and noticing and learning more about is secondary trauma because I work in the personal injury space. We observe people's trauma in these horrific situations. We don't just cut them on the emergency table, stitch them up, and then go on to the next patient. We live with these clients and their stories for years and we have to convey it effectively as a storyteller at trial. And so we take on, whether we mean to or not, a lot of that trauma ourselves, vicarious trauma, secondary trauma. And no one's teaching us this and no one's even telling us, here are the warning signs that you're getting too much of that in your life, in your practice. So it does not surprise me that a lot of lawyers turn to substance to try and just numb out for a little bit. And I'll finish this thought by just by saying I pride myself as being someone who doesn't really numb out, especially once I quit drinking. It was like I'd rather confront stuff head on and say, "What's really going on here?" And as my practice unfolded into year seven, year eight, a lot of that trauma started to catch up with me. A couple cyclists that I knew very well were hit and killed, and I'm involved in their cases. And then that became really overwhelming. And I thought, "What's wrong with me? Why are other lawyers seemingly managing this far better than I am?" And it really started to knock me down pretty hard core. I was planning to take sabbatical at the beginning of 2020, but that's right when COVID started. It was supposed to be March of 2020. And I knew that I needed to punch out for a little bit because I could tell that things weren't okay. That was before I knew about secondary trauma. And what I've come to realize since, because I was hit by a car this June 5th and very badly injured, was in a wheelchair and relegated to a walker, there were no walks, there were no bike rides, there were no yoga classes, there was no van adventuring, all the things that I really love to do that light me up worked, it's full stop. And I realized in part that those things are a bit of a numbing behavior for me. That is kind of how I escape the stresses of this work. And so when you strip all those numbing agents away and you really are forced to confront the discomfort. What I've concluded is most of us will go to great lengths to avoid that. It's very uncomfortable. We will look to anything else, whether it's shopping or what have you, as a distraction. And so my advice for lawyers would be to start honoring those nudges because there is something in us that knows when something's not right. And if you're tempted to say, "Oh my God, I really need some wine, I've had a horrible day," or "I can't wait to take the edge off" or what have you, you can still go do that if you feel called to that. But first, ask the question why, what's going on inside me that's got me stolen knots, and pay attention to that. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Well said. And I absolutely agree. You had talked too a bit about getting involved in education and trying to do some things to change laws. And I believe there's been some charity work you've been involved at too. Was that intentional, in terms of even if just an organic involvement? I'm not sure else to describe it, but it was that part of the growth of the practice process? Was that part of just a desire to give back? Was that part of trying to keep things, and I really don't like the word balance, but to try to maintain sense of purpose and well-being? How did all that come about? MEGAN: Sure. Early on, when I started my practice and started to realize some success, it's incredibly exhilarating to make great money. We're not going to candy coat that. That's why we went to law school, most of us. We'd like to live the lawyer lifestyle. And when you start cashing in on big cases, that's incredibly exhilarating and affirming and it's quite a rush. And for me, that was really great for a few years of just saying, "Wow, this is cool." This has this capacity and I got really involved in real estate and I'm super passionate about real estate stuff. That didn't last very long for me. Yes, you still need to earn money and pay the bills for sure. But then I started to say, well I've now had 20 or 30 or 40 clients hit in bike lanes. What the hell's the point of having a bike lane if we're not going to offer any legal protection for people in bike lanes as one example. And that really climaxed when I got hit myself in a bike lane in 2019 and I thought, well we've gone to all the trouble to put this on the road and paint the lane and paint it white. And yet, I still got hit here in broad daylight. We need some legal protection. So that prompted myself to partner with one of our legislators to write a bike lane bill here in Colorado, which says that motorists must yield to cyclists in bike lanes. So duh, but the law didn't exist before that. Similarly, with some of my other clients, just starting to observe, we're not being treated fairly by the district attorneys. There's no real prosecution happening of these drivers. No one's losing a driver's license, no one's getting any real punishment, there's no lesson being learned. These drivers aren't suffering whatsoever for the carnage that they're leaving in their wake. And so started getting more and more involved in the criminal and the traffic cases of my clients, even though that's not part of my civil representation, that I'm not being paid for that part. But as far as the greater good, if there's no prosecution of drivers who harm cyclists, what are we doing here? For me to just move money from insurance companies into client's pockets, yes, that's part of the process, but it needed to be more than that for me. So started to get involved in educating law enforcement, teaching them what the rules say. Whether they agree with it or not, this is what our legislature has decided. And taking that into teaching bike shops and bike teams what their obligations are so that we can be following the laws as cyclists, talk to several driving schools to teach driving instructors what the laws require as they're teaching our youth how to drive, trying to approach it from all angles of let's make safer cyclists, let's make safer motorists, let's make safer roads. And the truth is that there's advocacy organizations whose entire purpose in all day, every day is focused on lobbying and getting money for the infrastructure in our cities. And so that's the lane that they swim in. I don't need to be in that lane. That's what they do. So I decided to focus on the legal side of things and either writing the laws or dealing with the punishment in the criminal cases because that's of course more uniquely suited to my skillset. MARK: Well, as a guy out there on the road at times and enjoying as a fellow cyclist, nowhere near your level, but there's just something about riding. MEGAN: Amen. MARK: It's a quiet place. And when you're out, really just riding. Around here, I'm still learning and I'm going to have to get a bike rack till some other trails get built. What's coming is going to be awesome, but we're a few years away yet. MEGAN: Gotcha. MARK: But also thank you for the work that you do. I've always said to even our kids, we can't necessarily change the world, but boy, we can do something in our little corner of it. And if enough of us work on our little corner of it, we can accomplish some great things at a larger level. MEGAN: That's exactly right. MARK: So that's awesome. Well, you had talked a little bit about slowing down a bit. May I ask, what's next? Where are you going? MEGAN: Yeah, great question. I remain open to what the universe directs me towards. It's really cool how just being open, it does open doors to things. I think it's really fun too to just say, why not be curious? Rather than immediately disregard things that seem impractical, why not just see what comes in and what I can call in for myself. I just got off the phone a few minutes ago with a lawyer out on the East Coast that wants to hire me as a bike expert in his case. And I love doing that work, helping other lawyers improve their case for the cyclists that they represent. And adding my unique expertise as an expert for them has been great. So I'm doing some of that work. And I'm also coaching other lawyers, specifically those who have formed their own firms, to really help them try to get clarity on what their ideal life and how they want this to look and how they want this firm to serve them in the hopes that I can help them avoid some of the pitfalls that I've mentioned for myself, where we get so spun up in it, we kind of forget why we started. So I'm coaching a handful of lawyers and I really enjoy that. And as you mentioned, I got to speak at the event for you guys in July. I really enjoy doing keynote speaking and those things seem to pop up once or twice a quarter and that's really fun. I do still have my current caseload that I am still in the process of finishing up, and whether I fully withdraw or retreat or not is not clear to me just yet. But I have felt really called here in the front range of Colorado, just the summer specifically, to take on a few cases pro bono, some really heinous hit and run cases. MARK: Oh my gosh. MEGAN: Two very serious injury cases and one a death case where we have drivers hitting cyclists and leaving the scene, which is just so appalling. I can't even conceive of that. And unfortunately, does often involve impairment of these drivers. So they're not in their right minds, but that's not an excuse. So trying to help those families through the process has been really rewarding for me as I've been recovering from my own collision. MARK: And is cycling still in your future? You're going to come back and get back on the bike and keep going? MEGAN: Absolutely. Yeah. You probably have to cut my bikes up into little tiny pieces to keep me off of them. One of my favorite things in life is to bike commute. I've really designed a life for myself here in Golden, which is a little subset of Denver. It's a little kind of small town feel, home of Coors and the School of Mines. It's a great place to live if you want to ride your bike everywhere. And so I really, within a 10 mile radius, can do basically everything that I need to do in my life. And that's been one of the things I've missed the most from this collision and these injuries. And I don't know what that looks like going forward because commuting does involve quite a bit of being on the road. I've grown to just love my e-bike for commuting. My car sits in the garage. Like you mentioned, being on the bike is just such a special time. And then to be able to pair that with a trip that you need to make anyway is just so fulfilling for me. Right now, I am cleared to do a little bit of e-bike rehab. So I've just been doing that on the bike paths, just to keep the knee continuing to come back full strength. MARK: Good. MEGAN: And that's great for me right now because there's no cars and I can enjoy that. But the truth is that bike paths don't usually get us most places that we need to go and want to go. So it's more of a joy ride. MARK: Yeah, I get that. Well, I really appreciate your taking a little time out of your day to visit with us. I will give you a chance, if you have any additional final thought in terms of wisdom you'd like to pass along, you want to share any information about your book, contact info. Whatever you feel comfortable sharing, you've got the last word. MEGAN: Okay, cool. Well, my Instagram is where I put out most of my content. And so if people are interested in following along, my Instagram handle is, @cyclist_lawyer, or my website is meganhottman.com. Megan, M-E-G-A-N, Hottman, H-O-T-T-M-A-N.com. Those are great places to find me and contact me if something I've said is calling to you. As far as words of wisdom, I think I would say yes, we go to law school to be lawyers. That's usually the outcome, that's the objective. But if someone in this profession feels that it's no longer serving them, I would encourage them to give themselves permission to say it's totally okay to pivot. And everything that we learn in law school and everything that we learn in this profession is so beneficial in so many other lines of work. We've really moved past being a population that picks the one thing and sticks with it for 50 years and then retires. We're really not that anymore. And I don't think lawyers need to expect that's the way either. So if you're sensing that something's not right and it's getting louder and louder, I think what I would also say is that the universe will get your attention. And if you choose not to listen, usually the outcome can be quite drastic. And so it's important to listen to those nudges when they're the size of little pebbles or little rocks before they grow into boulders and meteors. There's something in you that's trying to get your attention and it typically doesn't go away until you acknowledge it and face it full on. MARK: And you're a perfect example of the success that can come in so many ways, choosing to listen to your life. And that's how I have said it over the years. But that's wonderful. Well, I wish you all the best in your recovery and whatever the coming chapters in your life hold. I look forward to hearing in future how this all evolves. MEGAN: I can't wait to find out too. MARK: I get that. All right. Well folks, thank you for listening. I hope you found something of value and I encourage you to check out Megan on Instagram or her website. There's just a lot of really good information on her website, I'll tell you that too, as a risk guy. So that's it, thanks for listening. Megan, it's been a pleasure. MEGAN: Same with you. Thank you. MARK: Bye all.  

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, Mark and the founders of Sensei Enterprises discuss cybersecurity options and support for solo and small law firms. Somebody's got to take care of you and that's just what they do. Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I am Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I am back from a trip into the home office in Missoula, and back in the satellite office here in Florida, and have with me two folks that I've just had the joy and pleasure of getting to know over the years, and the privilege to work with a few times over the years at various ABA events, and it's just been a lot of fun. MARK: Please help me in welcoming Sharon Nelson and John Simek. Sharon and John are President and Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, which is really the heart of the topic we're going to talk about today. Before we jump into some of the questions and things I'd like us to visit about Sharon and John, may I have each of you take a couple of minutes and share whatever you'd like to share about yourselves? What would help our listeners get to know you a bit better? SHARON NELSON: I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to John. What we do at Sensei Enterprise is managed information technology, managed cybersecurity services, and digital forensics. We have three branches, and that means we're running a fire station without a Dalmatian here, so there's always emergencies. It gets very difficult to keep all the balls in the air. We are also married with six children and 10 grandchildren. We're together all day and all night too. MARK: I love it. JOHN SIMEK: You didn't tell [inaudible 00:01:53], you're a lawyer though. SHARON: Oh well. JOHN: Do they care? SHARON: Maybe. John is the veteran technologist and I am the lawyer, and that's why we decided to work together when we started the company some 25 years ago, more than that now, just a little bit. John was the talent and I was the lawyer/marketer who could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, so that worked out really well for us both. JOHN: I'm not a lawyer, as you can probably tell. I'm an engineer by degree, and been involved in technology informally even before the internet. I remember that presidential candidate that was trying to create [inaudible 00:02:40]. Whatever, but back in the days of the modems and all that stuff. But I have a lot of technical certifications, formal training as well. I guess a lot of people think that I should be wearing a pocket protector and have a propeller head. But yeah, as Sharon said, I do the technology stuff, testifying expert as well, because of the forensics and all that. I just got done with a deposition a couple weeks ago that was really entertaining, at least to me, but not for the other attorney. SHARON: That's how it's always supposed to turn out. I forgot to say Mark, that I was the President of the Virginia State Bar a few years ago. That was [inaudible 00:03:25]. JOHN: That's how we ended up in Montana one year. SHARON: Yeah, that's how we ended up coming to see you folks out in Montana. MARK: Indeed. That's right. That was a good time. SHARON: It was a wonderful time. JOHN: I did go fishing when we were out there. MARK: There we go. Boy, there's no place better. You want to talk about some quiet country time on the river with a fly? A lot of fun. One of the things that I've never really visited with you guys about, I'm genuinely very interested. Sharon, you've talked, years ago, you've been a lawyer for quite some time. How did you make this jump? Was that always the plan to go into this Sensei Enterprise type business, the alternative practice, a non-traditional track if you will? How did this all come about? SHARON: Life is full of accidents. As I was a young [inaudible 00:04:22]. JOHN: We're experts at that. SHARON: Oh yeah. When my first child was born, her condition required me to stay home through several surgeries and several years. She's fine, but I ended up working from home as a lawyer. And then, later on after I had been a lawyer and been seriously involved in the Bar Association, I had this very nice man who taught technology to anyone at colleges, and he was helping me computerize my law practice back in the '80s. I was pretty wired up for a solo. But then, he got relocated because of his job, and I said, "What am I going to do without you?" And he said, "Well, I've got this friend down the street, and he's really brilliant, but he's a pain in the butt." And he said, "But I'll set up a lunch, and if you can stand him, then he could do a better job even than me." SHARON: I met him for lunch, I could stand him, and so, we started out with him helping me with my law practice technology. Ultimately, he had always wanted his own company, and he just looked at me one day and said, "You know, I could be the talent of a company, and you're a lawyer, and you can sell anybody anything, so why don't we hook up and form a company?" And that's how we got started. MARK: Wow. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Oh my. Can you tell me a little bit about the types of services? You can a little highlight or overview, but can we dig in a little bit in terms of the types of services that you offer? I'm also interested, how would you describe your typical client? I know that you do a lot of work I think with businesses that are not just... You're not limiting your services in other words to law firms. Is what you have to offer, would it be useful, beneficial to solo small firm lawyers around the country? SHARON: We actually are devoted to solo small firm lawyers, not that they are an exclusive client roster. We have a client that has over a thousand people. JOHN: Not a legal entity. SHARON: No, not a legal entity. But in any event, we do all sizes. But we have a special feeling in our hearts for the needs of the solo small, because most companies are not interested in them. They don't really want them, because they can't get much of a profit out of them. JOHN: They might have some minimum. Unless you've got 10 bodies or more, they're not interested to even talk to you. SHARON: And so, somebody has got to take care of these people, so we really specialize in finding cost-effective things that they can use to do what they need to do. That's been something that we've been celebrated for, is that we do take care of solo and smalls along with the bigger firms. It's been a mix, Mark, and I really feel strongly about that because I was a solo myself, and I know how hard it was to get competent help and to get things that you could afford. And now that cybersecurity is so important, it's really critical that the solo and small firms have people to guide them in a way that's budget-friendly, because this stuff can be really expensive. MARK: Yeah, I'm well aware. What types of services can you help? If I'm just a solo stuck here in Florida, or Montana, or Iowa, what can you do for me? JOHN: Basically, we do an assessment, an initial assessment, come in there to see what you've got going, and is it appropriate? Should we forklift some things? Are you in the Cloud even? Because today, it's so much more affordable and flexible to be in the Cloud. SHARON: And secure, more secure. JOHN: Maybe you should be considering that. We do have some clients that are remote, up in Massachusetts as well as down the coast, and we can do a lot of things remotely. Sometimes though, you do have to have boots on the ground, and some folks might have a local person if they need hands-on to something. But generally no, we can get equipment, we can figure it, we can ship it, do all that. But essentially, get you in a position where you're a heck of a lot more secure with your technology. SHARON: And you're getting good recommendations from us about what [inaudible 00:09:08]. JOHN: Stability, backup. SHARON: Practice management systems, document management. We can help them work with the companies who have appropriate pricing for solo and small. That's really our niche, is to be able to do that for those people. The solo and smalls are really neglected. JOHN: But it really is a unique thing though, because there's not a template. You can't go to the green drawer and pull out a system for a solo. SHARON: No. I mean, they all have different needs. JOHN: They've got different needs, different things that are important to them, different types of practice, their workflows are different. We really do try to, as Sharon said, customize and make sure that they do have a cost-effective solution. The other advantage I think we have is that we know a lot about the law, and a lot about what lawyers' responsibilities are, and what their- SHARON: And what's ethical. And what's ethical has changed, Mark. In today's world, you have to take reasonable measures to protect client data and confidential data. These days, we have gotten to the point where one reasonable measure is having two-factor authentication, because it's almost always free. It comes with Office 365, which so many solo smalls use. You just have to turn it on. That's where of course the problem comes. JOHN: That's got to be really hard. SHARON: It's the convenience factor, though. They want to get right in. They don't want to have to get a text on their phone, or push a button on their phone. JOHN: Type a code. SHARON: Type a code, and whatever it is. There's all kinds of two-factor authentication obviously, and you have to help them get past the I don't want the extra step to, I have to have the extra step, because ethics demands this of me, because multifactor authentication stops almost 100% of credential-based account attacks. You don't get us that much better than that. JOHN: Especially not when it's free. SHARON: Yes, especially when it's free to do. You just have to put up with one little annoying thing that you have to do. JOHN: You can trust devices too, so it's not every time. You don't have to do this 30 days, or whatever it is, whatever the period of time is. A lot of folks I don't think realize that. They think when they hear this, they go, "No, I'm not going to do this every darn time I connect." You don't have to. SHARON: You said, tell a story. Here's a story. We've been able to successfully convince most of our law firm clients that they must ethically do this. There were several who protested, and they dragged their feet, and they dragged their feet, and then one of them got hit by ransomware. That's what happens when you don't take some advice. First thing they said was, "Okay, we got hit. We were attacked. I guess you were right about that 2FA thing, so could you come back and fix that for us now?" MARK: Hard lesson learned, but boy is it a good lesson once they understand it. I'm hearing you can do lots of advising and guidance on terms of how to become secure, taking into consideration regulations we're subject to, the ethical rules, et cetera. I just had somebody call me up yesterday about, they were talking about some other things, and a side question came out. It's a solo setting up her own firm, and she's interested, are there services and people out there that can help monitor the systems to give you a heads up? Her question was, how do I know if I'm breached? Can you help them answer that, or help them deal with that risk? SHARON: You have today an ethical obligation to monitor for a breach. That's pretty much been established. Now that you know you have to monitor, that's one reason why we are a managed service provider, because we have all sorts of alarms, and alerts, and we check things like backups to make sure everything is going the way it should. JOHN: There's a lot of automation. SHARON: There's a lot of automation. The thing is, when something goes wrong, we'll get a notice, so the lawyer is protected by having the managed services and the alerts that will go to their provider. That way, they know right away, they can usually fix it right away, or if the power is out or something like that, they have to wait until power comes back obviously. But that's why you want someone watching over all of this for you, because the average lawyer has no idea what any of these alerts mean. These things go off, and they're clueless. You want that in the hands of a professional, and it's not very expensive to get it. And so, this idea of endpoint detection and response, this is another thing that we would say is reasonably required in order for you to monitor for those breaches. JOHN: It's not just monitoring, it's also- SHARON: React. JOHN: Yeah, it reacts to it. Artificial intelligence is a part of what the tool uses, in conjunction with human beings in a security operation center. If you get a ransomware attack as an example, or there's some rogue process that comes and starts and the system sees that, wait a minute, this is outside of baseline operation, and it can even automatically take the device off the wire, off the network. But they have, at least the solutions that we're implementing for our clients, it has a rollback capability. If it's got a problem, and you say, "Shoot, you know what? Let's go back to 30 minutes ago," and put your system back into a state before this happened, and we've got that ability. SHARON: It's really kind of magic to lawyers. As much as we try to explain it, and John did in fairly simple terms, they really don't get it. They just get that the magic works. MARK: Right. That's okay. They don't need to get it. If they have somebody like you behind the scenes taking care of it, they just need to make sure these kinds of things are in play or in place. May I also assume that if I have, I do stupid on my laptop, and I get hit with something that we talk about ransomware as a classic example, are you also offering services to help me address and deal with these kinds of breaches? SHARON: Absolutely. That's what you do. JOHN: I do want to point out though Mark, all the technology and things that we do do, you cannot fix a human being. MARK: Right. Oh boy. SHARON: Who clicks on a phishing email or a phishing text? JOHN: Sharon talked about a story. We had a story from... What's today? Thursday. I think it was either Friday, or it was no longer than a week ago. We've got all these things in place, the software, [inaudible 00:16:33], whatever, and yet we've got a lawyer that gets this message, and then he actually initiates a phone call- SHARON: To the bad guys. JOHN: To the bad guys, and then is carrying on this conversation, and under his own ID, he's opening up his machine to this caller, and I'm going, "I can't stop that." SHARON: They finally asked him to enter some bank information- JOHN: And he got suspicious. SHARON: Then he finally got suspicious and severed the connection. JOHN: He called us and we said, "Whoa, hold on." SHARON: But that kind of thing happens a whole lot. People do stupid stuff, and of course now everybody is on their phone a lot, and so the phishing via text has become a big deal. They call that smishing. People will fall for that. They'll get something that says, "You just made a purchase for $500, and if you didn't make this purchase, you've got to do this, or call there." JOHN: Click here or whatever. SHARON: Whatever. Don't click. Don't call. People are not thinking. MARK: I'm hearing we have full service, which I'm not surprised, but I just want to underscore all of this. John, you raised a very, very good point. I'm often writing and lecturing about some similar things. Regardless of what IT does, we still have to deal with the reality of the human factor. You can't patch that. You can't. We have to do some training here. Is that something you guys do as well? Are there any training resources available for solo small firms? SHARON: The best training resource I know of is somebody who is not in your own company, in your own law firm. It's somebody from the outside who carries a bigger bat and has a reputation. That's why we started out long ago doing cybersecurity awareness training for law firm employees, and we do it remotely, which of course people have gotten used to that now. We have a PowerPoint, and we talk through the PowerPoint. We only charge $500 for an hour. Trust me, they can't absorb more than one hour, because this stuff is complicated, and they have to pay attention. An hour is about right. You might want to do it more than once a year. You might want to do it twice a year. At $500, most law firms can afford that, even the solos and the small firms, because it's a whole firm price. We're there for an hour, and we answer questions as we go along, but we can show them the phishing emails and all the stuff. We talk about social engineering, and all the stupid stuff they do, like sharing and reusing passwords. JOHN: The latest attacks. SHARON: The latest attacks. We [inaudible 00:19:30] the latest information. Nonetheless, people forget. The stat that's most interesting to me, Mark, is that over 80% of successful attacks involve a human in some way or another. MARK: Right. Good stuff. One of the reasons I really was excited about visiting with the two of you again, is to try to find or create awareness about resources that are out there, because there are so many places where there is, if you will, nothing locally. When you talk about this preventative educational piece, just as an example, at $500 a pop, I sit here and say, as a risk guy, two or three times a year? That's chump change, and absolutely essential to do in my mind, when I compare the potential loss of time, worry, money, data, all kinds of things, if somebody just does something stupid and clicks on the wrong thing, and we get hit with ransomware, and it's all gone, locked up. JOHN: I think the other requirements you're going to have Mark too though, and what we're seeing a lot of, is that the cyberinsurance carriers are now in their renewals and in their applications, they want to know, are you getting training for your employees? SHARON: That's one of the questions, and they don't want to hear no, or they might charge you more, or they might offer you less coverage. We've seen it all. Cyberinsurance is driving the solo and small firms crazy. MARK: Here's one as a side comment following up on that, please folks, if you're filling out these applications, don't lie. If you say you're doing something, and a policy is issued based on those representations, it's just the same as malpractice insurance or anything else. If it turns out you aren't having these trainings and you don't do these other things that you say you are doing or have in place, that's going to jeopardize coverage. Just a little side note there, be very careful and honest about answering this. I don't want to keep you too much longer, and I really, really appreciate you taking some time today. Could we close maybe with some thoughts about what are the top two or three things that you think lawyers in this space need to be concerned about, focused on perhaps, and/or a tip or two to address these kinds of things? Just a quick wrap. SHARON: Are you talking about cybersecurity in particular, Mark? MARK: Yes. JOHN: I think Sharon has talked about the things that certainly are really high on my list, and that's the multifactor authentication, the EDR systems, endpoint detection response. SHARON: And an incident response plan, which only 36% of attorneys have an incident response plan, and it is so critical, because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That's an old chestnut of a line, but it's really true. You have got to have a plan, and you probably need somebody to consult with you a little bit, because there's no absolute template out there that fits everybody. You can start with one, but you really need to have somebody who knows what they're doing help you out with developing a plan. It's not all that hard, it's just that people don't do it. And then, if they do do it, then they leave it to molder, and of course nothing stays the same in this world, especially cybersecurity. In a year, if you haven't looked at it and done anything with it, some portion of it is probably quite obsolete. JOHN: But I think the critical foundation for that whole thing, before you even get down to saying, how am I going to respond, what does my IRP look like, is inventorying your assets and your data. If you don't know you have it, you can't protect it. MARK: That is an excellent point. Yes. That's absolutely an excellent point. I appreciate your time here. Before we wrap it up, I do want to give you a moment to share. If any of our listeners have a need and desire to reach out to you to discuss the kinds of things that you can help them out with, how can they get a hold of you guys? SHARON: Our phone number is 703-359-0700, and our website is senseient.com, or of course you could search Sensei Enterprises. We have all different kinds of folks in the office, and we'll funnel you to the right people. Very happy to do that, and always happy to have a no-cost consult if people have some questions they'd like to ask. We do a lot of that at the beginning, and then it turns out that they do in fact have a need, which is harmonious for us both. But if it doesn't work out, at least we've tried to help. And so, we would encourage that, Mark. I hope that's helpful. MARK: Yes, it is very much so. To those of you listening, I hope you found something of value out of today's podcast. My intent again today, I just am trying to find solutions. I get so many calls of, who do I turn to? This is a rough space at times, and lawyers just feel left out and unsure who to reach to. I assure you, these two and the business they have, these are good folk, and it's a great business. I would not hesitate reaching out at any time. John, Sharon, thank you very much for joining me today. John, good fishing, and hope you guys take care of those grandkids and kids. Boy, that's a busy, crazy life, but I'm sure it's exciting. That's just awesome. I'll let you get back to it, guys. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye, all. SHARON: Thank you very much. JOHN: Bye-bye. MARK: Bye-bye.

Transcript:    Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte quick, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm on the road today and out in South Dakota at a convention and have had the pleasure to meet Tamara Nash. And she is the director of experiential learning and a lecturer at the University of South Dakota School of Law. And first, I just want to say welcome. Tamara Nash: Thank you. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's a pleasure. Before we get into the topic that we're going to be discussing today. I would love to... Just to have you share a few things about yourself. Introduce yourself. What does the audience need to know and enjoy hearing about? Tamara Nash: Sure. Yeah. So I am a recent transfer to the law school, but I would say probably, more importantly, I'm a proud aunt, first-generation law student, and first-generation college student. I am a serial joiner. So bar junkie. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I love it. Tamara Nash: Yes. I just... In the midst of joining clubs and organizations, I'm usually there. So really involved in the South Dakota State Bar, American Bar Association, and the Young Lawyers Division. I love to bake. I try to rival Betty Crocker cupcakes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh, with kindred spirits there on some things. I can see that. Tamara Nash: Yes. It's my de-stressor. But yeah, just... I like to be with friends and family and fellowship and try to find time to watch a good show on Netflix here or there. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh yeah. Yeah. I get that too. Well, let me ask, what initially brought you into law? Where's the interest? How did that arise? Tamara Nash: So really interesting. I actually had a sixth-grade project that planted the whole seed and it's actually all tied into Project Destination. And I think we'll kind of have an interwoven conversation that ties into this question. So in sixth-grade, I had a teacher and we did a mini society project and we had our own country name. We made our own money. And at the end of the year, we had our own stations where we did our own thing. Some of us sold stationary. One of our classmates sold hot dogs, which is really questionable when you trust sixth graders to cook and sell you hot dogs. But we were doing our thing and one of the classmates who was selling hot dogs, his classmate fired him because he wasn't pulling his end of the weight and he was very upset about that. Tamara Nash: So my teacher said, "Hey, you can do something about that." So our class had a wrongful termination lawsuit and- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh my gosh. Tamara Nash: ... Some of us were jurors. We had a judge and I was his lawyer. And it was really fun. We had a really good time and we won. I don't know if fair practices happened. I don't know if we played by the rules, but my teacher, Mr. Summit, the best teacher I've ever had said, "I think you really enjoyed that." And he brought in three black women attorneys to come talk to me. We sat in the cafeteria and they told me what it was like to be a lawyer and what it meant, and just always stuck with me. Of course, I still had to go to high school. I still had to go to college. But then it became time to figure out what's next? And I took the LSAT and enrolled at the University of South Dakota. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That is such a cool story. And what a creative teacher. You know just... We all have certain favorite... My favorite teacher was Miss Fleschmann from third grade. But we have these memories and it's fascinating in terms of the impact that they have long-term in your life. Tamara Nash: Absolutely. Mark Bassingthwaighte: These seemingly small kinds of interesting things, but boy did they have big ramifications? We had brought up Project Destination, and that's really what I am interested in learning about myself and sharing with our listeners. So what is Project Destination? Maybe that's where we start. Tamara Nash: Absolutely, would love to tell you. So at its core, it's a pathway or pipeline program that goes into schools. We target students, anywhere from elementary school to high school. We have gone into post-secondary and really just plant the seed that, "Hey, have you considered the legal profession?" We're open to talking to any student, but we specifically target Native American students. In the South Dakota Bar, we have about 2,700 lawyers, but we have anecdotally, maybe 10 to 15 Native American attorneys. Our bar doesn't collect demographic details on ethnicity or race. So I say anecdotally because that's looking around the bar and kind of counting what we have. So that is our most underrepresented group of attorneys. So we want to find a way to reach that population. And it's quite profound to go into a school and speak to a group of individuals who don't see people who look like them and say, "Hey, have you thought about this? You can do this." Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. Yeah. Tamara Nash: And especially put forth an example that looks like them. And that was the experience I had in sixth grade. To see an example of myself, of someone who says, "Hey, I look like you. And this is what I do. And you can do it too." So Project Destination essentially goes into the school, does a moderated panel, and just chats with students about what it means to be a lawyer. The panelists who are all young lawyers, hopefully as diverse as we can make it. So a corporate attorney, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a general practice attorney, and explain what they do every day. Talk about law school, talk about the bar, and just let students know that this is an attainable goal. And the goal is essentially holding up a mirror to a student and letting them know that this idea is attainable, so. Mark Bassingthwaighte: What I love about this too, just in terms of... And sharing with all of you. Listening to this, the smile, the authenticity of your story, investment, it just... I find it God bless kind of thing, but it seems to me you're paying it forward. You know you're continuing what this teacher did in very creative and meaningful ways. That's awesome. How old is this program? Tamara Nash: Yeah, so we're still new-ish. We were able to start the program in 2017. And then of course, COVID happened. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh, wow. Yes. Tamara Nash: We're all familiar with that caveat, right? Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. Tamara Nash: So we came out the gate running the year that we launched it. Our then Young Lawyer Section President, now Judge Abby Howard, launched with a strong start. We reached about 150 students. We had about 25 young lawyer volunteers. And then we pivoted to a virtual setting. So we are thrilled to get back into the schools in person this bar year. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. And would you say you're finding a lot of success with it and how are you measuring that right now? Because I assume nobody has gone off to law school quite yet. We haven't been there quite long enough, but. Tamara Nash: Yes. Yes. So I would say, yes. We have had success. And I would say we measure that in a couple of ways. So success in just a purely objective way, we've been recognized by the ABA Young Lawyers Division and the ABA broadly with two awards. In 2017, we received a grant from the Young Lawyers Division, it's the embracing diversity grant. And that seeks to recognize any pipeline pathway program that digs in and does the work. And so we submitted Project Destination in its first year and we won second place and received a thousand dollars to keep doing the work. So we continued. And then in 2020, the ABA recognized us with the partnership award, which essentially looks at any bar program doing DENI work, that says, "Hey, tell us what programs you're doing. How can we put forth a model so that other bars can replicate it?" Tamara Nash: And we were recognized with that award at the 2020 ABA Meeting. But I would say more importantly success in the context of the profession and pathway and pipeline programs is not necessarily measured by numbers. This work is measured by the ripple effect. Reaching one student is success. And if you go to a school and there's one student in the room that you reach, that is point blank, success. The effect that you have by touching one student's life impacts generations. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Oh, I agree. Tamara Nash: So you have... My teacher reached me and I came to law school and that pays dividends for me, my hopeful children to come in the future, and their children. And so that is success that's profound. So our goal is not to hit an X number of students per year. Our goal is to reach one child and to change their perspective of what they are capable of. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's the butterfly effect. Tamara Nash: Yes. Absolutely. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Yeah. Is part of this too, to try to... I mean, South Dakota is not unique in terms of rural states and some of the problems we face. There are lots of unmet needs and I would anticipate... I'll be honest and say, I don't have firsthand knowledge. But I would anticipate there are probably a fairly significant portion of people on the reservations that do not have access in terms to legal services. Is part of the intention or desire of the program to meet that need as well? Tamara Nash: Yes. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Tamara Nash: Yeah. So I think part of the need... It's multifaceted. It's to change the perspective of the community to not just a negative perception, to create that exposure, to shift a dynamic and perception of a student's own capability, but also to meet those legal services needs. And there's that multidimensional need in the rural nature that a lot of our reservations have, but also in the demographic need that we do not have lawyers who look like the communities we're serving. And that is very problematic because it continues to... I think creates a lack of trust in our system and we should represent the people we're charged to serve. And so I think that is that dual issue that we're hoping to address and I think more broadly we have rural deserts that we want to serve. So Project Destination serves our broader community in rural schools where we have students who may not have an attorney for miles upon miles. So it's a win-win in all facets, but also gets students through the door who are underserved. Mark Bassingthwaighte: So how do you see... We've come out of COVID and we're kind of finding our feet again and that's awesome. Where do you see the program? What does it look like in five years? Tamara Nash: Yeah. So- Mark Bassingthwaighte: Where are we moving toward? Tamara Nash: Yeah. I hope that we move towards a more cohesive approach with our broader bar. And I'm really excited for our leadership. We have just immense support by our bar presidents, our bar commission, and our executive director. But to really be all on one page and all moving forward. So it's the full force of the South Dakota Bar and throwing all our efforts and all of our energy,. You kind of can't be a bar of jar marbles throwing on the ground, scattered in different directions. But I think playing the long game to decide what age groups we target and why that matters. Tamara Nash: A lot of the research shows that early intervention for pathway is actually more effective. And I think folding in broader strategies for pathway. Financial education, which folds into student debt research, which we know is the number one problem. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That's a huge issue. Tamara Nash: Yes. I know that very intimately as a young lawyer. But folding in those strategies discussing access barriers to the profession and to law school. So I think just really having honest dialogues around the profession, around pathways, not just encouraging students to come, but really looking at why some folks have not been able to get into the profession and why they leave. Because retention and attrition are also issues. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, that's an excellent point. Yeah. I do a lot of education just on attorney wellness. And boy has COVID made those issues even far more significant and then you factor in these debt issues and all. So many things to- Tamara Nash: The onion. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly, right. You know I kind of want to ask an open-ended question. What about Project Destination and all of this... What do you really want to share? Just go wherever you want to go with it. Tamara Nash: Sure. So I think what I would love to share is that I think some folks don't know where their place is in this conversation. And it's all of our battles. We all have a place and a stake in this conversation and in the effort of pathway efforts. I think we would see our efforts move so much more quickly. The needle would move forward much more seamlessly if we all bought into that idea and into that notion. So I would just really like folks to know that. We're all part of this conversation. We all have ownership. And it's just a matter of understanding where we are in the conversation when we amplify the voices of others. When we step in as an ally it matters to our profession just immensely and we all owe it to our profession to pay it forward and be a part of enriching our profession and servicing our community. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hmm. Yeah. I get where you're going with that. You know I talk about some similar issues at times. Again, in what I do in risk management and ethics and things, you hear a lot of lawyers complain about problems that bars face. And they never want to do anything about it. You know? If you want to complain, okay. I think it's... You should have the freedom and the ability to complain a little bit, but not if you're not willing to step up and try to do something about solving the problem. You know? That's so important. I love hearing the story and learning a bit more about Project Destination. You have obviously been very involved with this and I suspect have a great deal of intellectual capital in projects like this. Would you be open to having folks listening if anybody has some interest and just being a resource? Tamara Nash: Absolutely. Mark Bassingthwaighte: May I have you share a little contact information with people so? Tamara Nash: Yes. So I would love to chat about how we can serve as a resource, share ideas, collaborate, and expand it beyond South Dakota. My email is probably one good resource. So that is T-A-M-A-R-A, P as in Paul, N-A-S-H, numeral one, @gmail.com. And then you can always reach out to me by phone and that's 712-301-9224. And I would love to see this grow and expand and see other bars incorporate it, make it better, and enrich it. I think that the beauty of bar service is we replicate and implement how it serves our members best. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, I really have enjoyed visiting with you. The excitement is contagious. I love the story of how you got here and how you are using... As I see it, this childhood experience had such an impact, but you've played that out in spades in so many ways and are... I just think it what a fascinating story. So thank you for taking your time to sit down- Tamara Nash: Thank you for having me. Mark Bassingthwaighte: ... And visit with me. I will say. Do you have any final comments? Anything else you'd like to share? Tamara Nash: No, I would say take the program, make it better. We're excited to see what you do with it. Mark Bassingthwaighte: All right. All right. Well, sounds good. Well, folks, I hope you found something of value today and enjoyed hearing Tamara's story. I found it very, very interesting. Thanks for listening. And of course, if any of you have any thoughts on ideas, topics, and other things you'd like to hear on the podcast, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself as well. It's M bass, M-B-A-S-S, @ALPSinsurance.com. Thanks for listening again, all. Bye-bye. Have a good one.

Transcript: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS in Brief, of the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Over the years, the more I do these podcasts, the more I've come to just enjoy telling stories. I've been telling stories for years and years in my writing, and in a lot of the [inaudible 00:00:39] presentations I have done over the years. I just enjoy a good story, and I think it's a great way to learn some things. So, today is another little, what I guess I come to call a mini-sode, where it's just me sharing some stories and an insight or two from them. What I want to talk about today, for those of you that have listened to some of these podcasts over the years, you know my wife and I are, are Disney Vacation Club Members, Disney people, if you will, and have been so blessed to be able to travel literally a number of places all over the world with Disney. It's been a special thing for us. Well, we also are cruisers, and we recently returned from a long, extended cruise, had the privilege of being able to spend some time in Hawaiian Islands, and then sailing around the islands for a bit, and then crossing the Pacific, sailing from Hawaii up to Vancouver, which will be important here in a moment. But it was a really interesting trip, and I want to tell you two or three things that happened on this trip that sort of prompted this podcast topic. The first, I don't know if, for those of you that know nothing about Disney cruises, it is, at least when it first started, Disney came out with what they call rotational dining. So, they have several, if you will, featured signature restaurants on each ship, and you have an assigned table and a staff that will move with you throughout the cruise to the different restaurants. It's a lot of fun. This particular trip, the first night you sit down, and you meet your staff that's going to take care of you, and it was an interesting experience. We enjoy getting to know the staff and oftentimes staff on these ships are from multiple countries. I think they were saying this time, there are 50 countries represented among the staff. So, you get to know them. My response to that first evening was not a disappointment, I mean, in terms of what happened, but it was a little bit different than what is sort of more typical on these cruises. In short, the gentleman that would be our sort of the lead waiter was an interesting fellow, and I would just say, I didn't hit it off immediately. We just didn't click. The first impression was not a good one, and in part, and what happened over the next two nights, it was more about him wanting everybody that was in his section, I guess, is the best way to put it, to know that he was struggling financially, and had had some problems. Now, I don't want to minimize that. He certainly did have some challenging situations, but one does not start a relationship out by sharing just how rough life is, and how hard he's having to work, and how difficult, and the sacrifices being made and all that. Of course, over the course of a cruise, you get to know some of these people in the other tables, and these cruises aren't completely packed, because we're still coming out of the pandemic. So, in other words, just less people, and more opportunity to get to know all the people on the ship. All of us were really feeling like we were being played a little bit, sort of working the sympathy card, trying to just get large tips at the end of this cruise. It just struck me the wrong way, not how to enter a good relationship. That was sort of even further confirmed near the end of the cruise. I'm used to having people share the importance of feedback, and Disney, I assume they do this on other cruises and things. But, you fill out these comment cards, and I understand the Disney model. You need to, I mean, if you really have a bad, bad experience, you should certainly share that, and I have, and would do so in a responsible way, but I don't want to just try to make it hard for somebody to earn a living. But at the very end, we were told, this is in terms of our, this gentleman, this waiter, this is my expectation of what you will do, so that I can continue on kind of stuff. I got to say that left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, that's one story, and it's kind of shortening some things here. The second thing that was sort of interesting, got me thinking about this all again, podcast topic. We got to Vancouver, and in the middle, and I'll readily admit, sort of my fault in terms of not thinking everything completely through, just running with an assumption. Dis was very good about telling us, we have to hear are all the things we need to do to get on the ship, and here's what we need to do get into Canada terms of vaccine status, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and there were a ton of us on the ship that were all set to go, and just didn't think through the fact that we're in an international airport and flying into the United States internationally. I mean, you've been in Hawaii, and you got, and you can't get back into the United States via and international flight without a COVID test within 24 hours of boarding the plane. None of us had this. I should say, very few of us on the ship had this first off awareness, let alone any kind of arrangements being made. The odd thing, you can drive across the border. You can walk across the border. You can swim across the border. You can take a bus, a train everything. You don't need to prove any, but if you're in Vancouver or any other international airport, you need to have this COVID test. So, a few days before we get there, we're talking to guest services, bringing all this out and short story is the Vancouver airport has more than ample facilities out there to handle even a large number of walk-ups. This is what we're being told. So, that's fine. We'll get off the ship, and go out to the airport, get tested and assuming all's good, fly home, and did turn out all was good. So, that's sort of a side note, but going through the process of COVID testing and trying to get that set up at the airport was just crazy. Talk about an exercise in futility and just, oh my gosh, very poorly, and this is not dissing, this is sort of the airport authority, I guess. I'm not sure who all setting this up, but very little explanations to how this works, and lines of people everywhere. They had one gentleman who was really charged with trying to help everybody, and explain what to do. He would talk, he's masked up, because he still have masks here in Canada in public areas, transportation, buses, trains and all that. But, so it was a little hard to understand, a little bit of an accent, which you know, it is what it is, but it just made understanding him a little bit more difficult, but he would say, "You take a picture of this QR thing, and get started. Pick an appointment. Don't worry about the time. It might even be tomorrow, but you're in the system. You pay your bill, and you can get in line, and we'll get this taken care of. Well, and he would say, he'd stand there and say, "I'm going to help. I'm here," but he'd keep moving around and disappear. People just getting incredibly frustrated, and your whole response to this entire setup and system, and what's going to happen was being colored by this experience with the first contact. One fellow traveler, I just had, kind of just watched him. God bless him, but it's just, oh my gosh, he was doing everything he could not to lose it, and as respectfully as he could, he gets in this guy's face, the guy's trying to help us all, and he just starts yelling. He says, "I can't understand you. Your words are muffled. You aren't speaking clearly, and when you say things to do this, you don't give us the instructions. You're not staying here. You're not following through. You say you'll help us from start to finish, and you point at the QR code and disappear, and the app isn't working." It wasn't working for a lot of us and he was correct. He just ends by saying, "You need to go back to school and get some good communication training. Your communication skills are horrible," and he was right. What could have been a process of getting people through this whole system easily in an hour, turned out to be a good two and a half hours, if not more, for some folks. It was so messed up. A number of people actually missed flights out and just, it just didn't need to be that way. So, it's just two sort of stories, and what I got to thinking about was first impressions. I've written and talked over the years in some various presentations on the importance of first impressions in terms of establishing relationship. I have typically come at it from the perspective of, is your reception desk clean? Is the, do you have a professional presentation in terms of the space? Is the office tidied up? Does the website look all nice and pretty, et etcetera cetera? It's physical first impressions, and I don't want to minimize that. I think that is incredibly important, because it's, if you will, sort of some passive communication. But I want to talk about personal first impressions. I can share my first impression with this waiter was not good, and I really was put off by being told what the expectations are, being played for as much money as he thought he could get out of me, those kinds of things, and it's very, very difficult to recover from that. We really, my wife and I were very intentional after the first night, saying, "Oh, this is ridiculous," but trying to really get to know him, trying to invest, because it's a long cruise. You want to have fun, and, and there were times where it worked, and we really did have a good time. I'm not trying to take anything away from, I mean, this guy is who he is, but did his job well, but there were these times where it just, it wasn't perhaps even authentic. Then you get to the airport situation, and the experience, the first impression that you have trying to get into the system, into the process. So, [inaudible 00:12:28] translate this into your law office and working with you and your staff. If the first impression is really bad, that colored the entire rest of the experience with everybody else you work with, and I'm glad we got through it. It didn't really ruin or spoil anything for us, but it didn't have to be that way. So, I would encourage you to think about some first impression issues in terms of relationship. So, let me share some thoughts and kind of perhaps tips, if you will, things that I think are worth keeping in mind. When I think about it initially, trying to consider a lawyer, I'm obviously going to, in most instances, it's either referral or perhaps a website, and I'm looking, and I would hope we have that initial contact, at least on the web or mobile. It's very professional looking, et cetera, et cetera. But that's go beyond that and say, now I'm reaching out to the firm to try to set up appointments, that initial consult or whatever it might be. That should be very, very easy on mobile or on a website. But if I call in, I really do expect to talk to someone in-person. I may have some questions or two. I just want to get a sense of are they welcoming? Are they professional, that kind of thing. Voicemail, doesn't cut it in my mind. These dial one if, and here's all the music and on and on and on. Make it easy for me to communicate with you. If you're true solo, and not always available, sometimes that can even be accomplished, oh, just with an answering service, some type of professional answering service. I just think that's very, very worthwhile, but now let's really get to the heart of where I'm trying to go with all this, and talk about you. So, I'll be the perspective coming in. What kinds of things can you do or perhaps not do if [inaudible 00:14:55] are going to help establish the beginning relationship, in terms of setting the right impression, getting started on the right foot, because it's going to be a lot harder to correct something if this gets off on the wrong foot. Okay? So, some things that I think about, try to just be authentic. Don't put on airs. Don't, I encourage you, if authentic isn't, a lot of time, I work from home, et cetera, T-shirt and cutoffs and flip flops. Hey, that's fine, but at the office or meeting me downtown or wherever it might be, look a little bit professional, but be authentic in the communication. "Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you Mark," and be authentic and sincere when you say that. Have a little chit-chat up front. We don't need to immediately get to why are you here outside of the cold calls. Hey, do you do divorce or something? I'm assuming we're past that, but have a little chit-chat, and it can be as simple as, How's the weather or what's [inaudible 00:16:10] a day. Did you see that ball game last night? But something to get some casual conversation going to allow the opportunity for a relationship to build, to just get established. I want to know that I'm working with a person that's again, genuine, real, authentic. Okay? So, some things to think about, but also understand at the same time, and I can appreciate this might be a little bit difficult, but you never know. I think most people are going to have some questions or concerns about, I wonder what this is going to cost, and there's this, and we have to have that conversation. I mean, I really believe good lawyers have conversations about money up front, and thorough, and good conversations about money. But you might allow that conversation to be dictated or driven by the client. So something you could say early on is, "You're probably wondering what this will cost. Would you like to talk about that now? Would you like to talk about that at the end? I'm going to need a little information here," but try to get a sense, so you don't have somebody sitting visiting with you for half an hour, 45 minutes, wondering, "But can I even afford, is this worth my time?" You can find ways to help them feel at ease about that money conversation by letting know you're thinking about it, letting know we'll have it, and they can dictate a little bit about when they'd like to have that conversation. But again, I would not jump there until you chat them up for a little bit. Make a connection. We need to begin to build a relationship. So, okay. One of the other things I wanted to talk about as we continue with this, in the context of a, this initial consultation, this initial meeting is, what other types of communication things can you do to help get this started on the right foot? So, in the context of the conversation, please don't multitask. I mean, how many times I, it drives me crazy, and I'll just never understand it. I've watched time and again, and one situation, that's so struck me, I watched four couples come into a restaurant, a very nice restaurant that I happened to be dining with a friend at, [inaudible 00:18:53] at business actually. These four couples sat down and it was every other, guy, girl, guy, girl, guy, girl, all the way around the table. All four guys are on their phone the entire evening, not talking, just sitting, drinking their beer, occasional something. The women are all chatty, but clearly not really happy about all these guys just sitting here on their phone. I mean, how can you have a relationship or conversation? The messages you're giving, give the attention to this perspective client. They are considering retaining you. They are considering turning over their legal concern to your trusted hands. So, allow them to build that trust. Okay? So, don't multitask, no tax thing, no thinking about other matters, no working through your email. Okay? Don't pontificate on things. The initial time is really to sit and try to learn as much as you can about whatever the situation is, so you ... I mean, the goal here is, can I help you in terms of what this is, what you're thinking? How do I best help you? How do I best serve you? What all can I do? This isn't a time to just pontificate on all sorts of things. It's time to get to learn who they are. Use open-ended questions. Can you tell me more about this? Don't assume you know what they want. They may be thinking about a divorce or something, but maybe divorce isn't really what should happen in this situation, and there's some other things you could assist them with or direct them toward. I don't know. But I, running with assumptions is dangerous. Find out what the problem is. Ask questions> sort of go with the flow and see where it takes you. If you don't know something, honestly, say, no. I'd rather know that somebody doesn't have an answer. I don't know, but I could look it up. I don't know, but I've, I could make a referral here, whatever the situation calls for. But, if you don't know something, say so, and again, in my mind, honesty instills trust, and faking it fosters doubt. I mean, that seems clear to me. That's just a normal response. So, try to stay out of the weeds in these early meetings, in particular. If somebody is sharing some things, don't get into all the nitty-gritty of the legal stuff. Now's not the time. We're still relationship-building. Okay? Learn to listen, truly listen. I remember, Steven Covey is known for saying most of us don't listen with the intent to understand. Most of us listen with the intent to reply. I'll be the first to admit, a little honesty here, folks. I am really good at listening with the intent to reply. I struggle with that problem day in and day out. You can just ask my wife. She'll say, "Amen, Hallelujah." But there are times when I really do try and focus and listen to her, and really listen, but I have to remind myself. I have to be very intentional about it. She is not asking for my advice here. She's just wanting to talk, and wanting to share, and perhaps work through something. I will listen, and when you really start to listen, then you can ask the questions to draw out, and you get a much, much better understanding, not only of the issues, but of the person you're interacting with. You really get to know someone. My wife is so skilled at this. It's amazing. No matter where we are, in what community, she knows everybody. For many years in her practice, people would walk in, and she hasn't seen one of these patients for a year, and she'll say, "Well, how is your nephew? Wasn't your nephew going off to college?" Or, "How's your granddaughter, and Doctor, how do you remember all this? She just does. She is very, very good at that, because she listens more than, better than most people I've ever had in my life. So, it's a skill, and she practices it, and been practicing it for years. But I encourage you to do that. Just approach it from, I am trying to create an attorney-client relationship here that can be as effective and as positive as I can, moving forward. I mean, that's the mindset I would try to enter these situations in. The better we are at doing that from the get-go, from the very first contact, setting that right impression, I think the better, more effective you'll be honestly as a lawyer, because we have a very, very good relationship established at the outset. Again, this, if I enter into a good relationship with you, my impression with you is positive from the get-go, we really get to a point where it's much easier for me to trust you. It's much easier for me to share things. I see this as honestly long-term, even risk reduction, because you're going to have a client, I think in most situations, you're going to establish a relationship with a client that will be a positive one, even if negative things happen. If the outcome isn't necessarily what I expect, but if the relationship is positive, I don't walk away from that going "Well, man, I didn't see that coming. This guy's a complete idiot." No. Things happen, and I can hear and understand, well, sometimes a jury sees it a little bit differently. I don't know how these things play, but you get the point. So, okay. I've rambled on here long enough. I hope you found something of value with these little stories and a few thoughts on first impressions, and I look forward to visiting with you next time here on ALPS in Brief. Hey, that's it. Have a good one, folks. Bye, bye.

Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager with Alps and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Though, as some of you may know that listen to some of my podcasts or hear some of my, or read some of my writing, I no longer live in Montana, let alone Missoula. This past year, well officially it hadn't even been a year. So in short, I live now in St. Cloud Florida, and obviously still with Alps and hope to be for a number of years yet, but it's been an interesting experience. This whole move down, oh boy, from when we sold our house to, when we finally moved into the home that we were building. It had three different addresses and just crazy, crazy stuff.   Well, I'm going to do something a little different with this podcast, and this kind of Florida story is relevant in an odd way. I have done two other podcasts called listening to your life and they sort of dealt with a lot of writing that I do or was doing in Montana. Hope to get back into that in a more significant way here. The location of our home is such that there's not easy access to trails, although I'm doing a lot of indoor riding and getting the bike legs back.   But, I want to talk a little bit about listening to your life and experiencing life and just, it's a different topic. I'm not going to tie much of this into law. I'm not going to go into a lot of risk management and ethics and all that. I just want to share some stories, some things that have happened. Maybe, there's something to learn from it for you. Maybe, I don't know where this goes. But, I want to share. As I was saying, the move to Florida was the right decision and a good decision, but boy, it was not without its headaches.   Multiple addresses, a period of time just staying in a VRBO sort of at the last minute because of construction delays in this development here. And, oh, it just got crazy and it was not, based on that experience, I would never do an Airbnb or VRBO again, ever in my life. I, just was one of the worst experiences my wife and I've ever had. Just, ugh, I won't even bore you with all of that. But, it's busy. It's stressful to sell a house during a pandemic, to buy a house or to build a house during a pandemic, to make a move during a pandemic. You know, all of this is just very, very stressful. And then trying to get set up, and just moving in and unpacking and packing. It's been a high stress year. Some stress was very, very good, but, just because it's good stress doesn't mean it doesn't take a toll.   Another stress is kind of, kind of crazy. Well, one of the things, as we were sort of moving through this year, my wife and I are Disney Vacation Club members that have been Disney people for many, many years. Our kids have grown up Disney and had wonderful time and they have very, very good memories of it. All of us have with Disney. We've literally been over much of the world with Disney, but we decided to, just a few weeks ago, take a Disney cruise.   Particularly since we're down here, I don't have to fly all day to get on a cruise ship. It literally is like a 45 minute drive, which we're still getting used to. But, we wanted to take a cruise and just kind of relax. And this was to be with our best friends that we've traveled with for many years and just really, really good folk and enjoy their company immensely.   As we were getting closer to cruise time. So, it's, maybe two, two and a half months out, one of our best friends developed a health problem that at the time was concerning and really just unsure where this would go. But, you just, prayers and there's not a lot you can do to make, heart issues, you know, you can't, that's got to be dealt with. To make a longer story short, the issues that she was dealing with got progressively worse and really got to the point that our friends were unable to join us on the cruise for obviously very, very legitimate reasons.   And needed some medical attention that was supposed to be several months down the road. But due to some just happenstance kinds of things, and also just calling the surgeon, the doctors, the main doc here every day, just to see if there's cancellation things she managed to get in quite sooner. Which turned out to be a very, very real blessing to her. And in fact, here in just a few short days is going to have open heart surgery to have a valve repaired and to take care of some other issues. It's a scary time. It's you do all that you can to be supportive. Although we don't live near each other we, again, we vacation together, but they're more than a few states away. But you just do what you can to be supportive.   You also struggle a bit because we're all similar ages. You know, none of us are in our twenties anymore. We're all in our sixties and of the four I'm the youngest at 62. So, you start to worry about us, my wife and what's going to lie ahead for us. You try to take care of yourself and all this. Well, so that's sort of a background now to this cruise and you know, where there's this debate, do we go, do we not go?   And we struggled with that a little bit. And I honestly felt we need to go. And our friends were very concerned that we wouldn't, really wanted us to go. Just please enjoy it, enjoy it for all of us, that kind of a thing. And so we ended up going and you can't get on, I understand right now, we're seeing, oh, a cruise? You know, this was just two weeks. Well, in fact, no, we just got off the cruise last weekend. So it's not all that far back, and never seeing the CDC, you shouldn't be on cruises right now and all, okay. It's just so much stuff, but we really felt we needed to go and wanted to go. But you have to, the day that you get on you have to pass a test that can show you don't have COVID, you have to mask up on the ship unless you're in your room or up on deck and that kind of thing.   And you're just very nervous because all the time and money and it just, oh, do you pass these tests? And it turned out, quite a number of people, either to weather related events or positive tests, ended up not getting on the ship. I mean, it was pretty significant and Disney doesn't fill these ships up. Some of the other carriers have canceled ships, they were really filling them up, Disney just thankfully hasn't done that. So, they were able to sail and we ended up having a very interesting experience, which is what I want to share a little bit about what happened. So we managed to get on, felt great about that. You kind of settle in and right out of the bat, the very first day, so we haven't even left port yet, you kind of hang out in the ship till everybody boards, you have a nice evening, but a lot of the tech didn't work and there were all kinds of problems.   So on the onboard tech, just getting all the information you need, because it's all, there's no more paper anymore. Here's your tickets for your meals or here's, it's all on the mobile app and for some crazy reason that wasn't working. So all of us are trying to figure out what's up and it just, you're off to this start this like, okay, okay. And we sail out, beautiful evening, sailing out. And captain comes on and says, well, overnight the wind's going to pick up, next day we're going to get into some high seas and we're going to sail for two days. Well, we did sail for two days out, we were going out to the British Virgin islands.   And so, two days at sea and boy, some really high seas, a lot of wind, a lot of rocking. Even the staff, and these people are always on the ocean, are stumbling around trying to serve dinner, or just walk down, taking care of whatever they were doing, cleaning rooms and on and on. And everybody started talking about, the captain had a little too much tequila maybe, and just kind of trying to make light of it, but it was a rough sail. You know, now both my wife and I we've sailed a number of times over the years and I wouldn't say we have our sea legs, but neither of us were seasick or anything like that. But I would be lying, we didn't see it's not a little uncomfortable. You just don't feel quite right.   So that was kind of, wow, but it's an experience. And a lot of people were responding that experience like, oh, geez, this is no fun, this isn't going to... Complain, complain, complain. And you know, if you've heard some of my other podcasts, I'm not a complainer. It doesn't get you anywhere. You know, it's not like Disney controls mother nature and can just wave a little magic wand or throw some pixie dust and calm those seas. It is what it is. If you sail in the Caribbean in the middle of winter, this is not unexpected.   So, some other things that happened, after we got to Tortola, and there was some time to enjoy. We actually went over to the Baths on Virgin Gorda. That's just a very interesting, unique rock formation. Just awesome. Then we were to sail to St. Thomas. Well, on the way to St. Thomas, getting crazy seas, couldn't go into St. Thomas, partly because the COVID numbers in St. Thomas were too high and the Disney organization said we don't want to risk that with all of you, so, we're going to skip St Thomas and go straight to the Disney, private island, a place called Castaway. And again, some strong winds, but we get there and heck, got there overnight. We stay on the ship, but it was an interesting experience just to have this night on a private island, out in the middle of nowhere.   Well, that was actually in the Bahamas, but, it's a very, just an interesting experience. Again, lot of wind, lot of wind, they said actually had we gotten to Castaway Key, which is Disney's private island when we were supposed to, we wouldn't have been able to dock the wind was just too strong. So again, temperatures are cool, all of the, if you will, excursions that were to occur for everybody, us included on, guess we had to be canceled due to high winds and high seas. And course you're not out there lying on an 80 degree beach and enjoying the sun, having a Mai Tai or something, that's not what this experience was.   So again, kind of crazy. Now making matters worse, our first night we got into Castaway about a half a day before we were supposed to and so that evening, you could get out and spend a little time on the island, we went to dinner. And my wife had a gift that our best friend who was dealing with these heart issues had given her a number of years ago, and she thought she left it at the restaurant for dinner. And, we walked out we thought, get it the next night. Go back to dinner the next night, as an aside, and the sweater wasn't there. They'd never seen, so this sweater's gone. We are also on the island the next day, trying to enjoy it a little bit, the Disney private island. And, you go out with your ship and I take my cell phone, you have your driver's license, both of our driver's license in it, and, what they call these little cards, key cards, that they sort of get you on and off the ship. It's sort of the ship ID. And I lost my phone and both our driver's license and my documentation to get back on the ship and my glasses and all this stuff.   So I will share, are you getting the gist of what this trip was like? Lots of winds, strongs, this is not what you expect, you lose your driver's license, you lose a very expensive smartphone, some very good pair of glasses, a special sweater, on and on and on. And it's very tempting to sit here and say, man, this was a crazy bad trip. We shouldn't have gone, and all of that. Now I intentionally told you sort of the crazy stuff. Now I want to back up and tell you another side to this story.   When we got to Tortola earlier in this trip, you pull in, was beautiful, beautiful morning. Finally, we're in a little bit of calm sea, because partly you're just in the islands and you pull in a little, port area and immediately we're ready.   You get off, we're going to go on this excursion, get on another little boat and go over to the Virgin Gorda and see the Baths. And that really was a cool experience. But as soon as we step off the ship, it starts raining and it's just like, you got to be kidding me. And we were talking to a younger couple behind us who had a few children and they're very, very fun, pleasant family. And I looked up and there's a, right over the heart of downtown, you could not have done this more perfectly, there's a beautiful double rainbow. And the guy behind us, we're kind of putting this like, your kids can look at this, and truly an extraordinary moment. My wife would say, we should take a picture. I said, Nope, this is one there's not even enough time. You're never going to catch it, enjoy the moment. The guy behind says, how does Disney do it? It just was an incredible, incredible moment.   So then we went on and, stopped raining, by the time we got over to Virgin Gorda and we had, I had a nice time come back and get back on the ship and get back out in the heavy seas. And so, but there was that. So, the next day we're to go to, again, St. Thomas and they said, not going in, so we're just going to keep sailing and we're going to stay in some rough seas, but we'll have this day and hopefully we'll be able to get into Castaway, the Disney island. Rain, blowing wind, and I mean, some serious wind, all us throughout most of the trip, really crazy wind. My wife and I get up and we're up, sort of the front of the ship. And there's not a lot of people up there because it's cold, it's windy and people are trying to enjoy themselves at quieter parts of the ship.   Incredible rainbows, doubles and you could actually see the light coming toward us, almost touching the ship. I mean, it just looked, and you could see through and see the water and then it would go way back out and you could see through and see the horizon. I've never had an experience like that before, just seeing these rainbows. And it just, again, we've actually tried, you can't, to even try to take a photo of that would destroy it. You're never going to capture it. And this is a moment you just appreciate what's there.   So let me tell you, about the phone and the driver's license. I got to tell you, I tried to handle that pretty well. You know, I'm not one that just gets crazy and angry and frustrated. You do what you can do to try to find it, we couldn't find it. And thankfully in spite of not having my pass, if you will, to get back on the ship, we did have Cathy's and they can pull us up and basically we had to pull up some photos and verify it's us and all that. And we explained what happened and yeah.   So, I'm back on the ship anyway, I'm thinking, okay, so you go up and you just report this and maybe somebody will find it. Maybe, they won't. So, we report it and you go to dinner and we're also hoping to find Cathy's sweater that we thought we had left at dinner the night before, wasn't there, never saw it. So we're both, not feeling too happy about all this. And it's just, you enjoy your meal as much as you can. And afterwards we go down to guest services and it turns out somebody had turned in my phone, glasses, driver's license, everything's there.   And you know, I tell you that feels good. And we decided, well, let's just walk around. Now this entire day it had been raining off and on, lot of wind, et cetera. And we're up on the top of the ship, it's still drizzling, some good wind, but you know, this is the crazy things my wife and I do, get out and walk around and just try to get a little fresh air. And I walk by a nice sort of wooden thing on this ship, it's where they collect the garbage and things, and it has a top to it and there's this... And the light was very funky, just yellow lights and things. And there's just what appears to be white, something hanging over this thing. And I looked at that and I said, ah, what is this?   And I'm just, I truly was just curious about it. And my wife, and I sort of pick it up and I'm like, what is this? And she just goes, oh my God, that's my sweater. And it was dry, but it was sitting outside. You know, whether somebody just put it there, or we think, probably she sat it down the night before because we were watching some fireworks on the ship. And, but again, it couldn't have sat out all day, first off, the wind, it never would, night and day, it wouldn't have stayed there, and it rained heavily most of the night and off and on throughout the day. So, what happened to this sweater? And there it is in perfect condition, ever so slightly damp. Because it was just sitting, I don't know how long, and you sit and say, this is just crazy. This is just crazy.   So what is my point to all of this? Well, we could choose to focus on all that was going wrong. All that wasn't picture perfect. Or we could choose to roll with the sea, roll with the punches and just make the best of it. I can replace a sweater, I don't like the hassle, but I could replace our driver's license and a phone's just a phone.   I'm not going in to have my heart valve repaired, in a couple of days. Life's pretty good. So, we came back from this cruise and shared some of the stories, the good, the bad, and some other things I haven't even shared, it just was a wild time. And our friend that is going into surgery just got such a kick out of hearing about this. It brought her such joy and such pleasure. And she says, you know what happened to you two? And I said, well, I don't know what? She says, you experienced several God winks. And I love that language, that struck a chord with me. It kind of helped put all this in perspective, you know, and this isn't about, being deeply religious or anything you could just as easily say life has winked. And it's just a way to focus, to draw the focus of the experience, to the right thing.   My wife and I will forever remember what it felt like to see these two extraordinary rainbow events. And I've seen rainbows off and on my whole life, I'll tell you, I've seen some really awesome things. These two, nothing like it. It was just, you just have to stop and catch your breath for a minute. It's a God wink. It's a life wink. So, that's kind of my story, the takeaway and I think the reason I wanted to share all this is things happen in life. Some things are small, like losing a phone with some driver's license, and some things are big, life changing, like having to go in and have your heart, your chest opened up and a valve, hopefully repaired. And you know, this is, wow.   So, I try to keep perspective. And I think when things happen, we need to think about how significant is this and what does it really mean? And, life's too short, life's too precious. So I want to say to all of you, first off when bad things or stressful things and crazy things and unexpected things happen, try to keep it in perspective and understand life's short, but also look for the God winks. I truly believe more and more, and just the older I get that they're there. We just got to look for them. We need to listen to our life. And maybe that's a way to keep having the energy to move forward, to keep taking the next step. Maybe it's also a way to appreciate what we have, what we're blessed with, but also, I encourage you to say, even though, hey it's been a long, crazy year and all sorts of things, and there's all kinds of reasons not to take a trip, not to prioritize yourself, not to have a little time with a support system that is so important in your life.   So, I'm referring obviously to my wife in my situation, even in the middle of winter, when it can be crazy, it's really worth, wow, prioritizing yourself and taking a little time to seek nourishment, to do something to take this break from work and all these other routines. Yeah. It may be crazy. Yeah. I don't know what happens, but I'm open to the experience. And again, just, I can't tell you how important this is to me.   This was such a major event in terms of, and I just loved her language, it's a God wink. Looking for those, and recognizing the real value. So, that's my story. It's a different situation you're in and there's nothing risk management here other than, you, again, prioritizing taking care of yourself. That's always an issue and a topic for me, but I hope you found something of value with this tale of mine. And I hope maybe it might enable you at times to be more open, to looking for those winks now and again, and that that may be meaningful for you as well. So, that's it. Thanks for listening. Have a good one all.

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares the illuminating story of a law firm, their longstanding wealthy client who couldn't close the deal on a massive project that would have netted the law firm millions in billables, and the unfortunate circumstances that followed when the firm moved the project forward with a different client to secure the payout. Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I have had a couple of calls of late and they are not out of the ordinary in terms of the topics that are being discussed but it got me to thinking. And I wanted to share a claim story that goes back quite a few years but it's one of my favorite stories for a number of reasons. A lot of the calls that I take have to do with conflicts of interest and just exploring. Sometimes it's not clear who the client is and you work through that and you can figure out the conflict issue and resolve some things. Sometimes it's just a lawyer looking at a matter wanting to stay in or wondering if he or she can even take a case. So it's fun and at times just crazy in terms of how complex certain situations can get trying to work through all the issues. But I wanted to share a conflict story again because I've had a number of calls. And of late, the issue really has been, what rule are we in? Is it a current client matter in terms of 1.7 or is it a past client situation rule 1.9? And it's interesting because 1.7 is a bit more restrictive. And 1.9, if we can get there is a little more permissive in terms of allowing attorneys some additional options in terms of whether they can stay in or can take a new matter on, that kind of thing. So let me get to my story. There's just some interesting learnings out of it. The gist of it is there's a larger firm that had a senior partner, I would call this individual rainmaker, and had a very good long-standing client. And this client was a developer. And this developer had an option on a significant amount of land. And the firm wanted to help this individual close the deal. And if they managed to have the client get all this land, the firm stands to make a great deal of money in terms of billables over the years as this project would evolve and be developed. And we are talking about real money here. I mean, it's way into the seven digits. So what happened is the client was unable to get sufficient funds together to exercise his option and he lost out. This wasn't the first deal to go south and probably won't be the last. And regardless, this individual is an individual of real wealth. The firm, however, looking at how much money could be made if they get involved in this project, didn't want to walk away. Another partner at the firm had another client who was also an individual of means and was very interested in this project and was able to put the deal together and the firm got involved in terms of all the follow-up work and everybody's happy, right? Well, not so much. It turns out the project as it went forward with the second client was successful. There was a lot of news coverage, the individual was just getting some attention and whatnot and the original client that lost that on the deal, I guess, got a little put out about all that "just likes, it should have been me" kind of a thing. So he ended up suing for malpractice based on a conflict of interest. And suffice it to say, at the end of the day, there was a substantial loss paid out. And one little side comment here, a dirty little secret with conflict claims, a law firm or an attorney can't benefit financially from something they should never have been involved in the first place. So discouragement of fees was also on the table and I assure you that the firm in the situation paid some real money to get out of this claim and finally have it resolved. So that's sort of the down and dirty of this claim. But I want to talk about some learnings with it, some interesting things. The first thing I want to talk about is this difference, are we in rule 1.7 or 1.9? Arguably, had this individual, the first developer that lost out on April exercise the option, had this individual been a past client, this may have turned out a little bit differently. Well, what happened? Why didn't it play this way? Well, first off, the law firm looking at all this as they wanted to analyze, do a little conflict resolution, if you will, look at this setting and say, well, what's interesting? We have a bright line. This client was unable to perform on the option and so our involvement here is done. That bright line transitioned this individual from a present client to past client. Now we have all kinds of bright lines here in the practice of law. The deeds had been delivered, the judge signed the final order, the proceeds had been dispersed, the settlement check has been sent out, whatever. There are all kinds of bright lines here. And then the other thing that they started to think through was to say, well, we have some passage of time. In their case, it was a few weeks. And that passage of time also transitioned someone from a present client to a past client. And that was the rationalization. Well, read the rule in your jurisdiction or the two rules in your jurisdiction. I've looked at them in every state and even the model rules, and I've never come across any language that says, a bright line or the passage of time is somehow determinative on this issue. It really isn't. I've not come across any ethics opinions that say this. So what does... Well, before I get to what gets us there, I want to talk about this passage of time just a little bit more in-depth too because lawyers will say, okay, in this story, it was a couple of weeks we all agree that was a bad call. Well, and sometimes, again, money drives ethics. Remember there's a lot of money on the table and you want to find a way to not walk away from that. But you'll hear other lawyers say, well, but maybe two years, something like that. What is it? You now say two weeks, two months, two years, five years, 10 years. And there really isn't an answer to this. I can share over the years in my work here at ALPS, I've come across some cases around the country where judges have even said, I don't know how long it is, but 15 years isn't long enough. And it's just like, okay, you got to take note of that. So the passage of time and these bright lines are not determinative. What is determinative? And it's interesting. If you talk to juries on the issue, what you hear is, look lawyers, all that you do in terms of your business model, your marketing is to encourage your clients to look at you as, you're my lawyer, this is my firm, that kind of thing speaking as a client. You want clients to say, we are your clients. Now that's good business. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. But they'll also say, because that's the reality, the way you do this, encourage everybody to think, we're your lawyer, we're your firm. Unless and until you document otherwise, these individuals are going to be current clients. So think about that. If we don't document, if we don't have... Well, what is the document that gets you there? Obviously a letter of closure. This concludes our representation of you in this matter, that kind of thing. If we don't have that kind of documentation, I strongly encourage you as you do conflict resolution over the years on this particular issue, that if you don't have a closure letter, I encourage you to always say, these individuals or clients are perhaps inactive but they are current clients regardless of the passage of time or the bright lines that have transpired, okay? If we don't have a closure letter clear on its face, this concludes our representation, inactive current client. I will also tell you that savvy firms in terms of what they do with their conflicts systems, best practices, even after seven years, if a firm may have a far retention policy of seven years, they start shredding things in accordance with the policy and that's fine but they don't destroy the closure letter. And I'll typically maybe a digital copy or something like that, but that's part of the conflict database. It helps us document, is this a current or a past client? Well, it helps us document it's a past client. So the continuous use by all in a form of letter closure can be very, very beneficial on this topic. So I want to underscore bright lines; nope, passage of time; nope, documentation is key and a must. But there's another really interesting issue here. There is a side learning that I'd also like to toss out. I shared initially that the rainmaker and this first client that lost out on the option have been working together for many, many years. And I want to toss this side learning out because a lot of lawyers do have, whether it's family, friends, long-term business relationships, but we really develop good relationships with some of our clients. And there is a thinking that just comes into play at times that says, I don't want to be offensive, I don't need to document my files as thoroughly, think closure letters then absence of that, because it's off-putting. I don't want to say goodbye, get out of here. And really these are good people. I have real faith and trust in the relationship in other words. And based on that faith and trust, these folks just aren't going to Sue. We go way back and I don't want to offend. But I got to tell you that's not accurate. We need to think about faith and trust in these relationships and what that means from the other side. In this situation, the client basically came to the lawyer in the firm and said, look, I've been harmed here to the tune of several million dollars, it's a lost profit calculation. And I know, again, said this way, but this is what's driving it based on the faith and trust in this business and personal relationship we've developed over the years, I know you would not want me to suffer any harm as a result of your misstep. Would you help bring the claim against yourself and the firm so that I can recover? And would you and your wife like to join us this weekend for dinner? We're going to take the boat out. Now, in this situation, actually, I spent about a week with this firm after all this resolved looking and talking about the issues and doing some other education and consulting with them. But literally that conversation occurred and the boat, taking the boat out, we're not talking about some small, we're talking about something that's like 65-foot yard or so. I mean, it's a big, big boat. There's a lot of money here. But can you appreciate how in this relationship, faith, and trust really means something different depending on which side of the relationship attorney or client you're in? So I encourage you also not to minimize this. People that we have as lawyers, great faith and trust in in terms of the attorney-client relationship, this is a population that really is pretty litigious. Every carrier has many, many claims over the years that arise out of these relationships, but still some things go wrong. So a key takeaway here in this situation too is really just to look and say, Hey, I understand that sending a closure letter out or something may not... I don't want to offend but it doesn't have to be a goodbye kiss-off type letter. You've been honored consistently over the years by this person or this company or this family continuing to bring work and it's a real privilege, honor them back and simply say, thank you and write your audience. You need to phrase it and put it in the language it's typically you and how you would interact with whoever it is, but this concludes my representation. I hope you found my work to be exemplary. It's always a pleasure. I look forward to working with you on the Jones matter or whenever something new arises. Say hello to your lovely wife and I'll see you at rotary. But write your audience, but you really do need that documentation, that closure letter. In this situation, had we had a closure letter, that really could have made a very, very significant difference because we would've been in the 1.9 role. Now yes, if you do this analysis on 1.9, we would need to have a consent to our moving forward or this firm should have had consent to move forward and that's a different topic. But if you think about just the learnings of this fact pattern, I hope you begin to appreciate the importance of documentation and the difference in terms of how we walk through the difference between 1.7 and 1.9. So that's my quick little rundown on a conflict issue that's been topic that we've been chatting about with a number of lawyers in recent months here. I hope you found it worthwhile and interesting. I have a little learning here and so it's been a pleasure. I appreciate your listening. Look forward to being able to share another story, another call at some point down the road. So, Hey, thanks for listening. Stay well all. Bye, bye.  

As we transition to more permanent work-from-home schedules, the lack of supervision and a diminished sense of community could have bigger consequences. In our latest episode, Mark explores a few risky scenarios that have played out recently while lawyers work from home. He also explores some easy-to-implement solutions to keep you and your coworkers happy and connected, even from afar. Transcript:  Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. Welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today, I want to talk just a little bit about the new normal and ethics and the pandemic. Early in the pandemic, I penned an article, which is available on our blog, if you care to take a look, on the new normal and really suggesting there is no such thing as the new normal and just trying to encourage people to think about the consequences of change. The new normal is really just a period of time where change was very, very quick and widespread for so many people. But why do I keep harping on this? Honestly, I'd say I really have some concerns about this term, "the new normal." It seems sometimes you'll read this in the news and people will just talk about, it seems like there's an effort to have everyone except that all this change is permanent and we should just get used to it and life is going to be like this from here on out. Now, there's certainly a lot of truth to that in some ways, but my concern is it feels to me at times a lot of us are just trying to get comfortable with all the change and just keep moving and not really think through, "Well, what are the ramifications of this change?" and so I want to explore that in the context of our ethical rules, because please understand, in no jurisdiction is there, if you will, the pandemic exception to any of these rules. Just to set this up, for example, well, many of us, I should say, when we had to run home, I've been working remote for many, many years, but moving home very suddenly and having staff and everybody go offsite and we are trying to get the equipment home, get it set up, and stay as effective as possible, just to keep everything moving forward, now, that's all well and good. If we had to set up a laptop and a monitor or something on a coffee table in the living room, yeah, no problem. If however, that's still the case, now what is it, 18, 20 months, whatever we're into this pandemic, if the laptop and the screen is still there and the kids can come home from school or working after school, if they're homeschooling or something and gaming on the TV right next to you and a spouse is in the kitchen and can hear all that's going on, that's no longer acceptable. A couple of days to make a transition is one thing, but confidentiality is in play, is it not? I don't want us to get comfortable just for the sake of finding comfort. We really need to take some time and think through the rules. Let me share some thoughts. One of the concerns that I have, and I think we should all be thinking about, is supervision, particularly in the context of wellness. I'm going to come at this in two ways, but prior to the pandemic, everybody, the study that came out in 2016, we all learned as a profession, our profession still has some very serious problems in terms of wellness. Well, then the pandemic hits, and things just haven't gotten any better, put it that way. It's not unique to our profession, but mental health issues have become far more of a concern. Alcoholism has gone up, chemical dependency has gone up. These are very real concerns. If people are working from home and not as connected as they used to be when everyone was in the office, that's a potential problem. Are you addressing supervision issues? Is this a legitimate concern from a claim standpoint? Oh, absolutely, it is. We see claims for lack of supervision and they are not uncommon. One that immediately comes to mind is a more senior lawyer was several states away working remote, obviously, and he was just doing his thing. He had his files and everybody had their own silos and were taking care of their own matters. Well, no one was paying attention to this gentleman and he was just slipping into dementia and it was getting worse and worse, and eventually, eight critical deadlines were blown on eight different matters. Now, there are eight very viable, good claims. These aren't minor missteps. Remember, we are our partners' keepers, right? When it comes to malpractice, in particular, we sink or swim together as a firm. One of the things that really made a difference to me, and I've talked about this before in other podcasts or articles, but ALPS deployed Teams right after we had to all go home for the pandemic, the early stages of that. I can't tell you how significant that one product became and will remain, even now. Perhaps we're a little bit more of a hybrid model now, which is not going to be uncommon for many, many businesses, too, but it's a tool that we can use to replace the water cooler conversation, sitting down and having some coffee in the break room. We can just have a video call real quick. Sometimes it's just a chat, sometimes it's to ask a question, troubleshoot an issue, but it facilitates connectivity between all of us. It helps us maintain our culture. There are also meetings where we can get together and check up on each other: "Mark, what's your schedule look like this week? Alison, what's your schedule look like this week? Where are we all at? What support do you need?" It's just one example. There are all kinds of tools here. I'm not saying go out and use Teams. I'm trying to share that wellness and follow-through, we can even talk about competency, which I will in a little bit here in a different context, but it's just we need to not get comfortable just with everybody being apart, we need to say, "Okay, how can we continue to maintain the culture of the firm? How can we check up on each other? How can we support each other so that we all stay on track?" Matters can go off the rails very quickly if someone is depressed or drinking more alcohol than they should and start drinking during the day, as an example. How do you think mistakes have happened? Okay, so I really do believe this is a very important issue. Let's also talk a little bit about confidentiality. I shared this concern with still having tech in a space that is not dedicated to a home office in any work from home remote environment. We cannot allow kids to be on the same network we're working. You can set up your own network and then have a family network. We wall this off. We cannot be in an area where spouses, kids, friends' kids coming over can hear calls. It's not okay to go sit down in a crowded Starbucks, even just to get out of the house and take a lot of calls. Confidentiality is in play. There is no work-from-home exception. At this point, I mean, I'll just speak personally here, but if I were in practice and had any say in terms of it's my firm, or I'm managing a firm or something along those lines, at this point, any employee, attorney, or staff that cannot have space that is truly dedicated to privacy in a work-from-home space, a separate room, doors that you can close, that kind of thing, the privilege to remain working at home isn't going to be granted. This, I sort of look at it, it's the work-from-home model, the hybrid model can still be in play. I think it's a great thing. I really do. I'm a fan of it, but we need to have a professional office at home, a true office. I believe that for all kinds of reasons. Anyway, enough of that. I will share, and some of you that read and follow me at times, my wife and I have are in the process of transitioning to Florida from Montana. We've been down here now about, oh, two months or so. It's just been some supply chain delays and whatnot on the home we're building here, but I will tell you, I absolutely would not even consider this, and I would have expected ALPS to not even say, "Hey, relocate," if I couldn't promise them and have to follow through on, obviously, building a dedicated home office. I really do. It's a soundproof space. It's high-speed internet. It is dedicated. It's going to be my ALPSs home office. I share that to say, I guess, I'm walking the talk. I really take this very, very seriously. Let's talk a little bit about competency as well. Initially, we can talk about wellness. There is that piece. We need to stay competent and make sure everybody is maintaining health in exercise, eating right, doing whatever they need to do to kind of take care of themselves. Doubly important, again, in a global pandemic, but it really is something we shouldn't minimize. But please understand competency, again, there's no exception to rule here, right? While you or maybe several others in your firm may be very competent working from home, is everyone competent in working from home? What I mean by that is often there are different tools now in play. We may have switched to cloud computing, email, all kinds of things are changing a bit. We may be using personal equipment, whether it's cell phones, laptops doesn't matter. But if our processes start to change, is everybody competent? Excuse me. Remember that, I believe it was a Texas lawyer sometime ago with, and even the meme went around for a while, "I am not a cat." He just clearly wasn't fully competent at the time on video conferencing. He since learned, as my understanding is, figured it out. We need to think, is everybody competent or is everybody able to competently perform their tasks, their assignments, whatever they need to do from a home-work setting, whether it's video conferencing, e-filing, cloud computing, cloud collaboration, email, encryption, which really should be in play? Do they know how to redact documents? Can they use the case management accounting? Whatever systems we're using, can they competently use it from the remote location? Something to think about. But I want to take that even further, this whole notion of competency, and bring this into the cybersecurity space as well. Again, we are as lawyers to understand the benefits and risks of the relevant technology we're using, right? Well, things change when we go home and it changes in a lot of ways. I will tell you this whole transition here in the States, I'm just going to talk about the States for a moment, has been the gift that keeps on giving to the cybercriminal space because of the work from home for all kinds of reasons. One, just as an example, people generally tend to follow the rules and be fairly responsible when they're using technology in the workplace. They know their rules, they know they should question email and not click on links and these kinds of things. They're pretty good at that. Take everybody home and it changes entirely. We just let our guard down, so naturally, and it's just, "Hey, this is my home. I don't have to worry about strong passwords on my stuff. I don't need to change and have different passwords for everything. Password manager? Yeah, I don't think so. This is my home, this is my life, and this is my tech." Now, even though they're using it for work, doesn't change anything. But no exceptions here, right? That's just one example. Home routers, I've had other articles and talked about this before, are a very real concern. They need to be properly set up. Again, what kinds of things am I thinking about? The rules shouldn't change just because anybody's working from home. Strong passwords should be in play. Two-factor authentication, password managers should be in play. VPNs need to be in use a hundred percent of the time regardless of where we are, if we are remote or even just out for the day in terms of mobile work because we're at the courthouse or whatever it might be, we're on a vacation, but periodically catching up with some email and some work. VPNs need to be there. Again, does everybody know how to securely teleconference? Are they keeping their systems patched? I mean, all of the things that I've been talking and writing about, and many others as well, in terms of cybersecurity have to be in play and implemented at home. Period. If that's not possible, I go back to saying again, "If it were me in control, the privilege to work from home cannot be extended." It's one thing that go home under these orders and make some things happen and get through the few weeks or few months, it varied for some of us, and you do the best you can. But now, this is becoming more permanent, so let's not get comfortable with, "It's okay." We need, again, tech competency, professional competency. There's no tolerance, no exception. There's no tolerance for legal-like, no exception for competency because of a global pandemic. Now, please understand, I am not saying that every single person, whether their lawyer or staff have to be experts in terms of tech competency, but we have to know. Our responsibility as lawyers is to assure that everybody abides by the rules, complaint of 5.1, 5.3, but we need to know there are issues out here, and then we need to go find the people that can help us. We hire the competent talent we need, whether that's temporary in terms of a consultant to come in and set some things up, or a full-time IT staff, but we need to find the competent people that can help us to make sure we are competent from all these different settings now. The final piece that I'd like to talk about is really thinking about policies and procedures. A concern that I have is that particularly in the solo small firm space, often we create procedures and have policies of how calendaring might be done and how conflicts need to be checked and all of that based on the work environment that we're all in, and they can be very, very effective. Have you thought about, "Are they still as effective in a work-from-home setting, a hybrid setting?" 'Kay, as an example, let's say there four or five of us lawyers practicing together and we have a few staff and we designed a system of calendaring that allows for entries to be double-checked, a second set of eyes, et cetera, because we want a process that makes sure... Well, it seeks to find the occasional misstep that will happen: The date doesn't get entered correctly, somebody didn't glean a date off a document, that kind of thing. We want to try to create a calendar that is very, very accurate. I call this an independent yet redundant calendaring process. It worked very well in the office because we hand documents over, whatever it might be, but in the home, everybody's separated. Now, how do we know that people are still doing double-checking all the work? How does it get around the documents? You see where I'm going? How about mail? Is mail being distributed and we're getting it? The systems change by their very nature that people are now spread out. I encourage you to think about, "Are our file documentation procedures still capturing everything that we need? Is everybody consistent?" A temptation might be to say, "Oh, yes." Well, how do you know? Have you checked up? What is your quality control process to make sure? You might create the opportunity for me. Say I'm a paralegal or something now. I can put everything digitally in files, et cetera, but are you checking to make sure I am? How do you know I'm not sitting at home having a glass of scotch with lunch and maybe two or three more in the afternoon, and I'm still working, I'm still productive, may get a little sloppy at times, but the systems and processes? Heck, I'm keeping everything on my hard drive here. Oh, by the way, I don't have it password protected, the kids are gaming on the same network. I'm going to be low-hanging fruit for a cyber vent of some sort is what I'm trying to drive that to. Are everyone in compliance with the expectations of file documentation? Are we still creating independent yet? Redundant calendars is our conflicts check as thorough? Are we following through on all these things? The answer to that may be yes. If so, that's awesome. I'm just trying to underscore, please, the importance of not running with assumptions and thinking through this. It's too easy to just get comfortable. In some ways, when staff and lawyers and even problems are out of sight, they're out of mind, and they're out of sight because we're all spread out. Again, there's so many things we could talk about here and explore. I don't think getting into all this kind of detail is absolutely necessary and perhaps even beneficial at this point. I'm hopeful that you are able to hear me and you've gotten the point. I'm going to wrap it with that and just say, hey, I want all of us to be comfortable going forward, regardless of how this pandemic ends, if it ends. Who knows? I think COVID in my mind is here to stay. We're going to have to learn to live with it just like we did with the flu, and that's okay, but let's take the time to make sure and confirm everyone in our firm is responsibly comfortable so that we know we have done all we can do to assure everyone is in compliance with the ethical rules. As I see it, this is just another way to ensure success in our legal endeavors. That's it for me, folks. I hope you found something of value in all of this and I look forward to visiting with you next time on ALPS In Brief. Have a good one. Bye-bye.

Mark shares some stories of cancelled flights, employment emergencies, and more, to illustrate a timely point: When things go off the rails, being rude will get you nowhere. Instead of yelling and screaming in situations you can't control, treat people with compassion, humanity, and respect, and see solutions present themselves.   Transcript: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager with ALPS. And welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today, I'm going to do another solo. And for those of you that listen to me, or have attended the CLE's, and follow my writing over the years, you know that I, at times, I am a storyteller and I also am someone that just spends a lot of time in my head thinking. And I've been thinking a lot. What brought on the topic for today was among other things. My wife and I have recently become grandparents for the first time, and it's very exciting. We've just recently returned from a visit to meet him and just had a wonderful, wonderful time.   And you get the thinking, at least I do, about what do I want him to know? Well, what, what life lessons will I be able to teach? Or what insights can I share? And I just got to thinking about some things and that has led to today's topic. And really what I want to focus on is how to respond when things go off the rails. It's kind of a general topic, I guess, of all of this. And a lot of the learnings and things that I'd like to share, insights, have just come from life experiences. And again, as I opened, I like to tell some stories. So I have a number of stories that I want to share.   The first involves a professional experience because law is not my first career, if you will. Many, many, many years ago, in fact back in the eighties. And I was working in a welfare office in Seattle, and it's one of the largest ones at the time. Anyway, we gave out and I think more medical assistance in just about any place in the country. It was just a crazy busy place. At one point, I was involved training someone and literally the first day I started training with this other young fellow. I had a client come in and you go out to this sort of, this reception area is full of people, just chock full of large reception, private security, all over the place. And it was kind of a rough neighborhood and you would have this long row of interview rooms. So I go out to the microphone and call up the person that I was due to meet with. And we walk down a long row of interview rooms and sit down and started the discussion and the process of seeing how I might be able to help another young man get some assistance.   And as we progressed, this individual really got to be very confrontational and it got pretty crazy. And I'm just sitting here watching all of this. I don't engage in situations like this. And I don't know if that made him angry or not, but what happened immediately after I'm just kind of watching, he literally stands up, picks up this circular table that we were all sitting around, and the guy I was training also rose because he wasn't sure what to do, perhaps a little frightened. And this client pinned the gentlemen I was training in the corner of a room, and he's just threatening and screaming. And I'm just looking at him.   And my response was, "Look, this is a busy day for me. It's clear you're not wanting to work with me to get anything done. Tell you what, I got so much stuff to do. I'm going to go down the hall, go back to my desk and get to work on some other things. If, and when, you feel like you want to move forward here, you let him know out front and I'll get back to it." And I literally just got up and walked out.   Now, I could see the guy I was training was in a panic. Oh my God, what's going on? And trust me, I was not on my way back to my office to work. I was on my way down the hall to get security and some assistance. Turns out I didn't even need to go that far. You could hear a voice coming from the room, "Mr. B, Mr. B wait. Wait." He put the chair or the table down. I came back and he just said, "I need some help." And then we got to work and were able to take care of his needs.   That situation really stuck with me over the years for all kinds of reasons. But one of the things, it was an early lesson that has stuck with me ever since. And just underscores for me the value of not letting anyone else try to take control of my emotions and how I respond. I choose not to give someone that power. And that has really made a tremendous difference for me over the years. It was such a powerful experience. And I don't know why I did it in terms of just...I just wasn't going to, I don't know. It's hard to get my feathers ruffled perhaps at times, but I ended up... Don't get me wrong, I certainly can get angry, but I would choose, for the most part, when I get angry, because it's right for the circumstance. And I have every right to be angry but this wasn't it. So it just an interesting experience.   I had another situation come up a number of years later. Where my family and I, kids, wife, even mom, were all traveling to Walt Disney world in Florida during a hurricane season. It was one of those years where there were back-to-back hurricanes. I think they, over the entire season, they had five actually hit landfall in Florida. And we managed to fit a vacation and a cruise in between two of these storms. But on the way down there's a little bit of a delay because of, again, storms and the whole country in terms of the traffic grid, air traffic was just a mess. So we get in a day late and the luggage is nowhere near to be found. It may be a day or so, and it's just a mess.   But it's about midnight. Literally, we're standing in line to report the missing luggage along with everybody else and try to figure out what's up. And there was a gentleman in front of us. And he was married, had a teenage daughter. And they were to be... So it's midnight and the next day they were to be at Cape Canaveral to board a cruise ship and head out. And none of their luggage is here. And this guy is screaming, bloody murder, and being very, very rude to everybody that worked at the airline and very demanding. His wife is upset. His daughter's crying. And he said, "We have this, is a dream thing, we have all of our clothes. We need... This is a wedding on the ship." And they were guests, she wasn't the bride in terms of the daughter or anything, but this was a big deal and he's very, very upset. And he's not listening.   The woman's explaining, "Sir, we have hurricanes. We've done everything we can. There's nothing we can do. I assure you, we know where your luggage is. I cannot get it here before the cruise leaves, but it is in Tampa." Orlando to Tampa is, I don't know, depending on traffic, hour and a half tops. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, why don't you just close your mouth, stop yelling. See if you can get your wife and your daughter into some local hotel. Try to rent a car. I don't know if this is possible, but it's the only option. And then drive over to Tampa, pick up your luggage and get back. It's just an option that wasn't even remotely going to be on his radar. He, he just decided to be angry and rude.   And that situation really stuck with me over the years, too. And the learning, for me, and it just was so... I talk about it in some of my other podcasts, listening to your life. It was so loud in terms of the message and the message to me was rudeness and demands get you nowhere. And sometimes, you're the only person that can solve the problem. Give it a shot.   Now I've been traveling for ALPS for 23 years now. And we love to vacation. Have traveled abroad a few times and all over the country for all kinds of vacations. So trust me when I say that time in Orlando with our lost luggage was not the first time I've had to deal with a canceled flight. Or changes... I mean, when COVID hit in the shutdowns, you know, boy, all kinds of plans got crazy.   I've had my fair share of having to deal with customer support people in both in-person and online. And I, again, I have seen time and time again, and particularly in person at airports, just as an example, of people in front of me, again, yelling and just screaming and trying to have things done. And it doesn't get you anywhere. My response is, okay. So a flight's been canceled and there are, depending on the size of the plate, anywhere from 50 to 250 people, they got to rebook and deal with. And I'm sitting here thinking, do you folks not get it? The people that you're yelling at and demanding something from have nothing to do with the problem.   They didn't... I had a situation where that the windshield of an airplane was broken on the way down. And we had to wait overnight for a new windshield to come in. They can't fly the plane without a windshield, I mean that just isn't going to happen. And I said, it's not this person's fault. I always approach these folks as this is my new best friend. Because I've learned over and over again, if you just treat them with some level of courtesy and polite. Sometimes, the first thing I'll say, "Man, it looks like you are having a rough day. And I know this isn't your fault. I am so sorry that all of us are having to go through this experience, but you know what these things happen."   And I'll tell you every single time I have treated people with just a little dignity, little respect, a little politeness, my problem was solved in almost every situation pretty quickly. I'll be booked on an immediate flight. I've literally heard peoples say five or six times ahead of me as all these people are yelling, "The best we can do is Tuesday to get you out of here." And on and on and on. And then I'll walk up and just put a little smile and say, "I'm sorry, you're having a rough day." And I'm on a flight six hours later.   People will...if you treat people with respect, sometimes just solutions can appear. So I guess to me, that's the learning of this one. I've learned that being courteous and polite leads to solutions for me, even where others have found none. I don't know that it should be this way necessarily, but it is what it is. People are going to respond to anger and rudeness and disrespect differently than they're going to respond to when someone has some compassion and takes the time to be polite and takes the time to wait. I'm sorry, this may take another 10 minutes. I'm doing... Ma'am please don't worry. I got all the time in the world. You are helping me. It's good. Relax. We're fine. So something to think about.   I also can share that my wife and I now we've been married 20 years. Coming up on 21 here pretty soon, in fact. But we're a Brady family. The number of years ago we went through this challenge of trying to put a step family together. And I'm proud to say we did that very successfully. To this day, our kids, in terms of even the step-kids, everybody views each other as family, in other words. And they're all long since gone and independent and have families of their own, some of them, and everybody still is very, very close and we are a family.   I will tell you, that's not easy and there are challenges. But one of the things that I learned out of this whole experience was the value of playing what I have come to call long ball in terms of building relationships, maintaining relationships. And to me, it's sometimes this is, well, I guess I should say what I discovered, sometimes it's worth losing in the short term. Whether there's a debate, or an argument, or just a disagreement. It's worth losing in the short term sometimes, or even just learning to give a little, to negotiate and find a solution here in order to eventually gain a lot more. It's a concept, this idea, this notion of long ball, as I call it, has been truly in so many ways, a game changer for me in terms of how I try to live my life.   I've talked about this long ball, so learning from the experience, but I want to really describe what I mean by long ball and how that learning has come about. And really what it's about is, is saying I've come to appreciate that you really, and I'm speaking personally, I really want to try every chance I get to not allow someone else to pull me in to dealing with some irrelevant or ultimately irrelevant kind of issue. There are big problems and little problems. I'm going to try to dismiss the little problems and lose now and again, or whatever, because I've got my eyes on a different game. I'm looking longterm. So it's about not taking the bait and staying engaged in every single minor issue that someone wants to keep me engaged with.   Sometimes this could be an ex. Sometimes this is children. Sometimes of stepchildren. But it's about saying I don't want to be pulled off game. And the way I see it, and the more I've kind of tried to do this in my life, and I started this, to be honest with you, before the step family. It's just that experience putting the step family together really kind of cemented a lot of this. But in my experience over the years, so many times people who are being confrontational really are playing a very short game. They want the win and they want it now. And they may keep doing it over and over hoping to keep engaged with this dysfunction or it may give them a sense of powers. I don't know, everybody's different. But I just choose not to play that game. I choose to focus long-term.   So what is the point? And, I want to sort of summarize some of the learnings here and take it up a notch in terms to a bigger picture. Why are these stories that I've just shared, the insights that I've just shared important to me? And it gets back to sort of problems, whether it's confrontation. Whether it's just things going off the rail in so many ways. I sit and I've come to say, whenever there is an issue, a problem, whatever that means to you, I stop and say, I kind of asked myself that question. I try to categorize it and say, is this something I can change? Is this something I can influence? Or is this something I have no control over at all? Can't do anything about.   Once I make that determination, I will sit and say, okay, now my goal is to try to spend the most energy of what I have on things that I can change. I will try to spend some energy on things I can influence. And I try to spend no energy on something I can't do a darn thing about. And it's very difficult at times to do that, but I really believe there's value in sort of running through that analysis. So these are some personal things that I've been sharing and some insights that I think are very valuable. I'd love our grandson to hear at some point, course when he's old enough to appreciate what I'm even talking about. But these are things I've talked to my children about, and I have tried to teach and give them some tools because I have found to be very, very valuable.   But I can also hear you saying, okay, so what's the point here, Mark? In terms of the context of a podcasts on risk management resource site here for a malpractice insurer. What's a fair question? And it's a fair question. And here's what I would encourage you to think about. The context of these learnings that's change from my personal experience, to the context of being civil in the practice of law. Confrontation is out there. There are some lawyers that really practice incivility in a very significant way and are very intentional about it. But when I look at saying, okay, when faced with rudeness with uncivil behaviors, in my mind, in my experience, the perfect foil to that is formal politeness. Which by the way, is the definition of civility. But I tend to state it in a slightly different way. Instead of using the word formal politeness, I try to be intentional with my politeness.   Now I'll be the first to admit that I remain a work in progress with all of this. But the better I get at it, the more I practice it, the greater the benefits I see in experience. And it even starts to change little things around to me. Others become more polite. It just kind of spreads. It's like when you yawn, take our little grandson, and you can yawn a little bit, then he'll yawn. It's contagious.   So I just encourage you to think about that. Because a lot of times when things go off the rail, others are trying to have some power over us to control the situation. Whether it's in a courtroom, in a deposition, in a negotiation, clients could be playing this game, all kinds of things, all kinds of places this can come up. So I encourage you to give some thought about being intentional with civility.   And for one last reason why, as I like to say, again for you regular folks that know sort of my, the way I tend to talk and way I summarize things, is I see it to do it any other way is just wasting energy. Life is too short as it is. So there are just a couple of thoughts. In some ways, I've shared some things that I look forward to years from now, sitting down and having a conversation with our grandson and sharing some of this and hoping that that may be of use to him. But until that time, I hope this will be useful to you as well. So thanks for listening. Hey, it's been a pleasure. Have a good one folks.

Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today, I wanted to spend a little time and share some backgrounds, introduce you to et cetera, to what I have called over the recent year project Vera. Mark Bassingthwaighte: If you have visited our website of late, you may have seen a pop-up with a Llama, and an invitation to click on a link and participate in an assessment. You may have seen some email with the similar invitation as we advertise for our silly services and whatnot. But I really want to just share what Vera is all about. We're very proud of Vera, and that it is the next evolution of the delivery of risk management services here at ALPS. And with that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to share a little history, how we got here, and then I'll share a little bit about what Vera is all about. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But years ago, now I have been with ALPS for about 23 and a half years. The [inaudible 00:01:23] way it's just crazy how time flies, and risk services were in play prior to my arrival for a few years. And in those early years, we would write up some learnings and interesting claims, and share some learnings from them. We would write up some general articles, similar to what you might find on our blog today, but it was, of course, all paper back in those days, and you'd send these little newsletters out. But the bulk of the service, in terms of risk management services, really started with consulting. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And over the years, there are various names for this process, but really centered around just doing what we would call at RISC visit, and that sort of stood for Reduce Insured's Susceptibility to Claims, but it really was a consulting type thing. It was a fee service. And at one point there were three of us that were traveling basically two weeks a month around the country. And you fly into Iowa and you'd have all these visits set up and, and drive all over the state, and visiting with solo and small firms. And the point was really to just share with as many insurers as we can firsthand a lot of the intellectual capital that we obtained over the years in terms of what are we seeing in claims? What sort of best practices would help prevent some of this stuff? Mark Bassingthwaighte: And so it was really about education, and also, over time, I really learned some value out of this was just creating relationships. We really had a lot of firms were so appreciative, and they'd invite us back every couple of years, because you don't do this every year, and they would call in with questions. And I really think it made a big difference in retention of our insurance base, but it also people feel free to call in more comfortable to call in and say, "Hey, we have this problem, or is this a concern? Should we re be reporting this?" And I really think that that made a difference over the years and in terms of trying to reduce claims, perhaps a little frequency, a little severity, but I'll be honest to say at the end, I think the biggest value of all this was the relationship building that, that occurred, And I was so privileged to be a part of that. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That process, really what it entailed was I'd walk in and depending on the structure, there's a different process for a solo versus a firm of five attorneys, a couple associates in that kind of thing. But I would sit and spend some time going through a series of questions, and based upon the answers that, staff we would meet often separately or the attorneys, depending on the answers that they shared with us, we'd share some comments and some insights. And the goal was, again, to have a firm learn. Mark Bassingthwaighte: After the conversations, I'd go back to the hotel, and I'd get into hot docs and we had all these templates, and we would write a report, and then follow up sending this report out. Then we'd have sample forms or articles that we felt might be of interest in terms of areas that we identified as a little bit of a concern in the sense. Perhaps they're not using closure letters at all. And here's some sample closer letters, and here are the benefits, the reasons why you really might want to spend some time looking at incorporating closure letters to the practice. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And so we've just covered all kinds of topics. A lot of fun, a lot of travel, crazy, crazy times for many years. It was just, wow. Trust me. I racked up a lot of miles. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Over time, however, there was a problem, and it's a good problem to have, don't get me wrong, but ALPS just continued to grow and grow and grow. And this is a very time-intensive, obviously, and expensive service to deliver. When you're a smaller company, you can, in terms of percentage of insurers that you're having the opportunity to work with, it's a fairly significant percentage. But nowadays, boy. I mean, we have staff of probably 10 or 15 lawyers out here trying to do this, and we still couldn't keep up. And so the model had to change, and we've played around with a number of different things for a few years after we stopped. Just again, it was just way too expensive to make this. This has never been a revenue generator in the sense of we're looking at this as a profit center. We really trying to break even. And if we can throw a little money into covering some other expenses with improvements to software, some things like that, that's all good. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But we did get to a point where we had to say, "Okay, it's time to put the live process to bed and be done." And there was a lot of discussion internally about how do we transition? How do we continue to try to reach as many people as we can in terms of insurers, but not insurance as well? I mean isn't that a goal? I mean, you're sharing some internal discussions, it's just to help lawyers as much as we can to help the bar at large. Mark Bassingthwaighte: There were some fits and starts with some different ideas. We looked at doing some online types of things, and again, fits and starts and just struggled working this out and even finding the right type of platform to do this. But over time, we finally got there, and the Vera project was conceived to be the next, if you will, generation of consulting. But it's all done now online, on demand, and for free. I mean, how great is that? So that's Vera. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But as we sat down and looked at this, I really wanted to have some fun. I wanted to make a process that I think could be engaging, that could be valuable, but also be fun. I mean, I get frustrated times lecturing about how you're going to get sued, and telling all these stories, and then worse yet is all of the cybersecurity stuff, and at times it can be so overwhelming. I'm not always Mister Happy in terms of ethic, when people walk out of one of my seminars that we've just spent the last 90 minutes talking about all the ways you're going to get hacked, and it can be overwhelming. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I wanted to have a little fun, and the idea was to create a character. Vera really stands for Virtual Ethics Risk Assessment, because the consulting, when we were doing it live, we did start to evolve into the ethics space as well. Look at trust accounting as an example, and talk about some other ethical issues. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And this evolution has continued as we get to Vera. The idea was let's turn this into a character, into some type of personality. And as we've talked, I kind of thought about wouldn't have spirit guide of some sort interesting. I'm kind of channeling some of the Star Trek kinds of things. Star Trek Voyager, in particular, there was a character there that was Native American, and would talk about spirit guides and have spirit guides. That just, I don't know, that just struck a chord with me. I always thought that was kind of cool. We came up with a llama, and as you begin to write and develop, you create a personality. And so Vera does have a personality, and that'll be important here in a minute in terms of just understanding what we're doing. Mark Bassingthwaighte: The next step was to say, "How do we take the live consulting process and turn it into something that can be online on demand?" And I really just did an extensive rewrite, and also really tried to narrow down and center on some key things as an initial starting point. And so as I looked at the templates and all the things that we use when we were doing this in person, I really decided let's look at seven key areas. And the key areas that I decided to focus on are client intake, file documentation, calendaring, trust account procedures, sort of some general risk management types of things, cybersecurity, and then firm policies, plans, looking at some administrative type issues in a firm. And so with that framework, we sat down and developed some questions, had some fun creating some answers, and believe it or not, some of these answers that you can select are maybe a little, at times, what, really, that's kind of extreme. But I'm in being sincere and sharing. These answers really come out of the answer pool, if you will, from things that I heard over the years, and you just play with it a little bit to kind of make it fun. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But so what, what would happen now is somebody can go in, and you work through a series of questions, and each of these categories currently have five questions. And so you've get a question about calendaring, and you can select from typically four to five answers, and based on the answer, you get a certain score and in each category, so calendaring, trust accounts, that kind of thing, gets a section score, and it all totals up then at the end to an overall score. And depending on the scoring that you get, even if you get it perfectly right, Vera will have a little feedback. It might be sharing some kudos, or it might be saying, "There might be some trouble ahead on the path that you're on." And then, so if the score is such that, again, it's not perfect, she just interacts in a pleasant advisory kind of guide perspective, share some thoughts, a little bit of advice, and often has some links to resources that have been developed here over the years, maybe articles that I think would be interesting and appropriate to whatever topic we're discussing, or Vera's responding to, and just sample forms again. That kind of thing. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That's Vera in a nutshell in terms of what the process and sort of the personality is. In my mind Vera is, she's not artificial intelligence, I mean, we haven't gone that far, maybe someday you never know. But in my mind, she really is this virtual digital character that we have the pleasure to share with you and hope people will enjoy. Mark Bassingthwaighte: If you were to now at this point, just perusing the website, up pops a link, or you get an email with a link, or you just decide you want to take a look at it at some point, what happens? Well, you can go to the website, and it happens to be www.ALPSinsurance.com/vera. V-E-R-A. And you can just go to the corporate website, and go to resources, and risk management. She'll pop up. Mark Bassingthwaighte: It takes about 20 minutes. You go through some questions. You do need to answer every question. A blank is going to be scored as a zero, and you do need to give us an email address. But outside of that, we're not using the Vera as a tool to look at all these answers, and say, "Boy, if somebody ever applies or reapplies here, we see what they're really..." No. We have an email address solely for the purpose of allowing or enabling Vera to, as soon as you're finished, clicked on complete and all, she writes up this report, and we'll email it to you and you can do what you want with it. So, we need to have a valid email address to get that out. But beyond that, all your answers are anonymous, not tied to anything we do look at over time, how many people are answering B to question four or something like that, just to see where problems might be with the intent of developing additional resources, perhaps if there's a need. Just trying to identify where lawyers are struggling. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But this is all anonymous. And the goal really is to share the intellectual capital in terms of risk management, claim prevention, staying out of trouble ethically, me even staying out of trouble with cyber breaches, and that kind of thing. Just to share that intellectual capital with as many lawyers as we can, regardless of their status with us in terms of being an insured or not. This is not about trying to just keep it all within the ALPS family. We are here to, truthfully, support the bar at large. Mark Bassingthwaighte: My hope as an aside... As an aside isn't the right word. I'm just going to struggle here for a moment. But my hope is that in time this tool will be valued enough or utilized enough, that we can continue to broaden and expand the capabilities of what Vera does. We'll just have to see you over time what the pickup rate is perhaps, and also just would love to get some feedback. What do folks think about the tool? Is it useful? How might it be improved? What other topics do you think? I really see this as a way that the ALPS family can nurture and take this tool even to the next level, and be a part of the growth of Vera. Mark Bassingthwaighte: How has Vera been received thus far? It's an interesting question. The pickups, the hits have been, I'll be honest and say a bit slow, but the folks that have gone through it, I have to share one story as a lawyer, actually here in Montana, a small firm, and really great guy. We talk at times, and years ago I've been out. But he emailed in, and he said, "We got this email about Vera, and decided I'm going to take the assessment." So he went through the assessment on his own, got this report back. He says, "I was so impressed, Mark. I sat down and the entire firm's staff, we all sat down and went through the assessment together." Now, they didn't get a hundred percent, so they develop an action plan afterwards. And the firm got together and developed an action plan. And I don't know what their answers were or where the problems are, but again, let's say they're not using engagement letters as much as they should. I don't know. Then they said, "Well, here's the plan. Let's start doing this." And the plan is they're going to work their action plan for three to six months, and then sit down together as a group again, and go through the assessment a second time with the goal of getting a hundred percent in terms of the score. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And we're all bright people. We gone through law school and passed the bar and are practicing. We're some bright people here. You really can gain Vera if you want. You can figure out what the right answer is, and get a hundred percent, but that's not how he's chosen to handle it. He said, "We answered honestly. We really want to use this as a learning tool." And I said, "Was there any criticism or feedback?" He says, "My only criticism, Mark, is that this tool wasn't available five years ago. It is just absolutely fantastic." Because he really sees it as an opportunity to improve internally. And I was so touched by that. That really meant a lot. And I just was so appreciative that he took the time to reach out and share that. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I just wanted to pass that along. Vera is a labor of love. And as we talk here a little bit, I spend a lot of time trying to write and put this together, but I want to put a shout out to colleague at ALPS, Andrew Sweet. And, Andrew really is the guy behind the scenes that really brings Vera to life in terms of doing the art work, creating the Vera logo. There's a video that you get to see and hear, hear Vera speak. Andrew did all of this, and then really is the guy that made everything work in terms of the... I can sit and write a question, and I can sit and develop the layout of all this, but trust me, programming and putting all this, making Vera go, is not my bailiwick. I mean, I maybe could figure it out after a while, but, but Andrew's the guy that really did the heavy lifting. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And I also want to share kudos to the rest of my team is we all sat down. Because this is not a one person doing by any way, shape, or form. It was a group effort, and I'm just proud of the final product. And perhaps as a father or well, I have to say here's a side, just a few days ago, we became grandparents for the first time and are very proud and excited about that. And why I bring that up, it's sort of a similar feeling. We've created at ALPS a new project, a new product, called Vera that is real in so many ways to us. Mark Bassingthwaighte: And I invite you if you've not taken the time to explore and look at her a little bit, to do so. It really is intended to be a tool, free, available anytime on demand, online, to share all the insights and learnings intellectual capital we have here at ALPS. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I have rambled on enough. I will share the link one more time. www.ALPSinsurance.com/vera. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That's it folks. I hope you had a little fun listening to me ramble on about the Vera project, and hey, I look forward to having the opportunity to see the numbers change, and hope Vera proves to be a valuable to tool to you as well. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Thanks all. Bye. Bye.   To take your free Virtual Ethics Risk Assessment today, visit https://www.alpsinsurance.com/resources/vera

As the world re-opens and you begin to stretch your legs, ALPS Risk Manager Mark B tells some true tales and offers some tips for safeguarding your client data and maintaining your firm's cybersecurity from your phone, Airbnb, or the wide-open road. Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager with ALPS, and welcome to another episode of ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to visit again via podcast. Before I get into the topic of this podcast, I'd like to share story and some information about what's going on and in my life as a way to set up where we're going to go.                 Let's start with a call that I took earlier this week, and it came from an attorney who really wanted to understand if what he was doing in terms of security with his system was sufficient, if there was other things that he could do. What prompted the call is he went through an experience somewhat similar to what happened to my wife and I a number of years ago, he was the victim of identity theft. Had a tax return filed, fraudulently filed, obviously, in his name, and some other things had occurred. One of the mistakes he made, however, was using a complex password. Now, that was not the mistake, that's a great thing, but he used it on multiple accounts. And as a result of getting his personal information, they were also able to get into his work computer. Some email was being sent out from his computer under his name, trying to scam clients and some businesses he works with out of funds. And so, that was a bit of a mess.                 The other situation that's going on in terms of my own life is, and this is all good, but my wife and I are currently in transition. We are going through something I think a lot of people are going through in these crazy times, and it has to do with moving. Long story short again, the timing of moving out of one home, which has been sold, and into a new home, which is currently still under construction, did not line up as close as we might have liked, so we are currently in transition, living in a temporary apartment until things settle down and get finished. You know, it's quite a change. Most of our belongings are sitting in storage. We kid around that at some point when we finally get settled, and the truck unloaded and start unpacking, it'll be like Christmas. We'll say, "Hey, I had no idea we had this stuff." So it's got to be fun.                 But I began to realize, although I've been telecommuting for many, many years, and will continue to do so, this transition into a corporate apartment, and by that, I simply just mean it's a small furnished apartment, sort of struck me as I'm going through an experience similar to what I think a lot of people did when they had to rapidly transition from the office to working from home in the early days of the pandemic. There were some things here, that as I started to set up and figure out what was going on, I realized, "Oof, wait, there are some security issues that really need to be addressed." I thought it's worth talking about some of this. The lawyer that called, it was about best practices. You know, "What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? Is there anything else I could be doing?"                 And we had a good discussion, and it turns out there were a few things she could do to further secure what he was doing. And again, I sit and think, "Okay, boy, I didn't realize, just wasn't thinking about how much I take for granted given my old situation and then transitioning." So let's talk about what we can do as individuals to make our systems as secure as we can to help protect the competences, the property, the identities of our clients, and of course our own personal information. This discussion is not about everything that we can do to secure an office network. It's more focusing on the day-to-day basics, the day-to-day things we should all be thinking about that can help. IT, at our firm, keep us secure as a firm, and keep our information and the information of our clients private and confidential.                 That's look at this, and I want to start with just the basics, and then we'll kind of explore some other things. But the basics, it is extremely important that we keep the operating system and the applications that we're running on all these devices current in terms of security patches. Now, when I talk about devices, I'm talking about the laptops or PCs that we have at home, but even the mobile devices we travel with for vacation or for work trips. You know, smart phones, tablets, all of these things we need to keep current. Sometimes we may even need to go out and look for patches. I have to do that occasionally on applications on our cell phones. But these patches are being issued for a reason, and they are often bringing additional security features or updates to close vulnerabilities that have been discovered in prior versions, so absolutely essential.                 Now, one of the things that a lot of people do, and we all spend all kinds of money nowadays on these smartphones, and there's some crazy awesome phones out there, but we treat them as phones. We're not always thinking about the fact that this is a pretty robust computer. So we need to make sure that every mobile device and every device in our home that we are using for work has a internet security suite running, and it too should be kept current with all patches. One side note here, do not rely on free security programs or free VPNs. There's lots of free stuff out there, even in the security space, and you get what you pay for, which is very little when it comes to security. Now I'm not suggesting that the security software, these free VPNs, don't do what they say they're going to do. A free VPN will certainly encrypt your data stream so that anybody that tries to intercept this data stream won't see it.                 But the company that gives you this free product, there's an exchange, and the exchange is they get to monetize and monitor all your doing, and so you are what they are making money off of. That's not acceptable. And for a lawyer who is practicing law in terms of using these devices in the further and the practice of the law, because that information, just no. So you need to spend the few bucks that it's going to cost and be a bit more secure about it all.                 Turn on full disk encryption. You know, in this day and age, when it's one setting on a phone or a laptop, turn this stuff on. I consider it unethical, I truly consider it incompetent, not to take the time to turn this stuff on. Full disk encryption is typically once you turn your device off and somebody tries to turn it back on, if it's lost or stolen, if they don't have the password to decrypt, your data is protected and your client confidences are protected. So turn that on.                 Set up the ability to do remote wipes if a device is ever lost or stolen. I mean, doesn't that seem like a no-brainer? Take the time to do that. Again, it's so simple and easy to do. Use strong passwords, long pins, and never use the same password or pin on different devices or accounts. The story I just shared with the lawyer who called me, that was the mistake. He was using a very complex password, which was great, but he was using that same password on multiple accounts. You know, if they get one, they have now access to everything. That that makes no sense.                 Now, what is a complex password? Well, best practices would say 16 characters. We're rapidly approaching 20, a number of people that I work with and know in the security space really are saying 20. I routinely am using 20 to 24 on a number of accounts if the device or the application will accept that. And when we say complex, so in my case, we have 20 characters on some of this stuff. It's upper, lower case letters. It's symbols. It's numbers. And it's going to be very, very hard to guess. You know, there's no dictionary words here that that would be easy for a hacker to try to figure out. A lot of pushback that I get on this is, "How can I remember all of this stuff? Good Lord." You know? "I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday, Mark."                 Well, I am not kidding you when I say that my wife and I probably manage between 200, 250 complex passwords and different usernames. I never repeat. I never use them on multiple counts, this kind of thing. What have I done differently? I use a password manager. Personally, I use RoboForm. There are a number out there that are quite good. Dashlane would be another example. But these programs store and manage all these complex passwords for us. And if I need to change a password, it will even do that for me and randomly generate a new complex password, and memorize it for me. So all of my wife and I need to do is remember a very complex, and this is a long one, but a very complex passphrase, and that's the keys to the kingdom. It's not written down anywhere. We remember it. There's no stickies, it's all easy. But we have the ability now to use complex passwords in every aspect of our life, on any account and device that it'll work with.                 Turn on or utilize two factor authentication on all accounts. Don't make it easy. Two factor authentication, we're talking about authenticator apps or sending a pin as you try to log in your bank account. You get the code, a six digit code, typically, on a text message. You don't want to make it easy. If somebody happens to figure out what the password is on, heaven forbid your IOLTA account, and they're trying to steal some money out of them, well, when they're logging in, if they don't have your phone, the text message isn't coming to them. It's just one extra level of protection. And I'm telling you. Now, TFA, you can hack it. Using that doesn't mean you're 100% secure, but you are exponentially more secure than not using TFA, so absolutely use that on every work personal account that you can in terms of if it's available: email accounts, financial accounts, in terms of investment, bank accounts, those kinds of things, are obvious key places where you would want to do that.                 Install a VPN. A VPN, and that stands for virtual private network, and it is a software program that will encrypt your data stream so that if you are, well, I'm going to talk about this a bit more in terms of wifi momentarily, but it just makes sure that the sessions, when we are on the internet, that the data stream is encrypted. Again, we're trying to make it ever more complex.                 Those are some basic things to think about. But now I want to shift gears a little bit and explore. You know, as lawyers, we do take vacations and we travel for business, and there's some exposures that come up here as well. It could be staying in an Airbnb, in a hotel. The list goes on. So a couple of quick behavioral comments, things that we can do. Never use a public computer. I'm thinking about the business center at the resort in Cabo, or at the hotel in DC, whatever it might be, or even local libraries. There's all sorts of places where public computers are available. Absolutely not acceptable in terms of practicing law, communicating with clients. These things are very, very difficult to keep secure. Anybody can come in and do all kinds of stuff, so I would just not use them at all.                 Literally, if I had my own firm and was in charge of things here, I would have one warning, and do it twice you're fired if somebody, anybody, were using a public computer for work. It's that high risk. No public wifi. No open. You know, I'm talking about the airport, I'm talking about the signal at the hotel, I'm talking about Starbucks, those kinds of things. We absolutely cannot use this if any alternative exists. And there are alternatives. I won't get into what all the risks are, but it's very, very insecure and very high risk.                 So what's an alternative? Well, when I travel, a lot of times what I will do is connect my laptop to my smartphone. I'm using my smartphone then as a hotspot, and so the data stream will be sent using the carrier signal, AT&T, Verizon, whatever carrier you have. Far more secure than the local wifi hotspot.                 If however, and I can appreciate at times there are some circumstances where it may not be an option and you really must use wifi, there are some interesting ethics opinions out there that talk about this, but it is an acceptable risk with certain conditions. The two big wins are this, make sure that you know what the legitimate signal is. If you're at an airport and you're turning it on, you're trying, and it says, "Oh, here's Free Jet Blue wifi." "Oh, I love Jet Blue." Jet Blue has never made wifi available. Okay? But that signal has been out there. People will just create names that they think people will log into. If you're at a Hilton Hotel and you see Free Hilton, it's not Hilton. That's not what they call their network. Make sure you know. Ask the barista, ask the person at the front desk at the hotel. "What is the name of the network that you have set up that's the legitimate one for me to use?" So now which one to connect to.                 Then the other thing is, and this is not optional, as soon as you log into the network, initiate, use the VPN. Encrypt your signal. Is this risk-free? Absolutely nothing is risk-free. But this is going to be a little bit more risky than using the carrier signal, but you're taking reasonable precautions to do what you can in light of the circumstances to be as secure as you can. Those are two key things to think about.                 Some other things, don't leave devices on and accessible if you step away, and you have a conversation with somebody, if you're outside working around a pool on vacation, trying to just get a little sun. Don't leave your laptop on at some table unwatched. Have it automatically timeout and log off, or in 10 minutes, or whatever it might be. If you want to run down to dinner in your hotel room, again, log out, or better yet just turn the thing off until you get back up there. But take some steps. Again, it's all about making sure. We don't want to make it easy for others to get into our systems. So there's a couple of things to think about in terms of vacations and travel.                 Next, I'm thinking about the move here, and stepping in. My big concern, and I'm using this as a parallel or a corollary to the work from home struggles and that transition. My immediate concern was the router. You know? I have the instructions here. The username is admin. Okay, that's the default. A lot of them are named admin. The password that they had set up was easy to guess and just, you know. You look and say, "Okay, I don't know what they've done with the settings." That's completely unacceptable. I cannot and would not put myself at risk using that signal, let alone ALPS.                 Now, I may be a little crazy at times, I don't know, but I kept my new router, my personal router, I had that with me. Now, I don't travel with a router all the time, although if I'm going to start traveling and I may stay put for a couple of weeks somewhere, I actually might start doing that. I'm very sincere in saying that. But I'm able to trust the signal and be far more secure. I'm not suggesting now, again, that you take routers with you on your travel, but I am suggesting, hey, in your home, if you've not thought about this and taken steps to secure your router, now is the time. There are all kinds of exposures that can come into play here. The purpose of this talk is not to really explore all that, but it's just to say you need to do something. Let me go through, I have a short list here of things from an article I wrote about this, but I want to talk about some of the basics.                 You need to understand that the usernames and passwords, the default ones, are available on the internet, they're often standards, and that they need to be changed. So again, think about the complex password. That's have a very complex password for the router, and that's change the username from admin to something that is a bit more unique to you. Change the network SSID. Again, the name of the network. Every router comes with a default name. That has to be changed or something that's unique to you, but don't make it something that's obvious as to who you are. You know, Mark at 2022 Front Street. The neighbors all know, "Hey, that signal's Mark. And you know, no. You want to make it, "I don't know who this is," kind of. Okay?                 Set up a guest network in your home, with its own network name and your unique password, so that guests have access to a network. I trust our kids. They're all good kids. They're all adults. We're empty nesters. But when they come home, none of them are allowed on the home network, because it's used for work, and there's a lot of, you know. It's personal information. I don't want to expose my stuff to there, and vice versa. But you know, if they're doing something they shouldn't be doing on the network, it's separate. I just strongly encourage you to do that. Because when kids come into the home, and friends of your kids come into the home, and they're gaming, and doing all kinds of things, if they're on your network that your work computer, and your personal devices, and everything's on, you're risking. They bring this new level of exposure that we're not necessarily thinking about. So block that. Set up a separate network.                 If the firmware version of your router isn't current update to the most current version available, it's all about security patches. Routers need to be updated as well. If it's an auto update option, check that to make sure. If you can't tell or it looks like there's been no update even released in the last 12 to 18 months, throw out that router and get a new one. And I'm not kidding around. These routers need to be able to be updated automatically, and the updates, a lot of routers, they stop ... I had an older router and it was two years out of date before I finally realized, I'm going, "Well, that's not good." So get rid of it and get something current.                 Confirm that the network authentication method, and what we're talking about is in the encryption that the routers using, is set to WPA2 personal, or even better, WPA3 personal, excuse me, if that option is available, WPA3 is simply just more secure. If neither option, WPA2 or WPA3 is available on the router, it's old, toss it, get a new one. Not kidding. And finally, turn off universal plug and play. That's sort of the functionality that makes it very easy to connect new internet of thing devices and whatnot around the house. I know that it makes connecting new devices when you introduce them to the home a little less convenient, but leaving it on provides hackers easy access. That's just not acceptable.                 I mean, if you want to do that in your own life and nothing in your home is connected to the office network or you're doing nothing for work, okay. Have at it, I guess. But when we are using devices, the network, for work, that's got to be turned off. That access avenue, for lack of a better description, has been used even to insert programs like banking Trojans that try to capture your login credentials to your bank account or to your 401k. Not good. We need to address that.                 Set up a defined work space. Part of this is a wellness thing for me, part of it is just establishing boundaries in a home, perhaps with children, but having a defined workspace that you can enter and exit from and others can learn to respect can be a huge difference. No device sharing. Absolutely no device sharing. Confidentiality is in play and there's no pandemic exception. You know, if you are using devices: work computers, personal computers for work, smart everything. The kid's, family, if they are not members of your firm, cannot and should not be on these devices.                 And the final thing that I want to talk about is just behavior in general. There's really been a couple of interesting studies of late looking at this, in terms of some security studies, looking at behavior. I find it absolutely fascinating. Part of it has occurred because of this massive work from home thing, but it's true, this has been true pre-pandemic and it's going to stay true post-pandemic and vacations. When we use our own devices, as opposed to a work-controlled device, a work-issued device, and when we are outside of a formal office setting, whether it's vacation, at home, et cetera, we actually, in terms of just seems to be inherent to the human race, I guess, but we seem to be inherently less vigilant, less diligent. We just get far more casual. So we are more easily tricked, or you know, falling prey for a phishing attack or clicking on something we shouldn't be clicking on, not just paying attention, not turning things off, sharing devices. We just get very, very casual.                 We can't. Stay sharp. Think before you click. Don't get too comfortable with the casualness. Don't get too comfortable with this new normal. I understand that for many of us, as an example, we had to transition very quickly to a work from home setting, and it was about making sure the tech works so that we keep moving forward as best we could. And little thought was given to the security of side of this. And then we get comfortable with it and we don't even think about it. That's what I'm trying to address, in part with this in terms of work from home with this, but I want you to think about it in all assets. It's not just the pandemic, it's not just working from home. It's when we're traveling, when we're on vacation. We need to stay vigilant and we need to periodically just take a few minutes and sit down and think. "Wait, is this a responsible thing to do?" "Wait, have I taken all the steps that I should have taken earlier on or I should be taking now?"                 I certainly haven't covered everything that you can do, but these are key things, and important things, and basic things that I think we should all be thinking about, and that should be on your radar. So that's it. I hope you found something of value out of this short discussion. I encourage you, if you have any concerns or questions, something that I might be able to help with, please don't hesitate to reach out. My email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @ALPSinsurance, one word, ALPSinsurance.com. So ALPSinsurance.com, mbass@ALPSinsurance.com. You do not need to be an option shored to visit with me if there's something I can do. Hey, if someone reaches out and I'm able to do something that might prevent just one hack, one breach, that's a great day.                 That's it folks. Hey, have a good one. God bless.  

In March of 2020, just as Katie Peterson's first year of law school was nearing its close, everything changed. As Katie rounds out a full year of remote law school, she and ALPS Claims Attorney Martha Amrine reflect on how 2020 upended long-held law school traditions and created new ones. They talk about what aspects of that transition were hard, what current law students might be missing out on, and the unanticipated ways that the graduates of ‘virtual law school' may ultimately change the practice of law for the better. Katie Peterson is a Class of 2022 JD Candidate at the American University Washington College of Law, a Teaching Fellow with the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, VP of Membership with If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, and an Intern with Women Lawyers on Guard. Transcript:  MARTHA AMRINE: All right. Hello. My name is Martha Amrine and I'm a claims attorney with ALPS Insurance, and we welcome you to the ALPS podcast. Today, I'm talking with Katie Peterson. She is a law student working, going to school and living in Washington, DC, obviously during the pandemic, which gives her a perspective that most of us didn't experience. We're talking with her today about how that experience has been and how that might shape her experience and getting her ready for her future career. Katie, thank you for joining us. KATIE PETERSON: Hi. Yes- [inaudible 00:01:02] ... for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk a little bit about my experience. MARTHA: Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? KATIE: Of course. So I moved to Washington DC, as you mentioned, for law school from Georgia. I went to the University of Georgia for undergraduate and I studied women's studies and sociology. So I think that really set me up nicely for law school, especially in terms of what I'm interested in, that being advocacy and legislation that's centered around advocacy. So I feel that has led me to sort of where I am now. I basically grew up in the south. DC is the furthest north that I've ever lived. So I always tell people that I'm in the north, even though I get pushed back on that saying I'm still the south. I refuse to believe it. [crosstalk 00:02:04] I say, "No, I'm a North easterner now." I feel like I basically live in New York. Yeah, that's just a little bit about me. [crosstalk 00:02:14] MARTHA: Awesome. What about school activities, internship? I know you've got a lot of other things going on. What else are you involved in? KATIE: Absolutely. So I am currently on the board of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, which is a national organization, but I'm on the board of the Washington College of Law chapter. I was on the board this past year and will continue in my role as vice president next year. I also am currently interning for Women Lawyers On Guard, which is a small nonprofit that focuses on sexual harassment in the legal profession. MARTHA: Awesome. Let's say March of last year was the beginning of all of the changes. Tell us about that first part of your first year and what was important, how things went with school and studying and social life and all of that. KATIE: The first part post-pandemic after everything- MARTHA: Pre, yeah. KATIE: Pre pandemic. So pre pandemic, I felt like I had a very normal law school career. I was really close with my sort of section mates, which seems to be pretty common amongst law schools. Your section mates or the people you spend most of your time with. So I spent a lot of time with my friends that I made in my section in class and then going and having our lunches together in the cafeteria, going for coffee, spending a lot of time in the library, studying together and really forming connections that we all expected to carry on through our law school careers. Whether or not that's happened, obviously everything was interrupted by this global pandemic. So it's been an adjustment definitely, and we'll get into that.                 But pre pandemic, it really felt like a normal law school experience. It was stressful and it was exciting, it's new. It was fun. Then obviously, it had its less fun moments. But ultimately, I think something that was present my pre pandemic law career that is a little less present now is just sort of that sense of comradery and being able to... When that big assignment's coming up or that really difficult test or project is coming up, you kind of have that support system around, whether it's just commiserating and talking about how difficult everything is or getting good advice from people, that was a really beneficial part of being in person. MARTHA: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about how things change March 2020 and what differences there were to your entire life basically. KATIE: Yeah. Like so many people, my entire education moved online in March 2020 pretty close to our spring break. Everything changed really. The school buildings closed down. We were unable to access the campus that I had been going to every day for almost a year. It was much more difficult to get together with friends and talk about assignments. It was fairly close to the end of the semester, relatively. So it was around the time that we started outlining. So studying started to look a lot different. I remember when we first went online, definitely talking to my friends saying, "Oh, we have to we have to Zoom or FaceTime during class or after class," or basically trying to kind of hype ourselves up almost to stay connected, which is a lot easier said than done. MARTHA: Yeah. So how has that been? Have you been able to maintain connections with online and limited ways of seeing people? KATIE: Yeah. It's a lot different. I feel that I've been able to maintain closer friendships more easily, and it's been much more difficult for me to maintain those sorts of acquaintances and keep in touch with acquaintances. A lot of that sort of connecting is done via just social media now. I do have acquaintances from my section or my law school in general who are not super active on social media, which obviously is fine, but it's just harder to kind of stay in touch with them. I have no clue what some of the acquaintances that I had made my first year pre pandemic, I don't know what they're up to now, which it's just different. I won't put a value judgment on it, but it's just a very different experience now. MARTHA: Then what about connections with faculty or decision-making by the university as things change and things develop? How has that been? KATIE: I'd say that everything now is generally done a bit more slowly, especially in terms of trying to communicate with faculty or administration. It's more difficult now than it was pre pandemic when we were in person. It was so easy to see a professor in the hallway and stop them for a quick comment or question or go into their office hours, which almost all professors offered. It was just really... I felt like our professors and the administration as well were very accessible. Whereas now, I know everyone's trying their best, but it's just more difficult to have those sort of quick informal conversations that you might have with a professor or administrator that you really like. MARTHA: Yeah. So when we were chatting and planning for the podcast, you and I talked a little bit about the importance of the first year finals. Back in the day when I went to law school, it sounds like not much has changed, but you basically studied and you prepared all year for this one set of tests that not only determined your grades for the first year, but really put you in a place where you either did or didn't have... You either had opportunities or maybe your opportunities were limited, or you kind of had your place in class rank all based on this one set of tests. We could probably debate for three days about how that is fair, not fair, good, bad, but that's the reality, is that these tests that at the end of the first year, are very, very important. Based on the timeline, these came about right after lockdown came into effect. So tell us a little bit about that and how that worked, how that has found its place for you in terms of the importance of your experience in law school and any other details. KATIE: Yeah, you're absolutely right and it stays the case that your first year of law school grades and GPA are a paramount importance in a lot of students' lives, particularly those interested in working at a law firm or maybe corporate law or, "big law." I put quotation marks around that because people might interpret that to mean different things, but they're extremely important to this day. So my school did have, after the pandemic really became very serious in America and we decided to close the school down and moved to virtual classes, there was a pretty intense debate over whether we should maintain the A through F grading system or transition to a pass/fail grading system, which some law schools adopted very early on because of the pandemic, the change in circumstances that everybody was undergoing and trying to cope with.                 There was a lot of discussion amongst the community. A lot of proponents for pass/fail were of course, making arguments that our circumstances had changed drastically. Some people working from home have to care for other relatives, or maybe don't have the best environment in which to study. There's just a host of variables that could affect someone's performance on an exam, which I agree with all of those points. Then others who were in favor of keeping the A through F grading system made a lot of the same points that you just made in terms of how important GPA is to law students entering the workforce, especially because it's was not, to my understanding, it was not 100% uniform throughout law schools in the country, whether or not it was going to be pass/fail or graded A through F, so there was discussion there as well in terms of our students who maintain the A through F grading system and apply to a job, will they have some advantage over a student whose school adopted pass/fail?                 So those were kind of the arguments on both sides. [crosstalk 00:13:37] I personally did not feel super strongly about either one. I understood both sides of the argument. That's sort of the, I think, maybe a future politician in me trying to be moderate. But ultimately, my school adopted pass/fail. In retrospect, I appreciated it personally based on my performance on my property exam. I really, really appreciated the pass/fail aspect of it, but I really think that people still continued to study and work hard. I don't think anyone's work ethic really changed because of it because at the end of the day, we all have to take the bar anyways and we're all paying a lot of money to attend law school. So it really doesn't make sense to not try. So I think some of the concerns that people had, while I understand them, were just mitigated by each individual's work effort and an ethic and personal desire to do well, regardless of being greater than not. You're completely right that we could debate for a long time about the- [crosstalk 00:14:52]. MARTHA: It really just hurts you if you don't figure it out at the first opportunity. Yeah. KATIE: Exactly. That's completely right. MARTHA: Yeah. So after the finals, tell us about your first summer. KATIE: Yeah. So my first summer, I decided to go down to Georgia to stay with my parents, live there mainly because of all of the uncertainty surrounding COVID and DC is a very populous region and I have a dog, so I would have to go out frequently to take her out. There was just a lot of uncertainties surrounding how contagious it was, what outdoor space. So all of that saying that I ultimately decided to go spend the summer with my parents so that I could sort of socially distance even more at their house and limit my exposure to other individuals. MARTHA: Right, because there is a big difference between, I'm imagining, where your parents are, in Virginia in the middle of DC in terms of space and contact with other people. KATIE: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My parents are in Georgia. So I went down and stayed with them. They have their house and they have a backyard and their neighborhood is very... It's just not very busy. I live in a neighborhood in DC. There's always, always, always 100% people walking around outside near my apartment, or I will always, while walking my dog or even taking her out to go to the bathroom, I will always run into another person. So having a yard was a huge game changer. MARTHA: Yeah. Were able to work or do internships or be involved in law related activities from your home in Georgia? KATIE: I was. So fortunately, a lot of places adapted to work from home pretty quickly. One of the silver linings, I'll say, of the pandemic, at least in terms of being a law student, was that I had access to a lot more opportunities that I maybe wouldn't normally have access to just in terms of being online, you have the opportunity to work for someone who might be in a different state that you might otherwise being in person, not have access to that opportunity. But I was able to start my job with Women Lawyers On Guard, which I've been at for almost a year now, and I started working virtually for. I also did a corporate externship where I worked virtually for Boral Material Technologies, which is a company based in Australia. I did a seminar to accompany that, so I got some credit for it. MARTHA: Awesome. KATIE: [crosstalk 00:18:11] ... do both of those virtual. MARTHA: Yeah. Great. All right. So you made the decision and made the move back to DC after this summer, but what about your fellow students, your colleagues in school? Did everybody make it back? How did the second year ago? KATIE: Yeah, it's super interesting. I definitely have the thought of, is it worth it to go back if we're going to be online? Just because it's so expensive to live in DC. So I definitely had that thought, but I decided ultimately to come back because I really like DC and I like where I live. But I do know some people who have either not come back at all or have come back and then have been traveling a lot... I know one person, one of my peers who went abroad to Europe, I think, for a while and has now come back. I know a couple people whose families are in Florida. So especially during the winter months, they were enjoying the Florida heat while we were all freezing. MARTHA: Yeah, while doing online school? KATIE: Yeah. Yes, all of this while doing online school, which is a bit ironic just considering that our school decided to cancel our spring break out of concern that people would be traveling, which again, is just sort of funny because people were traveling already regardless. But people have really been able to sort of take their schedule and kind of take their life almost back into their own hands just in terms of being able to live where they want and do what they want in their free time while also going to school. So I think that there's been a lot of flexibility for people online. MARTHA: Yeah. So you are in your early twenties, you live by yourself, your job, really, looking back, what I would say is to socialize and have those personal connections, especially when your family is all in Georgia. Has that been hard for you? KATIE: It has been. Yeah, it has been hard. I've been trying to really maintain as much social distancing as I can. I've really, really been trying in the past year to stay in as much and really avoid contact with people who are not in my bubble, I guess you could say, which is very small as it should be. But even with people within my bubble, it's been difficult to try to find the time to hang out or get together. My friends are obviously just as busy as I am. They all have their own lives. So that's been a bit disappointing just because when you're in person, it is so easy to get lunch with someone between class or meet them at the library, or like I mentioned, to get a coffee or something.                 But now, it really is you have to go out of your way to see people, which I think for a lot of people has just meant seeing people less. It's just easier to stay in and maybe FaceTime or Zoom or something as opposed to actually taking the risk to go out. Especially, oh my gosh, in DC, you're trying to find parking or if you're doing public transportation, it really- [crosstalk 00:22:31] MARTHA: There's a lot of people around. KATIE: Yeah. It's just a hassle to get together with people now, honestly. So I would say that my social life has definitely been a bit... It's taken a couple steps back, I think, since I moved to DC. MARTHA: Yeah. KATIE: Yeah. MARTHA: So when you look at... Hopefully, new developments are coming and then we're having more opportunities in the very near future. Going forward, what are your thoughts about how... We've all been through this pandemic. Not very many of us have been through it while essentially training for our career as you are in right smack in the middle of your law school experience. How do you think that hinders you in one way? And we can talk about benefits, but what do you see as the pros versus cons with you experiencing this at this point in your life? KATIE: Well, I think one of the biggest cons that jumps mind is just, I think it's impossible to quantify the opportunity costs of missing out on over a year of in-person education. Law professors and administrators are such great resources for all types of reasons, but especially when it comes to finding work, finding a job. It is so much easier to be able to go up to a professor between classes or lunch and talk to them about what you're interested in. It's just a lot easier, I think, to find opportunities when you're in person than it is now. Now being online, there's almost a sort of formality to everything that was not there when we were in person. Now, I spend way too long writing simple emails questioning whether something should be a question mark, or if I should include an exclamation point, or does that make me seem too eager?                 So it's just kind of all of these extra considerations that you don't really need to take into account when you're in person because it's much more natural to communicate with someone in person, I think. So that is, I think, one of the biggest detriments is just not knowing what kind of opportunities could have been available to me that I wasn't able to take advantage of. But I also think at the same time, I've become more flexible. I think a lot of people have become more flexible because of this experience. It just really goes to show that you never know what could happen. I don't think anyone foresaw a global pandemic happening. So I think at the same time while yes, I might've lost out on some experiences, at least now, I feel like I personally am a more flexible person and I don't worry myself so much when something might go wrong. MARTHA: Yeah. What, if you know, does your last summer in law school and then your third year look like? KATIE: So this summer, I just signed up for a summer course and I will continue my work with Women Lawyers On Guard. I'm really focused on trying to fundraise for them and find some money for the projects that we're trying to accomplish. In terms of my third year, my final year of law school should be pretty exciting. I will be teaching through the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project. So I'll be teaching in DC public high schools about the democratic process and the US Constitution and some of the law that has been established by the constitution and through cases over the years. I also will be partaking in the Gender Justice Clinic at WCL. So I'll have the opportunity to be a student lawyer, which I'm really excited about. MARTHA: Great. I know it's looking ahead and maybe there's not a clear plan, but what do you plan after law school? KATIE: That's an excellent question. I ask myself that every morning when I wake up. I hope to work on legislation in some capacity, whether it be working with the government. I'm hoping to find a job on the Hill sometime soon in some capacity. So whether I'm working for the government on legislation or working for some sort of nonprofit or NGO, I know that I want to be involved in making the law through legislation. MARTHA: Has your interest in policy and legislation been formed by or been altered by your experience over the last year? KATIE: Absolutely. I think over the last year, I have really learned a lot more about particularly federalism and the role that each local, state and then the federal government plays in these important functions, such as administering vaccines or tests, or just sort of emergency preparedness in general. Also, I think in this past year, the pandemic has really exacerbated a lot of social inequalities that I've been passionate about for a long time and now, I think is a really good time for young activists and future legislators like me to really examine what our role should be in trying to end some of the inequality that's present in recent American culture and society. MARTHA: Awesome. Well, gosh. It's really great to hear from you and about your experience. I think that what you're doing is... You can your passion about your future career, which is amazing. We're really excited, not only to hear your story and have you here, but hopefully here what you end up doing in the future and your path forward. So I really appreciate your time. I'm sure a lot of people will think that your thoughts and your experiences have been... This has been really interesting. I'm sure lots of people will find it interesting, and we sure appreciate having you. KATIE: Great. Thank you so much for having me. MARTHA: Yeah. Thanks, Katie.    

Hello and welcome. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and you're about to listen to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I've been thinking of late about estate planning issues, for as long as I can remember. In terms of looking at the national data, estate planning has always been in the top five practice areas of concern. It's never hit one or two, but it has certainly been in that four and five range for quite a long time. So it's a practice area that if you are practicing, you should be concerned about and I've had some lawyers visit with me and say, "You know, what are we seeing? What should we be concerned about?" Claims attorneys are certainly saying, "Hey, you know, we've got some problems," and so I thought it'd be worthwhile to spending a little time trying to issue spot perhaps for you, to give you some things to keep in the back of your mind about what should I be focused on in terms of just trying to avoid some of the common missteps that occur in the estate planning arena? Let me start with a bit of perhaps a hypo or a short question. If a law firm represents two adults, they are a brother and sister, and they have handled various legal issues for one or the other over the years and then these two bring in their elderly parents for the purposes of having an estate plan drawn up. Kids are going to pay for it. Mom and dad have never been previously represented. Who is the client? One is tempted to say immediately it's the parents and I think that's probably the way it should play, but the issue becomes, what do the individuals involved believe? We are seeing a number of claims in the estate area where the insured believes the client is one person or a couple or something here, you know the estate planning setting, but the beneficiaries see it differently, and our insurers are really are not documenting and clarifying this issue with everybody to make sure that the role of the attorney is clear. So I encourage you whenever you are involved in the estate planning process to upfront determine who your client is and document accordingly. But every bit as important is as you go forth in the representation, if there are interactions with others, potential benefi- ... or I should say actual beneficiaries here, the kids in this example, they are still likely to be involved and may have some discussions and whatnot, just checking in. They're paying the bills. We need to make sure that there's not some confusion evolving and if you ever see or have an experience, here is something that says that there might be some confusion about just what your role is, I strongly encourage you to stop and take a moment to clarify, and document, "Had a brief discussion with the two kids," or whatever it might be. Role clarity and really document who your client is, can be so, so beneficial. The next area that I'd like to talk about is just perhaps dabbling, perhaps getting a little bit in over your head. We have seen in recent times a fair number of claims where the insured attorney, obviously, has erred in setting up a Medicaid trust. They just have trouble structuring these and then there's not the communication piece, for instance, with client that you must give up control and understand all the issues that are in play when you go in this direction. That's not thoroughly documented. So I guess it brings up two things: Don't dabble if there is a portion of estate planning work, Medicaid trusts as being the example here, that you really aren't an expert on. Go out and get some help with that, politely decline, but don't wing it. Shooting from the hip is, in any practice area, is never going to turn out well. But I also liked this piece of saying, "You know, you really need to make sure the client understands the legal ramifications, understands exactly what's happening here," and that's very, very important. How about just the misstep that occurs now and again? It's a drafting error. It's a typo. At times we see situations where the interest in the will did not add up to 100%. That there are consistencies in various sections of a document. There is a failure to include a residuary clause. There's ambiguities about which person or asset is being referenced. It gets back to just saying, "Look, folks, slow down, take some time, proofread." I know it's easy to cut and paste and work with other documents from a prior estate plan or something and just change. That's fine. I can appreciate the time-saving steps that go into play here, but if you make mistakes, taking these ... and I don't mean shortcuts in the sense of we're circumventing. It's fine to try to be as efficient as possible, but it's not an excuse to say, "Well, I don't have to read thoroughly and make sure the numbers are correct. That this makes sense." Maybe even having another person in the office read through to make sure, "Hey, are you catching anything?" because sometimes two sets of eyes are certainly better than one. So just a thought. The next topic I'd like to share is we are seeing challenges by beneficiaries to wills or trusts. Challenge can the intent of the testator, and sometimes even when there is an error made and it has nothing to do with intent, the error that's been in there is sort of this opportunity to challenge some things in terms of intent. What I want to say here is, let's say it's somebody being disinherited and they want to challenge that. If we have not documented the file in terms of ... I say this in all kinds of contexts ... the advice being given. the decision-making process, we can have some problems if something is challenged down the road. So it would be very important to really document the why's behind the client is wanting to do what they're doing, whatever it might be. So another key piece of documentation. But this disinherited kind of situation raises another warning sign, or perhaps another practice tip. I see that as a potential red flag, and there are times where ... obviously, we all know this ... testamentary capacity can be an issue, and one red flag is somebody being disinherited. You need to start to think, "Is there undue influence here?" or just what's going on. So let's talk a little bit about testamentary capacity as well. The issue is important because sometimes the allegations are that an attorney breaches standard of care or fiduciary duty by failing to adequately assess a client's capacity. So what does this mean in terms of the capacity? You might think about asking open-ended questions and understand that the individual ... We're not physicians and there's no requirement that this person have an IQ of 168. There has to be a baseline, but we have to make sure that the person is at this baseline. So what is that baseline? I start to think about things, fully understand, you're asking yourself this: Does the client fully understand the nature of making a will and the effects that his or her decisions will have in terms of the will-making process or the trust-making process? This individual needs to understand the nature and the extent of the property of which he or she is distributing to heirs or to trust, or charitable entities. The individual should have no mental disorder that would affect or damage the decision-making process. Obviously, they shouldn't be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, those kinds of things, and they really shouldn't be subject to any undue influence. We need to make sure. Sometimes, so taking a person into a private room for a conversation can help with that a little bit. But it's asking open-ended questions, even who's the vice-president. Just some general kinds of things just to make sure and then ask some questions about what they're doing financially here, what their wishes are. But again, open-ended questions help you determine whether they have the mental acuity to really proceed here. But then on top of that, there can be some red flags. If this is a deathbed change and the disinherited situation, somebody being disinherited, could be another potential red flag. If there's a lot of fighting going on in the family; if someone is bringing the person in, a family member or somebody or even a non-family member, which I've seen more than a few times, they're trying to influence a push, "I've cared for my neighbor all these years and she wants me to have her home and what ..." These are red flags, and we may want to go even a little further than just asking some questions and, of course, documenting all of this. But if the red flags are there, I am really going to take some extra notes. I start to think about video recording the signing. You might even have a physician document that they've gone through with this individual and examined the person, does seem to have the mental capacity to proceed here. Then depending on how significant these red flags are, I also say, "You know, do you really want to be the one that's putting a target on your chest?" I started to think maybe this is where I want to step out or bow out and terminate the representation because, again, just because you can move forward doesn't mean it's a good idea, especially if there's a real high risk that you're going to be pulled into some subsequent litigation and somebody might start to take a shot or try to take a shot at your malpractice policy as part of this process. The final thing that I would toss out there is sort of the limited scope piece, which can come up sometimes, as lawyers were choosing to limit our scope, but at other times it can be client-driven limitations. But let me give you an example of where I'm going with this. It is, suppose I'll make myself the client and I've got some money, but I mean I'm not a Bill Gates, but I've got more than a couple of million put away and I keep this money pretty tight. It's sort of how much is enough and it's not quite, I'm almost there. But when I spend, I like to spend on the best and so I like to drink a fine wine now and again, and I have a very nice car out at the front of the house, and I want the best attorney in the estate planning arena to take care of me as I set up trust. So I go out and hire you. You're the big name in the whole region and I'm excited about that. But, again, I want to hold some money close to my chest. So I will hire you to draft all these documents, but I am certainly more than capable of funding all this and I don't have to spend the money in terms of it's going to take you time and effort to do all this, I'll take care of it. Well, what happens down the road if you agree to do that? So you draft all this stuff off and away I go, I have my documents, but I never get the trust funded or it's incompletely funded, or some of the documents that I'm signing here aren't correct in terms of so it's not properly funded, and then I sue you. The whole allegation is I have not been fully advised of the ramifications here. You see where I'm going? So I want you to think about the importance of documenting scope thoroughly and putting the parameters around, "I am going to do this. I am not going to do that." But one of the things that is confusing at times, I think, for some lawyers is there's this assumption: Well, because I am able to limit my scope, surely I must be able to limit my advice. I don't see anything in any ethics opinions or in the rules that say that's how this plays. In the malpractice world, I assure you, you can't limit your advice in this setting. So if you are going to limit your scope, please, first off, thoroughly document that and then make sure that the client is fully advised about their piece. This is what they need to do. This advice actually is even limited to just limited scope representation. It can play out in the full-service model as well, but when clients still have things to do that are related to the work that you were doing, the matter that you have just finished your piece on or just concluded, they need to be advised and you should be clear or thorough in documenting that you've had this conversation, or you've sent a letter out, or you can do this via email. I mean, it doesn't really matter to me how you get there, but we need some documentation they have been advised so they can't turn around and say, "Well, this is your fault that I was wrong. I didn't realize that this thing had to be funded." I mean it could be that crazy. Please understand it doesn't matter whether the claim turns out to be this very viable claim with a large loss or not. The allegations are there, defense is in play, at a minimum, and there may be some losses. We're just going to have to look and see what does the documentation look like in a file. So what are some of the takeaways with all this? I just want to review briefly, again, please make sure that you are clear in your head and with any individuals you are dealing with who the client is and, at times, we need to document to who the client is not and then stay the course. It is very important to document scope of representation and make sure that clients are fully advised if you are limiting your scope to some fashion, and if there are any additional things that they need to do beyond your representation or advice about the legal ramifications of what they need to do and if they fail to do something. There is real value In proofreading, checking your documents for these typos and the drafting errors. There really shouldn't be any internal inconsistencies. It really needs to be clear. I struggle with this in my own writing. I will go through and it makes perfect sense to me, but, unfortunately, down the road, I'm not the one going to be interpreting this. So try to read it from that perspective: is this clear to somebody else who would be reading this? Then if you have any of these red flags, any concerns about testamentary capacity, I encourage you to address that in responsible ways, and we've discussed some of those. So that's a little quick rundown on estate planning concerns and what's happening in the malpractice space. I hope something here will prove useful to you, and I appreciate your taking a little time to listen in. As always, if any of you have any additional thoughts or ideas about who you'd like to hear or a topic you'd like discussed on the podcast, direction you'd like to see it go, please don't hesitate to reach out. Even if you just have a question you want to talk, I'd love to visit with you. So my email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @alpsinsurance, A-L-P-S Insurance, one word, .com. That's it folks. Hey, stay safe out there. Have a great one. Again, thanks for listening. Bye-bye.  

Accountability, integrity, commitment. These values provide the lens through which ALPS realizes its vision. To live these values requires a culture of authenticity, a place where people can be true to themselves. In this episode of ALPS In Brief, ALPS President and CEO David Bell meets with ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte to reflect on how the company navigated the pandemic, the success of which David credits to the company's healthy culture and its ability to remain transparent. Join them as they discuss the implications of 2020 and their effect on ALPS in 2021. Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello and welcome. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, and you're about to listen to the next episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Over the years, David Bell, the CEO of our company and I have got together and chat periodically about what's happening internally, looking at vision and just trying to share some things. And the point of it has been... I think it allows you as the listener and our insureds to learn a little bit more about us each time. And I also hope to have the discussion of vision and what ALPS does, in this regard educate lawyers as to the value of, and a little bit about the process of creating a corporate or a firm vision. So before we jump into it, I'd like to spend a little bit of time here and introduce David a little more formally than I have in the past. David Bell is the president and CEO of ALPS Corporation and ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Company. David joined us here at ALPS in 2012. Prior to that, he was previously with Allied World Assurance Company, and that's a publicly traded global reinsurance company. David was a founding executive and served as the chief operating officer. After graduating from the University of Montana in 1996 with a degree in finance, he began his career with the Chubb Corporation. David also co-founded and serves on the board of Grateful Nation Montana, a first of its kind in the nation organization that provides tutoring, mentoring, and college education for the children of Montana soldiers killed while on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also appeared on NBC Nightly News, Fox & Friends, and numerous other television and radio outlets talking about the need to make funding education for the children to fallen soldiers, a national priority. And that's just an outstanding and excellent organization David has been involved with you. I'd also like to share that that David has recently been appointed chair of the board of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center. This is a center that promotes better understanding of Asia and of U.S. relations with Asia. And we'll talk about that a little bit here shortly. So David, always a pleasure. Welcome to the podcast. DAVID BELL: Thank you, Mark. I appreciate you taking the time. I always enjoy our conversations about life and business. MARK: It has been fun and I've been surprised, pleasantly surprised and I'm sure it's... these visioned podcasts have had a lot of attention over the years, so it's always a pleasure to get back into it. I thought I would start out. In a prior podcast we set up 2020 and going into 2020, we had a vision and a strategic plan and things were rocking and rolling. And then, the rest of the world, we got hit upside the head with an unexpected global pandemic. I would... Let's start out. How did ALPS survive? How did we do in terms of how did this impact the vision? Let's just explore the impact of all of this. DAVID: Sure. Well, certainly 2020 was not what any of us envisioned. As we began the year, this time, last year, the year threw us a lot of curve balls and the nation and families and everyone, curve balls. And it's been an interesting, at times tragic example of what can happen unexpectedly. But in terms of the company, 2020 was and is closing to be a very good year both in our strategic objectives, largely having been accomplished, not withstanding COVID and our financial objectives as well. And so I think it gave us an opportunity to put some of our core values into practice. They look great on paper and they were fun to talk about when they're not being tested. But a lot of what COVID included necessitated really leaning on those core values as our employees had unexpected needs, as our insureds had unexpected needs and how we had to kind of plan for those and around those and line up in partnership with our different stakeholders. So it was definitely an interesting year. Now, I certainly feel grateful and for us as an organization, that we are not in the type of business that would have been directly in the cross hairs of some of COVID more problematic after effects. And that's frankly... it has as much to do with luck as it hasn't to do with anything else. So, 2020 almost saying with the tone of guilt was a really good year for the company. MARK: Did it impact where we go in 2021? Did it make some changes in terms of how you approach the corporate vision, the strategic plan? DAVID: In terms of the strategic and financial milestones and our vision of where we're taking the company, I really don't think that it played a meaningful role in any detours. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: I think it did forever change the landscape of a lot of aspects. Internally, I think the way that we had to rearrange our business, where we did it from- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... to how we handled the various different circumstances that our employees had and have had to co-exist with. Some of those changes will be permanent and so I think that it certainly wasn't a business as usual year by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think we will emerge better in a lot of ways as a company. And I can't really think of any ways that we would come out of 20 and into 21 weaker. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: And that was... Again, I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we just aren't in the many types of businesses that have had such a profoundly problematic impact. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: And I think our employee base... I'd like to believe that our employee base is stronger in 21 than in 20, because we experienced some pretty profound things together. And I think for evidencing that core values comment, when people have an opportunity to see some of those values put in action, I'd like to believe that they emerged from the other side of that with a stronger bond with one another and more confidence in the organization that they work for. MARK: Well, let me comment about that because speaking as one of these employees that has gone through all of this, I absolutely agree with you. My own personal experience was such that, this transition to the remote work setting for all of us for quite a while, we had to accelerate new tools, using Microsoft Teams as an example, and the communication ability and in terms of just being able to see each other talk. I felt closer now to everybody in the company than I have in... I'm coming up on 23 years here. So it really is... I do want to underscore that it's been a good thing. Initially my response was, everybody's coming. Wow, this is... We've got to get used to it. I used to walk into our world as some of us there have been remote all along, but now it's, I truly do, I feel much closer as part. Okay. Maybe a quick moment, since we're on the topic, do you want to share a summary of your own observations about what we saw in terms of the population we ensure that we are in service to? Any thoughts about that? DAVID: Sure. I mean, we've seen the results of COVID impact our insured firms at both ends of the extremes. For some firms they have seen overall, the COVID dynamic result in more business and more growth. MARK: Right. DAVID: On the other end of the extreme, particularly when the courts are closed and the economy is frozen up, there is not the commerce occurring that creates billable hours. And it has created significant challenges in... and has created a great deal of fear financial and otherwise by particularly some of the smallest firms. And so we've had to... We've reacted based on what our insured partners are coming to us with. We came out for example, for those that that found a reduction or virtual for time, virtual elimination of billable hours revenue, right? We came out and had opportunities to postpone premium payments. And well before the state regulatory bodies entered the scene and started to require insurance companies to do that, we did it. I'd like to think because it was the right thing to do. MARK: Right. DAVID: Right away when we saw that it was going to be necessary, it was clear in the very early stages of COVID, that this was going to create a problem for blocks for lawyers and a problem paying premiums, both because of financial constraints and because of just the tactics of being in a whole office and not being worried, your mail comes and all of that type of stuff, so that part of it was interesting. And I think the survey results that we've gotten back as we survey our insureds based on their experience that they've had with us each year, would suggest that our folks here who bring a great deal of compassion and empathy, many people, and I hope so lawyers themselves, had been in the shoes of our insurance. And so, I'm pleased that by all accounts, it seems we've done that well. On the landscape of what our insureds are seeing from a claims perspective, we definitely saw what I call a significant reduction in the volume of claims. MARK: Yes. DAVID: And we've actually seen a reduction in the severity of the claims that we did get. And so, that will clearly be a temporary phenomenon, right? MARK: Yeah. DAVID: When commerce has stopped and the courts are closed, then it's... You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that you're going to have at least a temporary lull in claims activity. Now the big question is, as this thing ramps up, will it hockey stick up? And as businesses fail coming out the other end of COVID, and tragically as marriages and other institutions fail, we effectively "make up" for lost ground on the claims picture. I think that there are pretty reasonable predictions on both sides of that ledger but it's an interesting dynamic to be looking at- MARK: It is. DAVID: ... and talking about. MARK: Yeah. Well, time will tell on that one. When I think about how ALPS has survived or navigated through the pandemic thus far, and seeing wins and losses in terms of some of our insureds from struggling in some ways, and profiting very much in other situations, I really start to believe that the... One of the ways that we navigated this so well, was because we had a solid strategic plan. We had established core values that people understand and live by. Our culture is important. And so to the degree that sharing some of the insights about what we've done, I guess I'd say... How do I say, I'd like to talk about some of this stuff as a tool, as a way to give firms that may be struggling a little bit, one path to try to move forward and come out of this. So if we could take a little bit of time, just briefly, let's start with this whole concept of core values. Can I just... What does that mean to you and where do they come from? And perhaps let me share,folks, the core values that drive us, that David has talked about already here today, as are driving some of this conversation. We ask, is this the truth? Is it fair? Does it benefit our people and the company? And does it help us make a profit? So, those are our core values. So again, David, how do we get to them? Why are they important to you? DAVID: Sure. Well, I think the core values are kind of the went through, which we all hope everything else that we're doing is filtered. And we didn't hire consultants to- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... I'm sure these could be worded differently. I'm sure there are core values that could be added and there are ways that we could word the ones that we have better. I've been in the learning sessions that many people listening to this, have been with great companies that have come up with very different ways to approach this and I'm convinced that there's no right or wrong way to do it. I felt like there was a lot of the golden rule kind of baked into this. MARK: Yes. DAVID: And our stakeholders include the people inside this company who labor every day on our common mission. It includes the people who we insure, right? We make a promise to transfer the risk of something bad having happened, the financial risk of something bad having having happened from their balance sheet to our balance sheet, right? MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: And so we need to make that promise clear in the contract. We need to represent it accurately. We need to fulfill it justly when our claims attorneys are working on the claims. And we need to have the financial stability to be able to fulfill the promises as well. And then of course we do have shareholders too, and so we have kind of different stakeholders. But I think these four points which we've repeated so many times, I think most people probably know by memory. But is it the truth? It's kind of self-explanatory- MARK: Yeah. DAVID: ... a bit self-evident. I do believe that relationships are the headquarters to everything, including financial and business transactions. Without a healthy relationship, it's very difficult to get anything else constructive done. And without truth, it's almost impossible to have a healthy relationship. If you have reason to believe, but the person on the other end of your negotiation or discussion is being dishonest. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: I mean, I can't imagine how you can have anything constructive come out of that. And so we have to ask ourselves, is it the truth? Is what I'm telling my employees the truth? Is what our people are telling our insurers the truth? Right? MARK: Right. DAVID: And so that is in some ways, so obvious that it could be glossed over, but boy, is it essential in just everything that we do. The second one is, is it fair? Is it fair? Is it equitable? That's trickier because it's obviously a subjective question, right? Fairness to one is not seeing the same as fairness to other, and so when I look at that is, it's kind of thinking about it from my own perspective, as a leader, as a flawed human being who brings the bias of my experiences that I've had in my own life, into my decision-making. Many of those biases being unconscious, right? And so, the question that I ask for me and the decisions that I'm making, and then I would ask others is, are you in pursuit of fairness and of equality? And it doesn't mean that you'll be perfect all the time. It doesn't mean that everybody... When you feel that you've done something fair, it doesn't mean that everybody else will feel that way. In fact, I think a truism of leadership and arguably one of the ways that you can know whether you'll be successful in leaders, if you're comfortable with the fact that something that you believe is the right thing to do, will not be shared by other people who are important to you. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: We're just going to have people who believe differently about this. But I think if we say, Hey, look, I'm trying my best, I'm going to be truthful and transparent. I'm happy to explain the reasoning for what I'm doing. And I'm using my best efforts to seek fairness and equality. I think if there's a genuine, recognized effort to do that, there's room for shades of gray, as people have their own interpretations. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: That's number two. Number three, as you pointed out, is, does it benefit our people and the company. By the company, obviously it means our insureds- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... and the various people, right? But we don't want to do something to serve people outside this company that hurts our own people. And we don't want to do something that helps or enriches our own people at the expense of folks externally, who we serve as well. And that's also a prioritization question, right? I mean, there's a lot of things to distract us. There's a lot of places that we can spend time and money. And I think sometimes we just need to ask ourselves, is what we're about to do going to benefit our people and the company? Because if the answer isn't an unqualified yes, maybe that's not the best allocation of time or financial resources. And then fourth, which I include unapologetically but also intentionally include last, is, does it help us make a profit? MARK: Right. DAVID: We're a for-profit business. Our ability to fulfill the promises that we make now and in the future, is entirely dependent upon us being a profitable company that is financially strong. But that being said, it's not profit above all else. There are clearly numerous ways that this organization could have, and could today make a lot more money than it is making. And if this were number one, there might be an organizational temptation to do that. Profit is important. It is not the most important. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: And I think if you do everything else well, profit will come. It might not come as much or as fast as some people would like but it is a function of where it sits in your order of priorities. MARK: What I like about this, and it's something I've learned as a result of my experience as an ALPS member. I think a lot of companies, when you sit down and they talk about core values, and they list, these are the things we value and it becomes this thing you put on the wall and you want to advertise, and sort of pound your chest a little bit. These are not things that are symbols. What I like about these values, I've transitioned from a list of things that we value, to a list of things that enable us. They become the lens if you will, of how we view the vision, how we view who we are, how we view what we're trying to do. And I think that distinction, at least for me was very, very important. And I just share that with all of you listening, to approach core values from this perspective of, how do we want to set the view of where we are going? Of who we are? That's what core value is. It's defining us, not defining what we value in the sense of making a profit or... and that's important but we value diversity. And again, I'm not trying to dismiss any of that as relevant, but in my mind, there's a distinction there, I've set up the food for thought. Culture, let us just take one or two minutes. How is culture important in this process from a CEO perspective? DAVID: I've actually evolved as I've gotten older in years and had more experiences, made more good decisions and made more poor decisions, and lived with the consequences of both. I've always been a very metric driven person and would probably define my default management style as in a kind of a KPI terms, right? Key Performance Indicators. I've recognized over the years that if you had to pick, culture is frankly not only more important than the financial metrics, but the financial metrics are more dependent upon a healthy culture to produce them over the long-term, then the people realized that, then I probably appreciated it in the early chapters of my profession. And I'm really... We've hired quite a few people in the last year or two as the company continues to grow and expand in different parts of the country and write more business and in States all around the country. Culture, I think is sometimes the most misunderstood word that's commonly used. And people say, well tell me about your culture. And I say, I can give you kind of my culture speech, but if you want to know what the culture... If people have the opportunity to come to the company, we're not all but most of the employees are based and you walk around, the question that I've asked people to observe for themselves without any ability by me to influence it, is walk around, look at the way that people engage with one another, do their mannerisms show that they are genuinely interested in the discussions that they're having? Are they smiling? Are they able to have a little fun? Are they self-deprecating? Is their energy... Is it a library or look at where it feels like a professional salt mine? Or is it a place where there's vibrancy and laughter but it's also professional and it's very intentional. And so I think that if you have an organization where people feel safe, which has a lot to do with these core values, right- MARK: Right, right. DAVID: ... They feel safe because it's not politicized, there is an expectation that what you hear is honest. Then I think it gives people the ability to be their unguarded cells and be comfortable. And to me, that's culture, that's the culture you want. Because that's where you start to get true performance out of folks- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... because they feel that they can spread their wings, take some risks. And sometimes the risk for somebody who's just putting themselves out there to suggest something, where that might be not in their default picture. MARK: The way I describe this as again, a member of the ALPS family, culture in my mind... A healthy culture encourages, enables, allows, et cetera, mutual investment so that all of us regardless of position, are able to increase to invest in what we're doing as a group. But the organization also invests in us. It's a two-way street. And perhaps it's another way of saying, I think, culture when it's really working, is the... So I've talked about the lens. Core values is the lens that we look at vision, all this. The culture is living the vision. It is walking the talk of what our values say at our... and it is moving towards something, a common goal. Now, I'd love to hear your comment on vision planning in general. ALPS is a corporation. We don't all sit down, all of us and get together. And what's the vision. How do we get to our vision? Can you just give a brief overview of the process? What does that look like? DAVID: Sure. I mean, I think in order to have a vision that you can communicate in order to get the people who you depend upon to make the vision a reality on board, you first have to have a very clear and honest reckoning with where you are right now, right? You can't portray yourself as something other than what you are, or other than the state in which you are in. And so when you say this is who we are, this is where we are. And then this is where we're going. And this is why, right? Because I think, in private enterprise too often, the objective is more. MARK: Yes. DAVID: More is a lot of things, but sustainably inspiring to an employee population. It is not, right? People need to understand what's in it for me? Why, should I be as excited about the vision casting and where we're going? You've told me where we are, you've shown me where we're going. You've outlined some way station milestones in between here and there. Tell me why I should be fully bought in to this pursuit, because it is easier to just do what we're doing right now. Well, and not really venture out with all of the risks and work that are involved with going out onto the vision timeline. And so, I think one of the key approaches is to bring clarity to what those points look like and bring transparent explanation for the reasons, because you are asking people to do more and, or do different than what they are doing right now. MARK: Right. DAVID: And people need to know why they should do that. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I can also share, it includes, sort of measurable metrics. It's one thing to say, well, my vision is to be the most profitable family law firm in greater Montana or something. But if you don't have a pass, we need to sit down and I can assure you folks, we do. That's part of this strategic planning process. David, I want to give you a little bit time, if we still have some time to talk about the Mansfield Center. But before we get to that, can you just... Share what you feel comfortable sharing. What does the future look like for ALPS? DAVID: Sure. We are- MARK: In terms of your long-term vision? DAVID: Yeah, well, so ALPS, it's got such a great three decades of history. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: It started in the wake of the S&L crisis, when there was a genuine crisis of a complete lack of availability for legal malpractice insurance, particularly for the smallest firms. MARK: Right. DAVID: Right? ALPS was one of a handful of kind of white Knights that were created by State Bars in order to solve this problem. Obviously the market has evolved in different cycles over the last three decades. The crisis went away. We've had times when it's been very, very competitive and at times where has been very problematic from a loss perspective. And so, what ALPS has always been is, a direct carrier, a direct insurer of legal malpractice, the GEICO or Progressive, of lawyers malpractice. And it's far more common to have these commercial lines of insurance traded through brokers or agents. And I do believe that brokers and agents provide an important value proposition- MARK: Oh, yes. DAVID: ... for midsize and larger commercial risks in general. But they add a very significant cost as a percentage of the full transaction. And so I think one of the reasons why we've been as successful as we have been particularly in the last five to 10 years, is because we've been able to take the economics that traditionally go to brokers and agents, and share those economics between insureds and the company, really more to the benefit of the insurance. We didn't make this up. It's how Progressive and GEICO- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... permanently disrupted the Personal Lines Industry several decades ago. So, we are not pioneers, I think we've done things differently- MARK: Yeah. DAVID: ... and in many ways done things better as it relates to Commercial lines. But that's been our journey. So, in brief, Mark, to answer your question, the States that we are not in, we need to be in, now there are only a very small number of States that we have no appetite to be in, right? But for the 47 States where we do have an appetite, the States that we're not in, we need to be in. The States that we are in, we need to have critical mass in. MARK: Yes. DAVID: There are States where we're in, but we're not a substantial player. I mean, there are States where we are the undisputed largest- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... LPL carrier by policy count in the state. And there are multiple States where we are that. But there are also a lot of States where we have a very small market share. We need to have critical mass. And then eventually, as we gain more critical mass in places where we don't yet have it, we can start to look laterally and offer products other than legal malpractice. Right now we do legal malpractice, Cyber and EPL, Employment Practices Liability. But our attorneys who buy from us, arguably, the most important risk transfer product that they buy, they trust us directly with. And so we can bring to them offerings of other insurance products whether or not our balance sheet specifically is protecting or not, that's a step. And then eventually, we have ambitions to get into other lines of commercial business beyond legal malpractice. It could be accountants, it could be miscellaneous errors and emissions. I mean, we are now... What I'm describing now, I would put in the intermediate to long-term time horizon- MARK: Yes, right. DAVID: ... not in the short to early intermediate. But those are... When we have vision, I have a timeline illustration that I'm sure both of you and I are picturing in our minds right now, because we've both seen it, that shows for the purpose of employees. These are the steps along our path, going to this place, here is why we're doing this. This is why we think it's important. And I think just as important as that, and I guess, I think the next observation that maybe the final one that I'll offer will kind of wind in almost all of your questions. For me, I think it's important to acknowledge what we are and what we aren't. I think some companies love... And I'm not criticizing this, it works for them. They create almost a cult like atmosphere right there, where you just bleed the color of the company. And I think that that's great and cool, and for some companies. I don't believe that for what we do, right? We are a lawyer's malpractice insurance company, right? So we are not ending homelessness, we are not feeding- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... hungry kids, right? To be sure, the money that we're making enables us to be generous to others- MARK: Absolutely. DAVID: ... and that is a significant priority for us. I think we've had the ability to do a lot of really wonderful things- MARK: Yeah, yeah. DAVID: ... with that, but our core business isn't digging wells in impoverished nations. And so, I think it's not only okay to me, it's important to say, this is a job, a career, it's a place to labor alongside of people who you trust and hopefully who you enjoy. And I think the reason why people at ALPS, why we have so little turnover and why by all of our measuring techniques, people seem to have a very positive perspective of being here, because they can get up and look in the mirror and whether or not legal malpractice was necessarily the job they dreamt up when they were a wee lad, they can nonetheless look in the mirror and say, "We're doing great work." Right? MARK: Yeah. Yeah. DAVID: We create our product honestly and ethically, we sell it transparently. And the instructions that we get from the top on down is, if we owe it we pay it, if we don't know we fight it. We don't really have to get much more complicated than that, right? MARK: Right, right. DAVID: If we've made this promise, keep it. If we haven't made this promise, then we have a responsibility to the other stakeholders to dig in. And so we do dig in and do battle, on occasion. So, that I think is an important aspect of who we are, because it lets people feel... It lets people contextualize the purpose of their role here. I tell people often that I view, I love my job, I love the people who I work with. I look forward to it every day. It is not my life. I take vacation. I largely view the time that I spend here as giving me the means and the ability to do other things, and with other people who I care deeply about. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: So, if you are here 24-7, and on the weekends, you should not be- MARK: Yeah, I agree. DAVID: ...right guys? This should not be your life. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: It should be an important part of your life because of the hours we spend together. But it should not define who you are and it definitely should not be your identity. So, those are kind of, some of the aspects of life under the ALPS umbrella. MARK: Yeah. We're kindred spirits in this regard. If we have a little bit of time and if you need to go, David, you need to go, but I would love if you have a few minutes, you were sharing prior to starting lists, the Mansfield Center. And I suspect a lot of people really have no clue what the Mansfield Center is, and what incredible stuff is happening here in Montana. So, I would love if you could just give a few minutes and share what you'd like to share and fill us in a little bit about what's going on with the Mansfield Center. DAVID: Sure, sure. I mean, I've been on the Mansfield Center Board for probably 15 years. Mansfield Center was created... Mansfield Center and the Mansfield Foundation was created by an Act of Congress, actually. MARK: Oh, wow. DAVID: Senator Mike Mansfield was, I think still to this day, the longest serving Senate president in U.S. history. He and I actually probably don't share ideologically many of the same priorities, but that's the beauty of this whole thing. I mean, Mike Mansfield was... He had kind of epitomized the good old days of bipartisan friendships, deep lasting friendships with people who felt very strongly in opposition politically to aspects of Mike. I recently became the chair of the Mansfield Center Board. Mainly I had a ton of time for the Executive Director. She's wonderful. And I believe that we're in a very... We all know that we're in a precarious time in our country. We all know the dangers that are around us. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: But I also think that there is a national yearning for bipartisanship, for civility, for cooperation. And the Mansfield Center is an ideal national and regional too in the Rocky Mountain West, but national vehicle to channel those types of things. So for example, we have, Dr. Fauci coming up in event that we've planned. We've got the chair of the Problem Solver Caucus, chairs. And if you're not familiar with the PSC which goes under "new labels" sometimes, it's worth a Google. PSC, Problem Solver Caucus, 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats in the house. They are a force now, four key legislation really needs to involve the Problem Solvers Caucus. And you have... It's just such an under-reported wonderful example of what is actually going on, which is, the two chairs, a Republican and a Democrat, who probably don't agree on anything politically, but when you listen to these two people talk, it's very clear that they definitely trust one another, that they, I think soundboard and value the opinions of one another as much, or in some cases more than the members of their own party. And so, they are opportunities, I think to harness this yearning. I just did a call with the U.S. Chamber. I'm also on the board there, and the Mansfield Center. And so, my hope over the next 24 months, is to try to play some small role in tethering together organizations like the Mansfield Center and the Chamber and the Bipartisan Policy Center. And these organizations who have this, we have to work together mission, because I think there is an opportunity right now even where people, even who aren't interested in politics, recognize that we have to start to treat one another better. We have to start respecting the opinions of people who we don't agree with more. We have to talk about things. And so, that's why I'm currently kind of somewhat jumped in the deep end of Mansfield Center activities. I think that there's a good opportunity, and I'm privileged to be a part of it. MARK: Well, I'm really pleased that you shared all of this. I absolutely agree with you in terms of the political situation we're in and the amount of discord is going on just crazy. But just hearing this, it brightens my day. I mean, it so does, it's just... I can just speak as a citizen at this point and say, it's hard, it really is hard, to find the bright spots of hope. And this is one, so I really appreciate. DAVID: Yeah, hopefully we'll see more example. I believe that media, social and mainstream, is the greatest threat to our nation's mental health that exists today. And so I just, I hope that there will be more and more opportunities to witness the current examples of healthy bipartisan dialogue that's going on and more, perhaps just as important, lots of opportunities to create, make, and be a part of new ways for people who have been camped for a long time to extend a hand, to be friends. It doesn't mean you have to agree. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: Right? It just means that you have to just listen for a bit and maybe a little give and take, negotiations. Everybody listening to this podcast, they're likely in a profession where negotiation is a central part of what they do. And give and take is an absolute essential ingredient. We need more of that- MARK: Right, right. DAVID: ... political discourse as well. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: It should not be whoever's in control when the pendulum swings that way, as an absolute. So thank you, Mark for that. MARK: Well, you're welcome. And thank you. This is where we're going to need to leave it folks. I know David has got quite a busy day. David, it truly, it's always a pleasure to get together and spend a little time chatting. I thank you for fitting us in today. Folks, I hope you found something of interest and value in this podcast. And as always, if any of you have any additional thoughts about podcast topics or something you'd like to hear about, someone you'd like us to try to visit with, please don't hesitate to reach out. You may reach me at MBaaS, M-B-A-A-S @alpsinsurance.com. So that's it folks. Bye-Bye. Thanks again, David. DAVID: Thank you.  

It was January of 2020 in Birmingham, Alabama. Jeremy woke to a noise in the middle of the night and went outside to investigate. He could see three men coming out of the woods behind his house. One of the men had something in his arms. Jeremy told them to stop, an altercation ensued, the man dropped what he was carrying and all three ran off. Jeremy walked to the edge of the woods to see what the man had left behind. It was a horse, a small foal. When Jeremy got closer, he realized the foal had wings. Today on the podcast, Mark sits down with Jeremy Richter, insurance defense lawyer, author, and host of the Lawyerpreneur podcast, to discuss his writing, the importance of attorney wellness, following your dreams, and some of his own stranger-than-fiction stories.      Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:        Okay. Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm very pleased to have join us today on the podcast, Jeremy Richter, and he is an attorney, a shareholder in fact, with Webster Henry at their Birmingham, Alabama location. So Jeremy, first off, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you join us. JEREMY RICHTER: Well, thanks. I'm really happy to be here. MARK:        My interest, folks, in having Jeremy join us today is not so much in terms of what he's doing with his practice in Alabama. It's what he's doing in addition to his practice. And, boy, is there a lot of stuff that this guy has got going on. I mean, it's just... So, Jeremy, before we jump into some of this, I'd love to have you just take a few moments and share a little bit about yourself. What do people want to know? What would you like us to know, perhaps? JEREMY:            Well, let me tell you how we got to where I am as far as all the things outside of my daily billing that I do. So I'm an insurance defense lawyer here in Birmingham, and I started practicing in 2012. I've been at the same firm the whole time. In 2016 I had about four years under my belt, and my mentor, who I was hired to work with, and it's almost exclusively who I worked with, he had always involved me in his marketing efforts, but he was a very extroverted, gregarious person who loved going to conferences and in talking to tons of people, and that's not me. And so I realized fairly early on that that did not play to my strengths and I needed to figure out how to be able to market myself in a way that was achievable over the long-term, and something that I could just continue to pour time and effort into that wouldn't deplete my reserves of energy. And so, I have always been a writer and I started a law blog where at the outset I blogged about appellate decisions in Alabama that affected my little insurance defense world. After about six months of that, I started wanting to write about other topics, and I had one particular idea that I guess was the catalyst for everything that came afterwards, about three things that associates can do to be better associates. And so I wrote about that. And after that, I started writing a lot about practice management ideas and case management and relationships with clients, and it was all coming from a perspective of, "Look, I'm only four years in." Five years in at that point. "These are the things I'm learning along the way." I'm not positioning myself as some guru because there's lots of folks who have been doing this a lot longer than me, but I wanted to help the people who are coming behind me to maybe graduate that learning curve a little bit more than what I had. And so that's what I started doing, and then I formed a relationship with some folks at the ABA Journal and wrote for them. And then the ABA published my first book and since then I've published two more books, one in each year in 2018, '19 and '20. And I started a podcast this year. And then actually this will be totally new to anybody, I guess, that's not immediate family, I am one chapter away from finishing the first draft of my first novel that I wrote. MARK:        Awesome. And what is the topic of the novel? Is it law-based or is it completely different? I love it. JEREMY:               Actually I don't read legal thrillers. I mean, I have, in the past, and there are some real titans who have built their names in that. MARK:      Right. JEREMY:              But, no, it's totally off... It's a contemporary fantasy book that takes place in Birmingham, and it's about this little family who lives south of Birmingham and the dad, as far as he knows, is living in a normal world as the rest of us know it. MARK:        Uh-huh (affirmative). JEREMY:                And then some really weird things happen and he figures out there's a whole bunch of things that exist in the world around him that he had never known existed. And it all got started on this really bizarre dream that I had one night and wrote it down and it kind of went from there. MARK:      I have to come back to this. I find this inspiring in some ways. It's very interesting. You and I have a lot more in common than I would have guessed initially. It's great. But you started out talking about moving in this direction, in terms of blogging and then evolving a bit here, initially, just to market yourself. JEREMY:                Yeah. MARK:       Was that successful? Did you have the results that you looked for or hoped for? JEREMY:                 It was successful, but not in the way that I expected. When I started writing about appellate decisions in Alabama, I thought, "Well, this will be a way for clients to find me and my firm and for us to establish our expertise." MARK:        Yes. JEREMY:               And while that was true, and it did that, my insurance clients weren't my readers as it turned out. It was other lawyers who were coming across these things and dealing with them. And even folks in my own firm would say, "Hey, I was looking up this topic and I came across your blog. Let's talk about this random thing." And so, in that way, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be from the outset. But what it did do is allow me to get more involved in industry organizations like CLM and DRI and present at conferences. It gave me the confidence in my practice areas to make those presentations and also to reach out to people who were attending those conferences and say, "Hey, we don't know each other really, but we're going to be at this place, and if you are looking for additional counsel in Alabama, I'd love to get together and meet." And so between that and other relationships that I've formed in communities that I've become a part of, I can say with certainty that I have business relationships now and have obtained clients that wouldn't have been the case without it. So it formed differently than I expected, but it absolutely had the result that I wanted. MARK:        Okay. And then what took you into becoming an author in terms of writing the books? And share the... I think you have three out, right, in terms of law- JEREMY:                 Yeah. I do. MARK:        Feel free to share the names and just a little bit about the books and... JEREMY:                Okay. So the first book that I wrote that the ABA published is called Building a Better Law Practice, and both it and the second book I have thought of, from their inception, as almost like a devotional for lawyers. The topics are fairly short. Most of them are somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 words. They can be read in five to 10 minutes a day, and it's really practical, grounded ideas, suggestions, advice for lawyers. And I think it's particularly useful for younger lawyers about managing your clients and your caseload and your practice itself, and growing those things so that you establish your expertise, you can handle your work better, more productively, more efficiently, and get more out of your day. And so, the first book is Building a Better Law Practice. The second book is called Stop Putting Out Fires. And then this year I wrote a book called Level Up Your Law Practice, and about 40% of the book focuses a lot on mindset. It's not something that I was particularly comfortable with because it put me in a place to have to be more vulnerable in writing and on paper than I really cared to be. But I thought that it was an important topic because we deal with... And look, when I wrote most of it in 2019 and early 2020, I had no idea what 2020 was going to be. MARK:         Yeah, right. JEREMY:               But we deal with so much adversity on a daily basis that if we don't focus some attention on making sure that we have mental and emotional health, then we aren't going to be able to do the work that we do over the course of 30 years without having to come apart. MARK:      Yeah. Yeah. You are preaching to the choir on this one. I absolutely agree with you. This whole attorney wellness movement is so, so critical. And again, the pandemic has really underscored just how important this is. Did the act of becoming an author... Again, did you accomplish what you had hoped to accomplish with this? How did it impact your practice? I mean, I find for instance that as I... I've been writing for, oh, gosh, 25 years now, and it's just, the more you do it, I find it enhances me. I learn a lot and it makes me just better at what I do, but I'd be curious about, again, the experience of writing. Again, did it accomplish what you had hoped it would? How did it impact your career? JEREMY:              I think that the answer is, yes, it has helped me. There's a lot of times that I don't really know what I think about something until I have taken the time and energy to write about it. And so it has helped me become more focused on efficiency and productivity, which is something that is important to my clients that I do well since they're paying me by the hour. And also, with my firm, they certainly want me to be productive. And then all of the... I've done so much writing about client relationships that it's really... I've had to live it. MARK:         Yes. Right. JEREMY:               And so, I've had to focus and learn about what do my clients want so that we can have a better relationship, not just for this one particular case, because things might go well or poorly on one individual case. But how can we have a relationship that can withstand any adversity and that we're communicating effectively enough, both about the good things and the bad things, that there's a trusting relationship that hopefully is going to last a career. And so the writing has helped me be a better lawyer because it's helped me focus on the things that I need to do to be successful. MARK:        Very good. Before I get to your non-legal writing for a moment, I did note, too, that you're involved in a book for children, moving in this other direction. Can you fill us in a little bit about this whole project? JEREMY:             All right. So, in March I posted on LinkedIn, because I'd seen... It was probably late March when I posted this because I'd seen that people have been locked down for a few weeks and there were a lot of really interesting, innovative things that I was seeing lawyers do on LinkedIn to help, whether it's communicate with clients. At that point Zoom was still pretty novel. I think in a lot of ways, we're all really well acquainted with it now, but at that point, most of us hadn't engaged with that medium before. And so I just saw a lot of things, and so I posted, "Hey, if you're doing anything interesting, let's share it and encourage each other." And a lawyer that I knew, Becky Lee, she's an intellectual property lawyer in Atlanta, we're a part of an online lawyer community called Lawyer Slack, LawyerSmack. MARK:  Yes. JEREMY:                And so, she posted that she had just written a children's book idea. And so I reached out to her directly and said, "Hey, I want to hear more about this. Have you got a publisher?" Like just curiosity at this point. And she said, "No. All I've done is written the text for it." And I said, "I want to publish this through my publishing imprint that I use for my own books," because after that first book with the ABA, and we had a good relationship and I really enjoyed it, but I realized that I wanted to have a lot more control over the final product than- MARK:  Yeah. JEREMY:               ... what is able to be done through a traditional publisher. And so I formed my own publishing company. And so she and I talked about it and she was interested in doing that. And so the book that she wrote is called, Do You Draw Pictures? And it's a picture book for kids who are basically four to eight-years-old, introducing them to what intellectual property is, what are patents and trademarks and copyrights, because there's so much misinformation [crosstalk] in pop culture- MARK:  Oh, absolutely. JEREMY:               ... that she realized there's a need for just a basic introduction into what these things are. And so it uses really fun illustrations to just introduce these ideas, and now we've got more ideas for a whole series of books that she plans to write. And then the illustrator is somebody that she's known for years and years, and they were in a band together back in their 20s and he's a cartoonist. And so we have a whole series of books that we want to do for kids that talk about whether it's contracts or first amendment stuff, or just introducing them to ideas that they are going to engage with as they get older. MARK:  What I love about this, and I want to comment on it more here in a little bit, you're an example of something that I have been sharing in terms of a personal story in our podcasts. It's a two-part series right now and I will probably add to it over time. I just refer to it as Listening To Your Life. And there's a lot that I hear happening here that you do very, very well in terms of listening. And so I want to come back to that in a moment. The non-law related book, is this a continuation of the evolution of your writing? I mean, what took you in this direction? JEREMY:               The answer to the first part is, I'm not really sure yet, but I have written creatively ever since really I was in high school. I was one of those dark, brooding, angsty teenagers, and so I wrote a lot of poetry back then, and then that kind of fell off in my 20s. And then I didn't write any fictional stuff for a long time. And then a few years ago, I learned about this really messy part of my family history several generations ago that nobody ever talked about, and I thought about it and did some research about it and started writing a novelized form of it that occurs in the 1940s, or I guess in 1940, where my grandfather who grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, which is a mid-sized town out in about two hours northwest of Dallas. It was the midst of the depression. There was no jobs, and so he goes to work for one of the Civilian Conservation Corps camps up in Colorado, where a lot of young men who couldn't find work, the government, the Works Progress Administration under Roosevelt was hiring them to build state parks and national parks. And so he goes to do that. While he's gone, his father kills his stepmother and then himself. And it was just... Nobody ever talked about it. I didn't learn it until well into adulthood, but I thought that there could be a historical fiction novel. Like, this is that sort of thing. So I started writing that and it got real heavy and I've kind of laid it by the wayside for almost a year-and-a-half now and haven't touched it. Then I had another idea for a novel that I wrote a quarter of, and that kind of fell off. But then I just had this dream back in January of 2020 that was really weird. I'll go ahead... The story is, it was me in the dream, certainly, heard a noise in the middle of the night and went outside to check it out. And there were these three guys coming out of the woods from behind my house, and one of them was carrying something in its arms and I couldn't quite tell what it was. And so I told them to stop and they did, and there ended up being an altercation and what they were carrying was this Pegasus, a winged horse. MARK:  Right. Right. Yeah. JEREMY:               And so, then, they run off and there's this horse laying in my driveway that has wings. And so I take it into the woods to find its mother. And so I had that dream and I wrote all of that down and I had some other ideas that popped up over the next several months and I would write those down. And then in mid August, I figured out, "I can tie all these things together and this can be a novel." So, in August I just started writing and I've been writing almost every single day ever since, writing this story out. And I've just had as much fun doing it as anything else I've ever written, which isn't to say it's been easy. It certainly hasn't, but it's been just really rewarding and fun, and I've just thoroughly enjoyed the process. And I want to do more fiction writing like it, so we'll see. But I also have more non-fiction stuff that I want to write. My podcast that we've mentioned is called Lawyerpreneur, and it's about lawyers who are doing interesting and innovative things, some within the practice of law, others who are doing it in maybe a legal tech or things that are related to law. And then some people who have gotten out of law altogether and just have their own businesses and are doing interesting things. That Was a book idea before it was the podcast idea and I knew that I was going to have to do all of these interviews to be able to get what I wanted. I was having a hard time making myself do the interviews because I just don't like reaching out to folks like that. So I thought, "Well, if I start a podcast, I have to do it." And so, here we are. I started it at the end of March, been doing it for about eight months now. I've done over 30 interviews with lawyers, and it's been really interesting and rewarding. And if for no one else, it's certainly been rewarding for me to talk to all of these folks who are just pursuing dreams and ideas that are really... It's really cool. MARK:  Let me respond to some of this. I hear all kinds of things that I just underscore why I wanted to spend a little time together. You talk about the writing being hard but very fulfilling, and trying to do the podcast and the difficulty of reaching out. I get that. But to me, I like to say, and I've said this to my kids over the years, life begins once you push beyond your comfort zone. A lot of people don't want to do things because it's too uncomfortable and they never really challenge and grow. And in my mind, life begins the exciting, rewarding stuff when we take those risks. And you're a great example of how you have continued to grow with this. I also like the fact, referring to listeners back to this, listening to your life podcast topic that I've been doing, I also hear that you do, in my mind, as I see it, listen to your life. You have these things, these opportunities. You're on LinkedIn and you see... Here's an opportunity. I think so many people have these opportunities, whether they're small, large, and they don't even take the time to recognize or think about, "What can I do with this?" And it certainly seems like your practice is, we're successful. That you're a better attorney. I mean, that's what I'm hearing, that you have improved your skillset, lecturing, writing, intake, all these kinds of things. But the big takeaway for me, just spending a little time together, it's circling back to this wellness thing. It seems to me you're a very well-rounded individual and happier and healthier as a result of pursuing these other interests. It's a full life. I have worked with so many lawyers over the years, literally. I've worked literally with thousands of lawyers, but the number of them that do nothing other than just focus on law and never have what I would call a full life. The excuse I hear at times, they'll say, "Law is a jealous mistress," and that becomes a limiting thing. So, to those of you listening out there, I love Jeremy's story and it seems like, Jeremy, there's so many exciting things ahead of you. I'm excited to see where all this goes. Before I sign us off on this, do you have any final thoughts? Anything else you'd like to share? And I'll just give you a minute. I mean... JEREMY:      Yes, sure. Something I thought of while you were talking there, is that all of this is a choice. If you want to pursue other things and have a more fulfilling life than just work, you have to make the choice, but then you have to continue making the choice. MARK:  Exactly. JEREMY:                All my writing, I have done basically between the hours of 5:00 AM and 6:30 every day. And that's when I could make the time to fit it, because it's not going to just happen. You're not going to have the time. If you don't choose it every day, then it's not going to be there. And so whether it's hobbies that you've put to the side, or whether it's something else that you want to pursue and see what you can create, you've got to make a conscious decision and continue to make it to cause those things to happen. MARK:  Yeah. Yeah. Very, very good. Well, it's been a pleasure. To all of you listening, again, I hope you found something of value today listening to Jeremy's story. I want to leave you with the thought again, because I so firmly believe it. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. You'll take risks, folks. It's worth it. I really believe that deeply. So, again, thanks for joining us. If you have additional topics or some feedback, questions, concerns on risk management, ethics, you don't have to be an ALPS insured to visit with me. Please don't hesitate to reach out. My email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @alpsinsurance.com. Thanks for listening folks. And again, Jeremy, it indeed has been a pleasure and I look forward to seeing what other things come out. I want to take a look at that non-lawyer book when it's published. That sounds quite interesting, so, thanks again. JEREMY:              Well, thanks so much for having me on.  

As Mark alluded to in Part 1 of Listening to Your Life, the journey isn't over. Mark recaps the lessons learned over a season of cycling, exceeding his distance goals, challenges he faced head-on (including 25 mph headwinds), and how listening to your life is a continuous trek that can help you be a more balanced lawyer. Transcript:  Mark:                    Hello, welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager with ALPS, and today I'm going to do a little follow-up. For those of you that are regular listeners, I believe it was back in May I recorded a podcast that I called Listening To Your Life. We explored some bike riding and learning to listen to your life, as opposed to learning to listen as a communication skill. I set some goals at that time and shared some stories, and I thought it would be fun to kind of share how it all played out, what the end is if you will. So if you missed the first part, the beginning of the story let me bring you up to speed. The short version is that I had been interested in bikes and have ridden on and off over the years, particularly during the college years. And then, oh, maybe the past four or five years getting back into it. And this year in light of the lockdown with the pandemic, my wife challenged me to start riding a bit more. It was sort of an informal bet. You know, "I'll bet you can't do a thousand miles" kind of a thing in terms of just riding outside through the summer. So I took that on and I really got started doing some good riding and she realized, "Hey, he's taking it more seriously than I thought." It wasn't a competition kind of thing, "Oh, I have to prove her wrong," or anything like that. It was just I enjoyed riding and why not? Instead of being locked up here at home the time, let's go and get out and enjoy some sun and some fresh air. So she upped it to 1200 by the end of the riding season. And I really had in my mind that I was going to try to go about 1500 miles. So where did I end up? Well, I kind of officially called the end of the season the end of September. And I ended up at the 2100 miles. So not bad, again, for a 60-year-old who wasn't in the best, I wasn't out of shape, but let's just say my riding legs weren't there. And boy, it took some time to build up. But I did. And winter has started to hit here in Missoula, in Montana. And there's been a lot of time since that I've not been able to get out, but I'm still riding when the roads are safe and the weather's nice. So it's been good. And let me share some of the things that happened. And then we'll get back to talking about some learning with all of this. But I had my high month, in terms of just number of miles in a given month, turned out to be 503 miles in one month. My longest ride, in fact, that same month, my three longest rides ever in terms of my life, not just this summer. I did a 54 mile, a 64 mile, and a 70-mile ride. Those were good days. Good days. So I had one experience where, coming down a trail that I ride rather frequently, and you could see some cop cars and people gathering and all this. And it happened to be at a place where you cross a fairly major city street that cuts through a big park and I'm going, "Uh-oh, what's going on here?" Pull up and it was a bike/car accident and the windshield totally, totally smashed. And you just look and you say, "You know, this really, really isn't good." It would have had to be an adult, just given the size, or perhaps a young adult, but given the size of the bike and just to be high enough to go through a windshield like this. I mean, to go all the way through. It was not pretty. We had, I don't know if it was due to fires, global warming just sometimes weather is weather. We had a lot more wind this year here in Montana, at least in our part of Montana. And so there was a lot of time where I spent riding in some wind. I've had a couple of days where you'd go out on these longer rides. I'll start out and I'm looking on the weather app and do I really want to go do this? And yeah, I do, but I can see some winds are coming. But you get out and sometimes you start so you have the wind at your back. You don't always notice and, "Boy, you're riding great." But once you get out, and I've been out at times pretty far, and man, do the winds pick up. I remember one ride where I struggled keeping my bike upright in crosswinds. I mean, it almost really just wants to knock you over. So these are winds that are fairly steady in that maybe 20-mile-an-hour range, gusting 25, maybe a little bit higher. And you have wind like that for the next two hours as you kind of work your way back home. I'd be sitting there riding along going, "Oh, man, this is nuts. This is crazy." And then I'd go out and do it again the next week. It's just like, "Okay." But it is what it is. I did at one point, I had a bit of a scare. I was riding somewhat quickly on a trail. But I'm comfortable riding at certain speeds and it's not too bad. Bu you're kind of coming down a hill and into a little tunnel that goes under a road. And coming into that probably a little faster than I should to be honest with you. There's another guy on a bike coming out and he's going at a decent clip and, man, you just hit the brakes. You go into a slide and I can just feel it, like I'm about to go down and just slam this bike into the corner of a wall, and it would not be good. But you manage. I don't know how. You just stay with it. And I managed to keep the bike up and kind of did this slide into the tunnel and just kept going and think, "Woo. That was a close one." I've had dogs chase me probably three or four times all told for the summer. And that gets kind of interesting. My wife was so supportive and encouraging and pleased as we got into this. She again saw that I was riding, decided let's go shopping. Just due to the commitment, she's like, "I want you to have, just better equipment." So I added a second bike. I still have my original bike because it's just set up for different types of weather and sometimes you have a flat or something. And I can keep two on the road. But the new bike is really a much more comfortable ride, a much more serious ride. It's just been great. So,that was kind of an unexpected little surprise. And I'll share more about that here in a little bit. I got into using a riding app to really try to more seriously, more accurately perhaps is a better word, keep track of my mileage. And after I started using the app for a bit, I realized that I was seriously underestimating my mileage. So I guess that was a good thing. But there were times when you'd go out, you'd spend a lot of time riding, you stop and take a look at the app, how you're doing. And yeah, I had it at the time saying, I know I've ridden maybe 20, 25 miles so far. And it'll say, I've rid to 62. And my top speed was 125 miles an hour. I mean, I could ride fast at times and there's some nice hills where you can get some real nice speed, but I assure you, it's not 125 miles an hour. I mean, you get frustrated with this and "Ah, you know, this is cheap doesn't work." And then I finally realized out here in the West, a lot of smoke from California, Oregon, even Washington, and some Montana from all these fires, we just had a lot of heavy, heavy smoke. And I finally realized, you know what, these apps that track your location, if they're going to give you an accurate thing, they need to triangulate with several satellites at any given time to keep an accurate position of where you're going and do all these calculations and with the smoke that heavy, you just can't triangulate accurately with enough satellites. And that's the issue. I was like, "Ah, I figured that out. Okay." And then you just feel better about it, I guess. So what else do I want to share? I think that's mostly sort of the summary. I can say I talked earlier about one of the reasons I was enjoying this and excited about it was some health benefits. And boy, now that I'm on this side of it, the season has more or less come to an end. We've been following my blood pressure and I'll be honest and say again, this is not that uncommon in folks my age, my blood pressure has been ever so slowly creeping up a bit. Boy, it went down 20 points and I am just nailing it consistently. So that's been kind of a good outcome to all of this. So that's sort of the summary, just giving you a little idea of the results of how this all played. And with that, I want to sort of revisit some things, some little learnings, some are about just good to know kinds of things for riding. Others, maybe there are whispers as I ended my last podcast when Listening To Your Life With. Some of these things are whispers, some are a bit more significant. So, again, let's talk a little bit about what does this experience, what can I learn? What is worth really taking to heart? And I think there are number of things big and small. Before I share the first one, my wife and I are members of a local gym club kind of thing, health club too. And I have really always been more interested in weightlifting and I was in pretty decent shape. I was pretty strong and I think I looked good. At least that's what my wife shared, God bless her, isn't that the goal. But once the gym shut down and things you kind of shift. And so I was doing a lot more bike riding and a lot less lifting. And so the point of that is I got weaker and gyms are reopened now. And I have finally been able to get some weights here at the house to and it's if we continue our slim lockdowns coming up again, I'm ready for it. And boy trying to get weights and find weights on the market for a few months. If any of you ever looked at that is almost impossible, because all the gyms closed, everybody had bought everything up, but what have I learned? It's really difficult to get into shape in terms of the cardiovascular shape to get the biking legs. It hurts. There are a lot of times where it hurts and just to keep pushing, but once you get there, wow. And then not lifting for a while and getting back into it you realize, "Ooh, I'm going to have to go through some pain again." Now that's okay, but one of the takeaways here is, it's really hard work to get into shape. It's much easier to maintain once you are in shape. And so you can look that and say that's a great insight and worth remembering for health and whatnot, but I think it goes further. I really do. You think about how hard it is to start a law practice, how hard it is to develop a good reputation as a lawyer, as an individual in the community. And it's so easy to lose and just let it go if we get complacent, if we just get comfortable and don't keep working at it, it's far easier to just stay in shape. So I guess I want to say, if you find something working in life, stay focused, stay with it. You don't want to have to build a business, our reputation two or three times, that's just wasted energy if you ask me. So, that's something to think about. I talked a little bit about this ride app and my frustration with it, and we try to buy these things that are going to make life easier in some way, and we get frustrated if it doesn't work like we expect, and it's so easy to just dismiss it and want something else to get upset. And again, there's wasted energy. I don't need to get frustrated and upset by anything that doesn't serve anyone. But I really think I just need to take a little time and understand what are the realistic limitations of this app. And once you start to think through it, you go, "Oh, of course." And so, take time when we bring new technologies in, when we look at new processes or procedures in our practices or in our life, in any aspect of our life, there's value I should say, in taking the time to understand realistically, what can this do and what are its limitations. So that you have an understanding and then can address any shortfalls in other ways, or perhaps look for better solutions, if the initial evaluation is such that, "Ah, this really doesn't meet all my needs." I had that great month and I initially would have said, I don't think one, just time, but two that I have the physical wherewithal to ride this 54, 64 and 70 mile ride or those rides. And also in that same month, hit over 500 miles, I'm still working full time, doing all the other things in life that I need to do or choose to do, but I did. And what I learned is, typically after the 70 mile ride, I admit, hey, I was tired. I was beat. And you get to a point where you're just moving. I wouldn't call it enjoyable in the sense of, "Oh, this is a beautiful bike ride and a wonderful afternoon." It's hard work. It is hard work, but you realize I am capable of more than I thought and had I had time that day. And I ran out of time just for other obligations. I know, I am absolutely certain, I do a hundred miles, probably even a bit more. And I guess the point of this is looking at all aspects of my life, and I encourage you to think about your life as well. I think these learnings are good and valuable. We are capable of more than we think, but we have to take the risk to push it, to get uncomfortable a little bit to just explore what are you truly capable of? And the answer might surprise you. I really have been surprised by this. It's given me hope in all kinds of crazy ways. I mean, maybe it's this pandemic thing going on here or something too. I feel like my life is something that I am in control of, and I'm going to continue to work hard at staying in shape and maintaining wellness and health. I feel better. And I think I can continue to do this well into my eighties. In fact, it was two months ago or so I heard a wonderful news story because you don't get often, you don't hear often these feel good stories in the news anymore, but a man in his nineties, I don't know. He may have just turned 90. I can't remember exactly what age, I know it was 90, but he was celebrating with a bunch of friends, the fact that he has now ridden 100,000 miles on a bike and I'm just sitting here going, "That's totally awesome!" And at the same time going, "Ah, I just rode 2100 hours." And that's a lot. But instead of sitting here and going, "Oh man, I'll never be able to do that", I celebrate, here's a guy that did. And whether I ever get there or not, and I don't know how long it took him to ride these 100,000 miles, they don't share that in the story, but it doesn't matter. He was capable of doing it and he's still riding nine miles a day, maybe stationary bike at the senior center, I have no idea but God bless him. And I take such hope in that. Use bright lights, wear bright clothes. It sort of goes back to the helmet story that I was talking about or reasons we wear a helmet. But yeah, very, very important. I want to make sure that I stand out in whatever space I am in. If I'm in dark clothing and no lights on my bike and I'm in some shade, coming into a tunnel or whatever it might be, and not be very visible, bad things happen. So I have really come to value, trying to stand out, a lot of good things can happen just by virtue of trying to stand out and differentiate yourself from your surroundings. So I'm going to let you ride with that one. There's a pun perhaps, or run with that one. Always carry water. I often sometimes carry a protein drink with me, and on a longer ride, hey, always stick a Snickers in the little pack that I have under my seat, because you need, every once in a while after a big climb or you're 50 miles in, you need a little glucose to keep moving and boy, you need to stay hydrated. So you need to nourish yourself. Whatever that means. It gets back to sort of this wellness thing. We need to stay nourished, to be at our best. And at times just to continue in the journey. So, food for the soul, nourish, again, whatever that means, you need to focus on that, you're not going to get there otherwise, that really can be the make or break. I shared two again, of that almost had a crash situation, but there's another takeaway from that one. I talked about staying alert in part one of this. And I will tell you, after all these miles now, I certainly absolutely value staying alert, but you get so comfortable. It's harder to do over time. You get so comfortable in the ride. You get so comfortable in the speed. Sometimes you just take shortcuts and I'm talking about safety shortcuts, danger. We need to stay sharp as lawyers, we need to stay alert and that's hard. So learning there in terms of tying this back to law and things, there is value in taking relevant CLE. There is value in doing all that you can, if we can get back to wellness, there's so many ways to come at this, but we need to do what we can. All that we can to keep sharp and stay alert throughout the entire journey. Journey after journey, after journey, because trouble can come up so fast in such unexpected ways when we least expect it. And when we're so comfortable, then Holy smokes, I'm about to hit a wall. It's just but the grace of God that I pulled through that one, a close call, but it was a reminder to me. It was a slap in the head, "Hey, don't get cocky, stay alert." It's important. So, two other things I want to point out near the end of this. I had an interesting ride and one of these windy, Fall days, Winter is coming quickly it's in the air. And I get a lot of wind, not a lot of people out. And I'm climbing up this hill to the airport and for a long, this was about a 50 mile ride. And I see somebody carrying a bike as I'm peddling up and I get close and I realized, it's a kid maybe 12, 13 years old. And he's got a nice bike. And he's obviously somebody that enjoys the riding seriously. And I stopped. I say, "You have a flat." And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, I do." And I had some things with me, I said, "I'm happy to try to help you. I should be able to fix this or at least give it a shot", and everything. He goes "Well, thank you so much", but he had about half a mile to walk with his bike here yet, but he said, "My mom is on the way to pick me up and I just need to be there." I mean, I can't fix this tire in five minutes or something and decide, he said, "Appreciate it." And he went on and then he stopped and he turned and he goes, "Oh, by the way, don't ride off the trail. There's thorns." And I kind of smiled. And I said, "Thanks for the tip, I appreciate that." And I do ride at times off the trails. Sometimes you even just passing families and whatnot, you just go off the grass, just so you don't disturb people and just say, "It's fine." But here was some kid sharing a very innocent and learning and insight that he had with some adult that just happened to stumble by, but we're kindred spirits in the sense we both enjoy riding. And that really was significant for me because at times you get really great advice, that you haven't thought about, from the most unexpected places. Learn to listen. So that to me was very, very important. The final thing I'd like to share is, Oh, it's been maybe two or three weeks now, something like that. But one particular day, my wife was very concerned that a package was coming in and would I be here? Cause she couldn't be just due to work to pick it up or to be here because she was concerned about it being left outside or something. And I said, "Oh, sure." I was here. I telecommute. So I'm often around the house, okay. And then I'm getting these texts, because I was actually doing a webinar and, "It's here, it's here go check." And I said, "Honey, I'll get it when I'm done. So I go down and there's this huge heavy package. It turns out she had purchased in celebration and encouragement, a nice indoor bike that comes with these apps that you have coaches and you can really get fantastic workouts. I'm telling you, man, I I've done a couple of rides on this and wow. You can really, really keep it going. And she just said, "It's a gift, a free gift, no strings attached" kind of a thing. And a very thoughtful of her, very appreciative, we are both going to be using it, but that cemented, I think the biggest learning of this entire experience and it kind of plays out in two ways. I shared again at the beginning of the first episode that I have been so blessed to marry my absolute best friend and we're married now 20 years and she is more of a friend than ever. And she is a support system, obviously a significant support system. And why I think that's important is, I have learned to listen to her and this experience underscores that in Spades. Mark, I challenge you to do this. I mean, that's what was said, and we had some fun, but her support is, it's your health. I want you to be here for a long time. I want another 20, 30, 40 years and 40 years will take us to a hundred. And I'm okay with that. I hope we're still sane and we probably won't be riding like this, who knows? But learn to listen to your support systems. Sometimes the things they say are really, really worth taking to heart. Working crazy hours and never taking a vacation as a solo practitioner or something and your wife or your spouse says to you, or significant other says to you, "You know, I'm concerned about your health." You need to slow down or we need to take a vacation. Listen. They know what they're talking about. They see and care about us. So, your spouse, your significant other cares about you. Listen, listen. Every bit as important, is nurturing the relationship. I want this support system that has proved over and over again to be so valuable in my life. And it brought such meaning to my life. I want to nurture that so that it is always there. And I do everything I can to reciprocate, to be her support system. I want to always be there for her. And it gets back to about wellness, which is such an issue in our profession. This whole experience this summer just underscored how vitally important listening to your support systems and nourishing your support systems are. And that is the one biggest takeaway for me. I sit back and I go, "Wow. Now here is a message that I simply cannot ignore." It's just phenomenal. So fundamentally important. So, rambling on here about all kinds of things. Honestly, I could keep going. We could talk about wind and dogs and all sorts of stuff, but I don't think it's necessary. I just wanted to share how it all played out and share a few more insights. So I'm going to wrap it up and leave it at that. I hope you found something of value out of my journey that I've shared with you. And I just will close by encouraging you not only to listen and nurture your support systems, nourish yourself, all these other things we've been talking about. But I think one of the important things for me, why did I want to do this in terms of this two part series? I really do believe if we learn to listen to what life has to say, both the strong messages and the whispers that come, we are all better for the experience. There's so much teaching that life brings every day. We just need to remember to take the time to listen and then to chew on it a little bit. So that's it. Thanks for listening. I hope you found something of value again. God bless, take care. We'll talk to you next time. Bye. Bye.  

It's no secret that society has seen an uptick in divorces since the start of the pandemic, but there have also been some silver linings in this unlikely space. Katie Mazurek is a Bozeman, Montana-based attorney with Element Law Group. Focusing on family law, Katie brings a different approach to the way she guides clients through the divorce process. In fact, she recently co-authored a book called, Divorce Better Together, with a former client who helped shape a more collaborative, team approach that is now leveraging technology like Zoom to facilitate her work. Mark was able to sit down with Katie to talk about her approach, her book and how her practice has evolved to help clients discover a healthier way through this often messy process.   Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager with Alps. Welcome to Alps In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. And I'm excited about today's podcast. I have someone that some other folks at Alps had the pleasure of meeting in person and was so impressed. They said, "Mark, we've got to reach out and have some discussions here for the podcast." And I absolutely agreed. Today I have with me, Katie Mazurek, and I believe Katie you're practicing in Bozeman. Is that correct? KATIE MAZUREK:  Yes. I practice in Bozeman and we have offices in Helena as well. MARK: Okay. Very good. When I first sort of reached out and looked a little bit about what you do and who you are, I was struck by the name of your law firm. Well, actually, before we get to that, let's take just a few moments, and can you share a little bit about yourself to our listeners? What do you feel is important that they know about you? KATIE: Well, thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited to be able to talk with you. I think one of the things that's really important for people to understand about me is that I am a person who really understands pain. I've been through some significant things, including my parents divorced when I was 15, a cancer diagnosis when I was 33, when I had two kids, and right, actually when I started Element. KATIE: And so my whole kind of purpose in life is to help people through their suffering. And so that's probably what I'd want people to understand the most, because I know that interfacing with a lawyer can be really scary and really overwhelming and really foreign. And I would hope that if people can see me as just another human who understands what they're going through, that that makes them feel a lot more comfortable and normalizes their pain a little bit. MARK: And may me ask you, I know that at least the bulk of what you do, if I'm understanding correctly is divorce work, but are there other practice areas? Or are you exclusively in the divorce space? KATIE: We're primarily in the family law space. So divorce, custody parenting. We obviously help, if our clients come to us and they're comfortable with us and they want us to help with the business or something like that, some minor estate planning, we do those things as well. MARK: Okay. Very good. And again, I was struck about the name of your group, Element Law Group. I suspect there's a story here. I'd love to hear it. KATIE: So Element came about, when I created the firm, I wanted our clients to have a very different experience than the typical. And what felt at the time was pretty antiquated law centric, law firm experience. I wanted this to be really based on the family and the individual. And so that the term element came from the idea that we're all made of the same basic things. On an elemental level, who are we? Well we're people who need love and care and support and guidance. And so the name Element came out and I think it identifies or signifies, who we are pretty well. MARK: I love that. That really speaks to me too. That is just very cool. I think that's awesome. KATIE: Thank you. MARK: Can we take a moment, in my... We are living in really unusual times, there's discussions in terms of COVID and all of this happening, geopolitically all over the world here. And in other words, it's not just COVID, but these 2020 is a crazy time. And there are some descriptions of looking at this as sort of, we're entering a new normal, and I'm not one that buys into that. I think what we're going through is a period of rapid change, dramatic change, but change is always present. But we are in a crazy time where change is just, wow. When I think about the divorce space, the family law space, are you finding that these times... Is that changing? Are the needs of your clients... How would you describe what's happening from your perspective? KATIE: Sadly, there's been a big uptake in our business, and we've all talked a lot about what the causes and the factors would be that have caused this real surge. And to the best of our guessing, we think it's this stress and the uncertainty and the fear. And it's just kind of in a weak relationship, it's created the pressure point that's broken the system. But interestingly, it's also, I think, a bigger conversation about what's happened to the practice of law with this COVID and having to adapt. And I think it's, in some ways can be looked at as a really exciting time because it's forcing the law and practitioners to come into the modern era as far as how we're practicing and how we're interfacing with each other. And that's something that Element has been pushing for a long time is to say, "Look, there's all these technological pieces that can make our lives easier and should make our lives easier." And I'm kind of excited to see that happening on the larger scale. MARK: I know you have written a book, I believe it's called, Divorce Better Together, and you coauthored this, is this with your partner? KATIE: This is with a former client of mine. MARK: Oh, really? KATIE: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Rob Irizarry. MARK: Wow. How did this come about? KATIE: Well, Rob started as a client in the collaborative process and for people who are the uninitiated, the collaborative process is a team approach to a divorce. We use two lawyers, a neutral mental health person and a neutral financial person. And that creates a professional team that helps a married couple divorce in a more amicable, fully supported way. KATIE: So Rob was my client in a collaborative setting. And unfortunately he was actually... He says he was my first failure. He and his wife fell out of the collaborative process pretty early on. And so he was pushed into the litigation path and his experience there and mirrors my experience with the compare, contrast the litigation world with the collaborative world. And he felt very passionately about the importance of collaborative and the value of collaborative. And he and I struck up a friendship and have been very close friends ever since, and he wants to change the world like I do. And so we coauthored this book. MARK: Is the book somewhat of a description of how you practice in your space? Is it a guide book of where you'd like to see the law go? Can you fill me in a little bit more about? KATIE: Sure. It's a very short, easy read and the intent is just to get collaborative in the minds of people who are starting to contemplate which divorce process is right for them. So it really is the personal stories. Rob's personal story of being in the collaborative process and then litigation and my personal story of watching my parents really suffer through a nasty litigated divorce and what that did to my family. And then now as a practitioner practicing collaborative. So it does explain the process. It's definitely informational, but it's also meant to connect with the reader on that kind of emotional journey and experience of divorce. MARK: I liked what you were talking about in terms of looking at COVID and seeing this in so many ways as an opportunity, are you finding, first courts are closed, is this an opportunity to really accelerate the collaborative process? Are you able to do more of this? Can we sort of flesh out what's happening? KATIE: Oh, sure. I think the collaborative process is always going to... It's so flexible and it can adapt to whatever situation that we need. And what we have found is really interesting is that the collaborative sessions that are held through Zoom or whatever video conferencing platform, they're really great. Because there's the side channels and things that the practitioners can type to each other privately, I can type to my client privately. And so I wouldn't say that necessarily in terms of volume or anything, we still have the access that we need on the litigation front to the courts, but the whole drive of collaborative is to put the divorce process in the family's hands. And certainly these times are a call to action for families to really embrace that opportunity where it exists. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. Do you find... I can appreciate, and I really need to go pick up your book and by the way, I believe it's available... Just to, if others are interested on Amazon? Or it's not? KATIE: Amazon. Mm-hmm (affirmative). MARK: Yes. And I just want to be clear for everybody Divorce Better Together. And it's by Katie Mazurek. And I'm sorry, the name of your coauthor again? KATIE: Rob Irizarry. MARK: Rob Irizarry. So folks, just to let you know it's out there. Do you find... I'll go back and say, my wife and I we're both second marriages. So we've been through the process. My wife's divorce was a litigated divorce that went all the way to the State Supreme Court. And it was just one of these crazy [crosstalk 00:00:11:17], horrible kinds of things. Mine was more of a... We didn't use the collaborative process, but we did sit down between the two of us and really work through most of the issues. MARK: And honestly just had one lawyer between the two of us, be mostly a scrivener, we stayed in the ethical bounds, to put it that way, say the lawyer that assisted us. And I think we divorced well. I would say post-divorce, there were some issues that I think a collaborative process might've helped us avoid, but I share all that because what I'm curious about is, is part of what you're trying to accomplish with the book... Are you writing to lawyers or you're writing to people? You see where I'm going? Is the challenge here to create awareness and appreciation of the collaborative process to the clients? Are we trying to sell this process, you see? KATIE: We're trying to educate people, families really. So parents and married couples that this process is available and that this process is available at any point in your journey. And so, like in your case, if there were... Did you have children? MARK: Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative). KATIE: Okay. [crosstalk 00:12:58]. And maybe I don't mean to pry. MARK: No, it's fine. KATIE: So it could be, we see people who have gone through the litigated process and then they have these children whose needs inevitably change. And the dynamic inevitably changes. And we have new parties coming on as significant others and things like that. And so they can adopt the collaborative process after a divorce and just get the support they need around some of these bigger decisions or even smaller decisions. But really what it comes down to, and I think most relationships come down to this, is communication. And so you have a team that can help facilitate and model healthy communication. And then also give you good information to make better decisions. MARK: Do you find most people when they have an opportunity to learn a bit about this process and what you were doing, are they pretty receptive? Are you pretty successful moving people in this direction? Are you finding some resistance to it? Does it work better for some and not others? KATIE: So the collaborative process was started in Minnesota about 28, 29 years ago. In 2013, two practitioners, myself included, went to Arizona to get trained in this. And since then, we've cultivated the collaborative community here in Montana. And now there's collaborative practitioners all over the state. And what I've noticed since bringing it here way back in 2013 is that collaborative is the answer that clients were already for, but didn't know existed. KATIE: And to further answer your question, absolutely, there are people that are better suited for collaborative cases than others. But I don't want to kind of perpetuate a misconception, which is that couples who are high conflict or when there's difficult issues in a case that they're not appropriate for collaborative somehow, that's been proven false repeatedly. Really what it comes down to in my experience is the strength and experience level of the team that is helping the family get through this. MARK: So it seems what I'm hearing is, part of what's going on here and part of your interest initially, it's the collaborative process is going to be less painful, more positive, better outcomes. So you started, you want to try to help people through pain. And a divorce process is certainly a painful process. I've never seen a situation that was just roses all the way through. Do you find as a practitioner using this process, comparing yourself to the traditional divorce lawyer that does a lot of litigation, is there a wellness component to this is? Would you encourage other lawyers... Because to me, I like how you've described some of this and looking even now in the midst of just this global pandemic, looking at an opportunity, and I think that's such an incredible way to move forward through any change. Always looking... We can't change what has happened. All we can do is define ourselves by how we respond to it. But with courts being closed, is there a message here? Would you have a message to other practitioners and say, "Look, this can create less pain for you as a practitioner too. And your wellness can help others." I'm I understanding this correctly? KATIE: Well, I think so. I struggled a lot when I started with litigating family law cases, because what's a win in a family law case. Is it a dollar award? Is it more time with the child? It's really kind of a, almost a [inaudible 00:17:46] concept to think about it, when you're talking about human life. And so I really struggled with like, "What am I doing here? What value am I bringing? What is the long-term outcome for these families? When I've just put on this testimony, that's just biting and terrible towards another party. This is what we have to do or I feel what you have to do." KATIE: And so the collaborative practice is the hardest work I've ever done, but it is far and away, the best I've ever felt about something that I'm putting forward in the world. When you go to these conferences, you see mostly practitioners in their 50s and 60s. And the reason for that is they just got to a point where they couldn't do the litigation, the burden of litigation, the toxicity of litigation. And so they had to do something different. And I want to be clear. It's very hard work. It's very hard work. Because at least with litigation, you can say, "Hey, that's not what the court's going to consider. We're not going to talk about that. I'm sorry that happened to you." And kind of have the appropriate amount of empathy, but move the case forward because you're working within that strict legal lens. MARK: Exactly. KATIE: And then the collaborative process it's, the law is just a framework and what the family builds within that is completely up to them. And so I kind of, the analogy I use is, look, the law, the framework is going to say, "You need to build a car. And that car has to have four wheels, an engine and steering wheel." And whether you build a porch or a dump truck, that's up to you. And so that kind of freedom for us practitioners who are used to being in these really tight roles that can be really uncomfortable for us. And that's why we have a team. MARK: And so what drives the... You say this is the hardest you've ever worked. It's clear just, the audience is just listening, but we're viewing each other here and you're very passionate about this. It seems to be very fulfilling to you, very important, but what is the challenge here? Why is this so hard? Is it trying to keep people invested in the process? Is it the emotions of all that's going on? Is it crazy tangential issues that the traditional path isn't necessarily going to deal with? Why is this such a challenge? And challenge have to be a bad thing, this is what I'm trying to get across to our listeners here. But why is this so hard? KATIE: Well, you're taking two people who are in conflict and you're asking them to listen to each other, to meaningfully listen to each other and to communicate better. And that is exceptionally hard. People come into the divorce process with a feeling of scarcity, of, "Oh my goodness, I'm losing, I'm changing." We took one whole, and we're making it into two, which is never as much as half. If that makes sense. MARK: Yes. It does. It does. KATIE: Right? So because you lose the economy of efficiency and going into two households and things like that. So a real scarcity mindset, and it's very hard to get positive work out of people who are rotating around the access of fear and not enough and uncertainty and, "What's going to happen to me?" And so in the collaborative space, we really meet them in that scarcity feeling, whereas in a litigation setting, I can just say, "Ah, I know that that thing happened to you, and I'm so sorry, but that's not on the view or the horizon for the court." MARK: Right. Right. KATIE: And so we make space for all of that in the collaborative model, and that's what's kind of messy and hard. And when you're trying to help people move forward through that, it's a lot. MARK: So how do you stay sane? KATIE: Right. That's such a good question. Well, we lean on the mental health professional quite a bit, and who helps us understand like, okay, this is in your box and this isn't. Part of the really hard thing about collaborative is that I feel like I'm invested in the family and in a much different way than I am in litigation, just by virtue of the differences of the process. And so I guess I'm still working on that, with every single case it's different and I'm still figuring it out. But it's always been worth the effort, the outcomes are really incredible. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. I want to be very respectful of your time here and appreciate the chat we've had. I don't mean to put you on the spot and I think you're up for this. We have, obviously, the listening base here are all legal professionals. I'd ask for two comments maybe, in terms of closing comments. One would be, what would you have to say to encourage lawyers that are more focused on the traditional litigated model? What would you say to them, say, be open to this? Why should they move in this direction, at least at times? And then the other piece, or the second half of this would be, there are lots of lawyers, because not all clients are to want to do this. So still need to stay in the litigated space. Are there learnings or takeaways from your experience in the collaborative space that might be beneficial to help if you jump back into the litigated space. And any other closing comments you'd have, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on those two sides. KATIE: The most important lesson that I've learned about working alongside the traditional litigated attorneys is to have a relationship and try to have an understanding between the two very different practices. So my first part of that would be an invitation that, if you're a litigator and you're listening to this and you're thinking, "Oh, that is never something I would do." That's fine. The world absolutely needs really strong litigators who are responsible- MARK: Absolutely. KATIE: ... in handling families. But also let's go to coffee and let's talk about what I do so that we can compliment one another. But for the practitioners who are thinking about, who see litigation, the issues with litigation, and maybe have some heartache of their own about how they're practicing, the collaborative doors is always open and you can get trained relatively inexpensively and join a practice group and try it out. And maybe it's for you, maybe it's not, but it's still a great way. You're going to get some [inaudible 00:26:06]. You're going to get some really great information. KATIE: It's going to challenge your worldview, which kind of goes to your second point, which is we address these family law cases in a very lawyer centric, law centric way. And what I've really learned is one, active listening. I've learned to ask more questions and dive deeper into the answers. And I am shocked at how much more I've learned and repeatedly have used that skill in my litigation practice, because the last thing any of us wants is to get up in front of a judge and be in the middle of a hearing or a trial and get caught flat footed. And when we make that investment and time and energy into our clients, I think it yields a better outcome and a better experience for them overall. KATIE: So I would say that that's kind of the compliment between the two worlds and I don't see them as completely divergent and separate and apart, I see them as working together and kind of the left hand and the right hand. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And your comment of active listening really strikes a chord with me. I think at times it's too easy, regardless of what sandbox we're in, as lawyers in terms of practice. Just to, this is how it's always been done. We think we know what's right. We think we understand what people want. There's a lot of assumptions. When I was practicing, there was involved in situation where I really thought it was all about the money. We had to get the most amount of money. And when I finally learned it had nothing to do with the money at all, because I wasn't listening, the matter resolved very, very quickly, and it was a great outcome for everybody involved. So I simply want to underscore that and thank you for saying it that, let's put aside at times some of our assumptions and really take the time to understand and listen, what is the need of the client? And we are here, we are in someone else's employ. KATIE: Right. At service. MARK: Exactly, and thank you for that. That's sums it up perfectly. And we are in service of others. And we can't forget that. We need to be an advocate at times. And sometimes in the litigation space, very, very strong advocates. There are situations where people need that because they can't advocate for themselves. But that doesn't mean that we get a pass on just really trying to understand who is this person, how do I best serve them? So I've just tried to summarize some things that I'm taking away from this conversation. KATIE: Sure. [crosstalk 00:00:29:01]. MARK: And I think it's, I'm thrilled to see that you have taken such a role. And a lead position here in Montana to try to really expand and bring this new, or a slightly different, less adversarial model into Montana. Thank you for very much. I just think that you're doing some wonderful, wonderful work. Do you have any final closing thought that you'd like to share? KATIE: Oh my goodness. Well obviously thank you so much for having me. If there are attorneys or other professionals, even clients, potential clients listening to this. If you have questions or you want to have a conversation about this, my contact information is easy to define, that's elementlaw group.com. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. elementlawgroup, one word, elementlawgroup.com. So there you go. And I invite folks to go out and take a look at the website and go take a look at the book. Well, again, Katie, thank you very much. KATIE: Thank you. MARK: For those of you listening, I hope you found something of value today, and it's always a pleasure to take a little time and visit. So if there's anything else you'd like in terms of topics, questions, concerns, you do not need to be an Alps insurer to reach out to me, feel free at any time. My email is mbass@alpsinsurance.com. mbass@alpsinsurance.com. Happy to help in anything at any time. If there's ever anything I can do for you. So thanks for listening again, folks. You all have a great day. Stay safe. Stay well. Stay connected. Bye-bye.    

Over the 3 years following this global recession spurred by COVID-19, we'll see a spike in bankruptcies, business dealings gone south, divorces, and all kinds of other unfortunate situations that may result in lawsuits. Those parties may turn around to blame their lawyers. Plus, lawyers and their staff are more likely to make mistakes right now in these high stress times. So, how do we brace for impact? Communication and kindness may be the best medicine. ALPS Underwriting Manager Leah Gooley and Mark Bassingthwaighte discuss their concerns, thoughts, and practice tips to help you prepare for the post-COVID economy. Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Once again, I'm so delighted to have as my guest, Leah Gooley, who is the underwriting manager. I don't know if all of you know this, Leah is in Missoula, in the beautiful historic building, and I telecommute. I've been telecommuting for many years over in Billings, so maybe I should ask real quickly, are we still having a beautiful day in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana? We're getting into August here, but I could see a little light coming in. LEAH GOOLEY: It's beautiful and sunny, a little cloudy, but I'll take that over the snow that we know is coming. MARK: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I really wanted to have Leah join me for a conversation. I'll be honest and say, and I don't know about you, Leah, and I suspect many of our listeners might feel similar to what I'm about to say, but I am tired of COVID-19 news. LEAH: Amen. MARK: It's just, but COVID-19, and what has happened in terms of not just a legal profession, but to everybody, has changed some things. We were talking prior to going into this, in terms of internal to ALPS, some general concerns looking at virtual practice firms and trying to just work through, do they represent unique interests? Is there something different? We've been having some interesting discussions about that, and then COVID-19. Boy, now teams, like everybody we insure, is a virtual firm and I thought it'd be fun to do just sit down and share some of our thoughts, concerns, and even some practice tips. MARK: That's what we're going to do, folks. We're going to start out just trying to identify some of the concerns that we see in general. Leah, perhaps I'll jump in here and start this, but feel free to come in at any point. Really, I think it's becoming quite clear, not just here in the United States, but globally, we are in a recession. Who knows how this is going to continue to evolve, but that's important because if you look historically at the numbers, claims are going to spike for about three years post-recession, in terms of legal malpractice claims. And then, they'll start to return slowly to normal, about five years out. We are anticipating not just here at ALPS, but within the industry that there's going to be a spike in claims. MARK: I would anticipate, too, that we're going to see a spike in severity. Some things to be concerned about, and we're going to try to visit why, but I think my initial thoughts is to what drives some of this, you think about business dealings and bankruptcies and divorces and all kinds, but when business dealings, in particular, go south and look at all the companies suing their insurers for the business interruption coverage that on most of these policies isn't there, desperate times call for desperate measures. They're going to turn into and try to blame lawyers and some of these claims, if nothing else, all the care's going to be involved in trying to defend these where we are contractually obligated to. I think that's almost a given, lawyers and staff are going to make mistakes in high-stress times. MARK: Boy, are we in a high-stress time? This rapid move to cloud computing to telecommuting from home, policies and procedures have changed, maybe not completely thought through. It was a very rapid adjustment, so I think there's going to be just normal missteps that occur. In addition, I think just again, the stress itself we're all under. I'm surprised, I would guess this is true for you, Leah, in terms of your own neighborhood, but we have a number of people in the neighborhood that I truly, I mean, not trying to overstate it, are almost in a daily state of panic, out of fear of what could happen, not wanting to catch the virus and things, and when so much of our energy is being devoted to just trying to go to the grocery store without exposing ourselves, I think that's a concern. MARK: At the same time, your clients are under the same stresses, the same thing. Are they going to question their own decisions down the road? Why didn't you prevent me from doing this stupid thing that I did? There's a lot of stuff going on here. I'm also going to talk about the closures of courthouses and all the changes in just the local rules, court rules, procedures, filing deadlines, being extended. There's just so many things up in the air, very difficult to stay on top of. Finally, another thought I have is, I had a call this morning from another lawyer on the East coast, sharing some concerns along these lines. Basically it's, "I'm owed a lot of money, but they don't have, everybody's been furloughed that they can't pay it." Here's another conundrum, how aggressive do you get with collection actions? Do you even try, because we all know particularly fee suits, bringing about often malpractice, counterclaims and whatnot? There's just a couple of thoughts of mine, just right off the top of my head coming into this, so that's your risk manager's response. How about an underwriter's response? What kind of concerns do you have? LEAH: Along those same lines, we tend to see, like you had mentioned, claims starting to spike about three years into the process. This pandemic is new. It's a culmination of a lot of different stressors for both working from home, adjusting quickly, which frankly, the law profession has trouble doing because they're meaty and it's a very weighty, important system of ours. And so, having to make this quick transition, both through the courts and individual law firms, and then like you had mentioned, customers and clients trying to adapt to those changes as well, while balancing working from home, their kids, and trying to manage their businesses under stressful time. We do anticipate certain trends within certain areas of practice. You can imagine divorces may be on the rise as well as marriages, like you said, and then, folks looking back. Overall from an underwriting perspective, trying to see where you sit individually, where your area of specialty lies, and sticking to that area of specialty, knowing how some of those changes come about, and how you can adapt to that in this pandemic. That's a really important aspect to all of this. MARK: Yeah. One of the things I think is worth noting for our listeners, I brought up this whole point of, we can anticipate due to stress, financial stress, fear, all of the things going on, that missteps will occur as a result. I can share, and I would assume you may have had one or two more conversations than me, but our claims attorneys are already seeing claims that are missteps that occurred post this work-from-home transition. We are already seeing these types of claims start to come in, not unexpected. MARK: Let me jump. I think we've set the stage reasonably well, but what's more interesting to me, and I would anticipate our listeners is, these virtual practice/work-from-home risks that we see, what are your thoughts in terms of trying to manage that? Maybe come at it from a concern and a management piece. I could anticipate for instance, because I know we've talked about this in the past, but supervision. What's your concern with supervision and what are your thoughts about if I'm a law firm wanting to be insured? What can I share? What helps ease your mind? You see where I'm going? How can I present as a good risk in light of this change? LEAH: Yeah, that is a great question. Supervision amongst law firms has always been a hot topic for underwriters. This isn't a new issue, but it's certainly more prevalent now that COVID has moved more folks to working from home. Supervision in general, it's just knowing what you, your partners, your associates, your employees are doing on a daily basis, and understanding that if there are questions, if you're a collaborative law firm, that you have the ability to reach out and talk through those issues and not feel like you're on an island, like you need to make a decision in isolation, and so, that expressing how you typically manage either those daily conversations, you manage the big picture conversations that happen for your firm. That kind of thing is interesting for the underwriter and important, I think, for us to understand that you are cognizant of your risks in the firm that way. MARK: Am I incorrect in what I hear you saying, at least to some degree here, is are we really talking a little bit about wellness, checking in and trying to keep people connected? Is that where you're focusing with this checking in daily or it's a procedural thing? Maybe it's both, I don't know. LEAH: Yeah. Yeah. I would see it as both, kind of two prongs your wellness, and that's a great point to bring up., That there's the wellness for individual attorneys really is just keeping everybody connected and engaged and it has to become more of a top of mind activity amongst the firm. The other side of that is the supervision and making sure that the work product itself is available for conversation. Perhaps you set up Zoom office hours, if you and your staff are spread across, so that they know a specific time that they can get ahold of you, or you have with your team a specific daily meeting time that you're going to check in and answer questions, or even just engage in that office chit chat that you normally don't get to when everybody's working from home. We miss that. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. I love that you brought that up because I have been, as you know, telecommuting. I'm 300 and what, 50 miles away from the mothership here, and longterm telecommuting can work some people and for others, it really doesn't. I think one of the reasons that it doesn't is this connection piece, the water cooler conversation, or sharing a cup of coffee in a break room or those kinds of things. That was a hard transition for me. What was so interesting, the shift to work-from-home in my world, in terms of just me personally, was a nonevent. I'm already there, but the company's response was night and day game changer for myself and a few others that have been longterm remote employees, because we are now far more engaged. MARK: You and I are having this discussion. Everybody hears the audio, but we're watching each other. We're on Microsoft Teams. That we have used, I think, as a company in a very effective way, to maintain engagement amongst the Alps community in terms of the workforce. As a risk manager, I absolutely agree with you. I think supervision is important from this connectivity piece, this wellness piece. And, might I add, the challenge with this supervision wellness angle is that when we aren't together day to day, it's a little more difficult to really, unless we're using video and having some regular conversations to understand, if you and I share office space, you're going to pick up that I'm depressed or that I'm struggling in person much more quickly and more easily. And so, I think it's important if this work-from-home goes longterm and maybe permanent for some, we need to keep these issues in mind. MARK: I now switch back. In terms of process, I described this as the accountability problem, and I just invite lawyers, from administrators and those in charge in terms of internal processes, do you need to review and perhaps even redesign what you're doing? We had a situation I learned about where everybody left, worked from home at a law firm, but FedEx was still coming, and so, what they did is put a cardboard box outside a locked front door and a sign, 'FedEx drop and pick up from here' and a little arrow. There are envelopes in here for FedEx to pick up. Now you know there are confidential information in there. You just sit here and go, what are you thinking? I get the panic that that might need to happen for a day or so. That's what the best idea. I'd like to see something else, but that cannot be permanent. MARK: I invite folks that are listening again, to think about your calendaring process, the mail process, client communication, file documentation. Are we really keeping all of our files current? Are we maintaining client competences? For instance, fold this over into a professionalism piece, but you have to have a workspace that the kids aren't running back and forth in the background in the PJs and having a water balloon fight while you're trying to meet with your client. That just can't happen. It's a professionalism issue, but it's also, they can't and should never have access to the home computer that you're using for work, those kinds of things. There's some thoughts on trying to manage some of this. Do you have other things that you'd like to add to this one? LEAH: Well, let's talk about what you had said, reinvisioning what your processes are. As you look at that, you've moved as a firm, say to a part-time work-from-home, due to COVID. Maybe you want to continue that, maybe that makes sense for your firm. And so, it's a good opportunity for you to look at what new technology is out there, what new opportunities you have to create efficiency for your law firm to meet your client's needs. And then, also just making sure as you make those shifts, that that tech technology training takes place, that people are really comfortable with it. Again, circling back to the wellness. Are you able to use it and actually see each other on Teams and have those connections and feel comfortable in a client meeting to be able to communicate what you need to communicate to them? Keeping top of mind on all the new stuff coming out, just rolling out, based on COVID. There's so many new opportunities every day. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. There really are. I've got to do a jump shift here. You know me, I go off on these tangents at times. I love the comment about, again, looking at processes, but also reviewing and trying to understand the technology. More and more I've been talking about, lawyers are to understand the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. We're always very good about the benefits, risks aren't so as obvious, and you really need to take some time. It's just by way of example, and it's just trying to underscore the importance of reviewing your processes and really looking at everything. Let's say you and our adverse attorneys representing adverse parties, and we're in a meeting and we're all talking, I set this up, I can control whether people are recording this from the platform, but people can also just put up their phone and record. I can't do everything to prevent things from being recorded. MARK: It's just one crazy example of, we need to think through the ramifications of what we're doing and the technology, how we're using it. Hear me clearly. There's absolutely nothing wrong and it's not incompetent or anything to use Zoom or Teams, but we have to understand the benefits and the risks and address them. Same might be with a collaborative calendar thing that's out on the web. It's about just trying to maintain client confidences and maintaining the privacy of the data and whatnot. MARK: I'd like to take a moment and share a couple of specific risk management tips that are important to me. If you have other tips to add here, please, please, again, jump in. MARK: I want to share just, again, some obvious things that come to my mind from a risk perspective. This hopefully goes without saying, but I think we see this all the time. COVID in situations like this, in terms of recessions and whatnot, you're going to see this type of claim go up, and it's really dabbling. Please don't dabble or do a quick jump shift, do a new practice area. I have spoken with attorneys that are very intentionally moving right now and very aggressively, into the bankruptcy space, for obvious reasons. Some are doing this, again, it's a jump shift, and know absolutely nothing about it, or very, very little and others are very, very intentional about it and really taking their time and developing processes and procedures, getting mentors, and really coming up to speed in a very appropriate way. So, caution, jump shifts, dabbling very dangerous. LEAH: Mark, I'll comment on that. MARK: Please. LEAH: That is an area that we see so many claims come out of competent, smart attorneys who just have taken a case or taken on an area of practice that they don't get the full spectrum of it. It's definitely ripe for either missteps and just missing something because it's a nuance to that practice. I absolutely agree with you on that. MARK: It's one of those things. We just don't know what we don't know, and that's the problem on the dabble. I also would strongly encourage you, more than ever, to determine upfront if clients can afford your services and also thoroughly document your scope, because more and more, it's not face-to-face in the same room having conversations. We need to be clear. If I'm interviewing you and you're interviewing me in terms of price, a potential client, and I'm potential lawyer here, we really to understand. Leah, can you afford this? It's not a discussion over my hourly rate. Here's what this divorce might cost or what this bankruptcy might cost, and these are some variables, and I'll give you the best effort that I can to give you some accurate parameters, but then this is what I'm going to do and what I'm not going to do. MARK: I think now more than ever, these are key, key things to do. Again, I brought this up at the very beginning, I would not get aggressive in collection practices right now. Maybe to really underscore this, a lot of lawyers will say, "I did good work, got a good outcome, I deserve to be paid now more than ever." I don't care. It's completely irrelevant. That's a given, let it go. The only issue is, is there any money out there to get? A harsh reality is, a lot of these people with furloughs and everything else, there is no money. They're not paying the rent. You think you as the lawyer are first in line? That ain't happening. It's roof and food for the kids. They're a top priority right now. I would not get aggressive with collection actions. MARK: I'm not saying walk away. I'm just saying let's be reasonable about, because you can put people in a corner, and then the counterclaim is coming. Of course, make sure that everybody's aware of changes in relevant rules, regulations, and laws, so that we don't blow some filing deadlines just because we're out of the loop. I would also add that clients should be made aware of changes that might impact their matter. So don't overlook keeping clients informed, but because it's their matter. LEAH: What a great idea. MARK: You need to allow them to meaningfully participate, that kind of thing. There are some risk tips that I have. Do you have anything that comes to mind from your end that you would want to add or think about? LEAH: Yeah. Just drafting off what you just said, basically, considering those kind of client needs and taking those steps to make sure that they're met, being clear about what response times need to be now that people are maybe working different hours as they're virtual or working from home, a little more flexibility, whether folks want virtual meetings or in person, and how to manage those risks, specifically, just being open and up front about what your clients need. The other big thing, it's not new that attorneys take their work home. That's definitely not a new phenomenon, but with some of these more flexible arrangements, just being clear about securing client information that you bring back and forth, even laptops and hardware, software issues that you might have, being just top of mind on that stuff. MARK: Well, and I appreciate that. Let's look at that a little more in depth. What we're really getting into is just cybersecurity, cyber liability, that whole issue. Let me share, well, before I do, do you have, again, from an underwriting perspective, are there, because we also sell cyber liability insurance to lawyers ... LEAH: We do. MARK: Are there risks? Does this situation, in terms of COVID, work-from-home, virtual law, all this stuff, does that change your risk analysis at all? Do you have any concerns that come up? LEAH: Well, certainly one of the big ones is that the home systems just are not as secure as often office situations are, when it comes to hardware routers, all of those setups, personal devices, like your cell phone, just may need to be reexamined. We had talked before about looking at your internal processes, and it's a good time to look again at your cyber processes as well. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Understand folks, there is a difference between trying to secure systems and protecting and maintaining data. Those are actually two different things. There's a lot of overlap, but not entirely. I'm going to come back to this here in a minute, but you talked about home systems, and just to underscore that point, can I share to our listening audience, home routers, as an example, often they are older devices. They have not ever been appropriately set up, meaning the default password hasn't been changed. You can get these default passwords off the routers in seconds off Google. You just figure out what kind of router it is. It's typically 'admin' or some silly thing like that, encryption hasn't been turned on, et cetera, and cybercriminals know this, and they are taking real advantage of this. MARK: We need to think through, we typically don't have IT support dealing with our home systems, but now that the home systems are the primary system, we need to think through this and make sure that the steps that we've taken to secure the perimeter of the work environment, of the office network, et cetera, now extends to the home environment. That security piece needs to be in play, but that's not enough. Getting back to privacy of data, how many of us routinely at home, work with shared devices? My wife and I each have our own phone, but we use each other's phones at times. If we're out, "Here, can you just do that?" We share home computers and it's kids having to do homework, maybe need to get on Dad's computer or Mom's computer. MARK: What have you done to protect client confidences? In a perfect world, no family member, unless they are employed by the firm, should have access to any of this equipment period. It just really shouldn't happen. So, think about personal use and who's using all of this to try to maintain. One of the things that I'd like to talk about, too, that I think a lot of lawyers don't understand, let me ask you this. I hopefully I'm not putting you on the spot here, Leah. My guess is not. If I'm a law firm and I go out and this is not going to be unique to Alps, I'm just going to use Alps as an example. I go out and I buy this cyber liability policy for my firm from Alps, does that insurance cover all these devices that people have in their homes that are using personally for work? Does that coverage extend? LEAH: Such a great point. Such a great question. That's dialing down. Do you know what your policy covers? Have you read what the policy language specifies? Typically there's going to be carve-outs for personal devices, because they're better covered somewhere else. There could be certain requirements. One of the big ones is out-of-band communication when it comes to wire transfers. You're required to double check, pick up that phone and call whoever it is that told you to wire the money to a certain area. You have some of that responsibility, and that's an important to know that on the front end. Absolutely. What a great question. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So folks, I don't want to put anybody here in this extreme panic. Policy language is going to differ, but generally, these policies cover equipment that is either owned by or leased for law firm purposes. That is not what a home laptop is, or the home cell phone, or the home iPad, and all these other things. Now, if a personal device was the pathway perhaps into the network and the firm's network is breached and something happens, every carrier, these policies, there's a lot of the tail to them, but I have trouble seeing how an insurer wouldn't be stepping up for that one. The real concern is if the attack is limited to, and this is happening, which is why I'm having this conversation, to the home systems, so if I'm a hacker and I break in, Leah, to you as an attorney at a firm, into your home laptop, and I steal everything. I don't need the network anymore. MARK: You've got all this stuff on your laptop, and- LEAH: What a great opportunity. MARK: -and then, you turn around and say, "Well, I have cyber coverage for this." No, you don't. The firm has cyber coverage for firm equipment. This isn't firm equipment. It's just something to think about, just to be aware of. It gets back to thinking through your practices and procedures and your processes in light of these changes, so I would obviously encourage IT support to address any concerns. And even just said, talk to your IT support person. "Here's what's going on in various homes. What do you think we should do? What are your concerns? Can you help us?" Just take it a step at a time. Other thoughts, other concerns that you have here, I don't want to take up too much of your precious time, but ... LEAH: Well, I think these are excellent, excellent tips that you've brought up, and a lot of really thought-provoking information for firms and attorneys to mull over, especially if folks are considering doing more of a longterm flexible work-from-home situation. Yeah. MARK: Yeah. Can I end with this? If firms are going to think about really extending at least a part of the workforce perhaps, more of a full time work-from-home remote, which in my mind is a little bit different than a virtual practice, but I think from a risk perspective, really not a whole lot. Initially, is just the fact that we have work-from-home folks now, is that an "Uh oh," for an underwriter in terms of just that fact? LEAH: That's a great question. No, if you have a virtual practice or somewhere in that spectrum, from virtual practice down to a flexible working from home environment, again, it's not something necessarily that is new to the industry. It's just more prevalent now with firms. And so, knowing that the attorneys are looking out for some of these pitfalls, cognizant of what they need to do to mitigate, that's really the important stuff that underwriters want to know. MARK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important for folks to hear. It's a great place to end on, because in my mind, there's nothing wrong with work-from-home. It's not the tool, it's what do we do with this situation we find ourselves in. LEAH: Exactly. MARK: If we were really concerned about all these changes, we wouldn't want to insure new young lawyers that just hang up a shingle, because they don't know what they're doing. You see where I'm going? You don't have 10 years experience to be this computer geek, have this high tech system at home. The insurance industry, we are comfortable with the change. LEAH: You bet. MARK: What becomes important is, how do you respond to the change? Are you responsible in managing these transitions, and then following through and adjusting ordering processes? If you're thinking long term of staying in this space in full or in part, I really encourage all of you folks to take some of the things that we've raised here to heart. I've been telecommuting for 10 years. I love it. I won't ever go back. I'm assuming Alps will allow me that, extend that privilege, that I could stay out here, but it's not the work-from-home environment that's a concern. It's how we are all responding and dealing with the work-from-home. So, that's my final word. Leah, do you have any other closing comment or anything else? LEAH: Well, I appreciate some of these concrete tips. I can see how they'd be so helpful to take advantage of, and just circling back to the root of all of this is the wellness, and making sure that you have what you need as the attorney and the connections that you need within your firm and your clients. What a great top priority to have. MARK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely agree. Well, Leah, thank you so much for spending a little time with me and the audience today. I hope you've had some fun. Look forward to doing this again. We periodically get together. LEAH: Absolutely. MARK: It'll be awesome. I look forward to the next one. Before I sign off, I do want to update anyone that has listened to an earlier podcast called Listening to Your Life. It's a little bit of a story, of a challenge my wife gave me, and just share some thoughts about what was happening. Basically, I've been doing a lot of bike riding, and there was a challenge to ride 1,200 miles by the end of summer, which is defined as the end of September. It's all started at the beginning of the COVID stay-at-home situation here in Montana. But, as of today, which is what, the 12th of August, I'm at 1,421. LEAH: Whoa! MARK: I am rocking it and I've upped my goal. Now I'm going to try to hit 1,750 by the end of August or September. It's been a lot of riding, a lot of fun. As we near the end, or shortly after the end of this, I'm going to come back and do another little podcast on Listening to Your Life and some learning to the whole process. But for those of you that are monitoring all of this 1,421 as of today, it's a lot of miles, but it's been a great experience. So, I will say goodbye to all of you. If you have any thoughts, concerns, issues you'd like to discuss in future, or perhaps you're in a podcast, don't hesitate to reach out to me at mbass@bassatalpsinsurance.com. Happy to try to help in any way that I can. Thanks again, folks. Thanks, Leah. Goodbye.  

A lawyer was waiting on a fax with all the information she needed to complete a wire transfer. Fax received, money sent. What she didn't know? Her email had been hacked. Cybercriminals had intercepted the fax and edited the wire transfer details before sending it. The money was gone. The worst part? This new cybersecurity scam is really easy to execute and happening everywhere. ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte lays out the details and how to spot the breadcrumbs so you and your firm's employees won't be caught off guard. Transcript:  Hello, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here without ALPS. Today, I'm going to do a little solo performance, and thought it would be really worthwhile to talk about how to avoid cybercrime, being a victim of cybercrime. And I am particularly going to focus on wire fraud, business email compromise. We have had a number of lawyers impacted by this with literally millions of dollars, in total together, stolen. And certainly, this problem is not limited to lawyers, but there is one very easy way to avoid falling victim to these types of attacks. And I'd really like to explore that a little bit. And what I'm going to get to is simply do... Explain and describe the process of an out-of-band communication, and actually this process can be valuable in other ways as well. But I thought the best way to try to share what an out-of-band communication is and explain the whole process, is through sharing two stories and then talking about how it could have been handled differently through the use of an out-of-band communication. So here are two stories that also, I guess, for some of you may underscore how sophisticated cybercrime is becoming. The first is not a law firm situation but an excellent example, and it has to do with what we call deepfake audio. And I think some people are becoming more and more aware that they're deepfake audios and deepfake videos exist. But let me explain what that is. A deepfake video is when you take a person and you might be... I've seen some really good ones with Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama over the years, and it just... You see these individuals talking, but they are saying something in their voice and it sounds perfect that they never said. And so, these are deepfakes, it's just altered. And these things can be done, not only with video but with audio. So, sort of with that understanding, here's what happened. A CEO at a corporation was out of the office on... Just traveling on business. And the CFO at the corporation received a phone call during this time away. And later on, he reported that this call or, I should say, the voice on the call, was absolutely perfect. He was utterly convinced he was speaking with the CEO, the way the CEO used the language, the way he... Just the way he spoke, it was just spot on. So, believing that he was speaking with the CEO, he was instructed and followed through on wiring around $275,000 out of the country. Because of the success of that, a little bit later another call came in, again to the CFO, purportedly from the CFO, and there are some other discussions in sharing and there are some other reasons he needs some more money moved. And it's only by happenstance that as the CFO was talking on the phone, he could see... He just glanced at his phone and saw that the number, the originating number, was a New Zealand phone number. And he knew that the CEO was not in New Zealand, and terminated the call, and really started to say, "Oh my gosh, this is fake. And we've been scammed." Unfortunately, the initial funds that were transferred were not recovered, but at least no more money was taken. So with that, that's an example of a deepfake audio cybercrime. Now, here's a second story that did involve a law firm. And, many lawyers are aware of phishing tax, fake emails, spoofed emails, and all kinds of things, but here's an attack that was very sophisticated. In short, the law firm worked with company that provides eFax services. And they set up a dedicated email account for these fax as to come into the firm, eFax in order to come into the firm. And unbeknownst to anyone at the firm, the firm's email accounts, all of them, were breached and someone was monitoring what was going on. And this is not uncommon in terms of having someone monitor your email and those kinds of things. It often will go easily, maybe a couple of weeks to several months. And what they are doing is, as their monitoring offices, they're looking for opportunity, of course, but they are also learning who talks, who the players are, how they communicate in writing and just understand sort of the business model, what's going on. Because, when they make their move and there are a variety of ways they'll make their move, they're going to look and have it appear to be really accurate and legitimate. But anyway... So, here's what happened with this situation. The bad guy, if you will, was monitoring and very interested in the eFax account because these lawyers happen to do real estate. And there were a lot of instructions coming through via fax. If a fax had... Was of no interest it would kind of be forwarded along really quickly so no one was aware that these emails were being intercepted and looked at. At one point, a fax came through authorizing... Wiring instructions or whatnot, for a significant amount of money on the sale of a home. And all the hacker had to do was just take that fax and change the routing number, the wiring instructions here on this document. Made that change, set it on. So, please understand what happened here. A lawyer is expecting a fax with all the information he or she needs to complete this transfer or to follow through [inaudible 00:07:27] moving the money, it's an expected email, an expected fax coming in via email. It is from a known and trusted source. No one knows, however, that it has been intercepted and the routing information changed. So, based on a belief that everything is absolutely fine, a substantial amount of funds were wired. And of course, to the wrong bank, the wrong individual, and there was a substantial loss there. So, those are two stories about... Just giving examples of how crazy cybercrime has gotten. But, how could you have prevented this from happening? And it really is quite easy. And it's done through the use of an out-of-band communication. And it simply means we're going to change the communication channel to verify. So for instance, in the first example where we had a deepfake audio. What could have been happened, right? Perhaps I should say, should have happened, is the company would have a policy that says whenever we're moving any substantial amount of money... And we can define what that is, 5,000, 25,000, whatever works for your own situation, but let's say it's $5,000. So, anytime we're going to move $5,000 or more, you're going to have an out-of-band communication to verify. And so, with that policy in place, the CFO has received a phone call from someone that he believes is the CEO authorizing or providing instructions to move money. He should hang up. And after that call, he knows what the CEO's phone number is, he doesn't have to look it up, he's not looking at... Just returning the call or anything like that. He texts the CEO, Hey, boss, in accordance with our policy, I'm just confirming that you called me and have asked me to wire 275,000 to Germany or whatever it might be. And if the boss texts back, yes, thank you, please take care of it. Fine, wire the money. The boss is, "I don't know what you're talking about, it seems like there's a scam going on here." Stop, don't wire the money. In the second situation, again, we have this fax coming in from another lawyer, a realtor, I don't know where it originated and doesn't really matter. But, it's coming. And I would guess in this situation more than one... This is a known... The fax is going between probably a realtor and the lawyer on a fair to regular basis. And so, all the lawyer needed to do was, again, pick up his phone because he knows and has the accurate, known, correct number on his cell phone. And if he doesn't he'll look it up or even in... If... At the beginning of representation, you verify with all the parties, what is the trusted contact information? What is your real email? What is your phone number? What is your address? And then, you go back and you look that up so that you know you're using the correct phone number. You don't want to look at a phone number that's in an email coming to you and use that, because the scammer will give you a fake email... I'm sorry, a fake phone number. But... So, you just... You call in and you say, "Susan, yeah, just received the fax. You know the routine here, just want to confirm. Is the routing number that you've given us the accurate number?" And you read it off, "It's [inaudible 00:11:31] 223..." On and on. And if she says, "Yep, that's right." Go ahead and move the money. If she says, "No, that's wrong." Somebody is breached. So, stop. You obviously can get the accurate information and continue on with the transaction, but you also now know that you're breached, somebody is breached, and we need to figure out who and clean these systems up, restore and get whoever's in the system out. It may be as simple as just changing passwords on all the emails. You're going to need some help from somebody that really knows what they're doing here, can determine how far... What does the attacker have access to? But, you know you're breached and you need to stop. So, that's an example of how out-of-band communications can really prevent your becoming a victim of a crime. I have talked, obviously, with our claims attorneys over the years many times, I mean we all get along quite well and interact and keep each other up to speed on what's going on. And I have yet to hear about any situation, both externally and just other stories with peers and internally from all of our claims lawyers, that if an out-of-band communication would have occurred, that would have prevented every single theft that we have seen. And please understand the vast majority of malpractice polices, I can't say all of them because I have not seen all of them, but the vast majority of malpractice policies do not cover theft of funds. So, that should also catch your attention as to the value of implementing a firm wide policy, with a little training here, that says, no one, I don't care if it's the most senior attorney down to the new bookkeeper, is authorized to move any money under any circumstances unless an out-of-band communication has occurred, so that we know we are sending the money to the correct legitimate recipient. So that's an out-of-band communication. I hope that you have found some value. And let me... I [inaudible 00:14:06] you can take this a little further. At times people receive email that looks legitimate, and it has nothing to do with wiring money and that kind of stuff. But, we're being tricked into opening an email or opening an attachment, and doing so can unintentionally allow the installation of a malicious program, a malicious app of some sort. And that might be even the pathway in, so that somebody can now start monitoring your email to look for an opportunity to try to commit wire fraud. So, think about the value too, of training employees and having everyone at the firm be aware that, Hey, if we have some questions about an email that has come in, what is this bill that... Don't open it yet. Don't click, don't look, don't investigate, because it just feels odd, it feels off. Reach out to the legitimate company or legitimate individual that purportedly sent this to you and say, "We're not... This doesn't make sense. I don't recall authorizing new folks to provide some service [inaudible 00:00:15:30], we don't have any account with you, we don't know what you're talking about. Thank you for letting us know. Somebody apparently might be using our email address or our company name in a fraudulent way and..." But... Again, you just confirm, you figure out in advance, okay, that's not trustworthy and I don't want to open that. So, out-of-band communications can be used in a variety of ways to really thwart the efforts of what cyber criminals are trying to do. So, that's it. I hope you found something of value in all of this. And as always, if you have any questions, concerns on risk, ethics, cyber security, and whatnot, please don't hesitate to reach out to me anytime, and you do not need to be an absent short. My email address is mbass@alpsinsurance.com. Thanks for listening folks, have a good one. Bye-bye.  

Lawyers become lawyers to help people. To right wrongs, to champion for justice. While law school prepares you substantively for the legal issues you'll face in private practice, it doesn't address the systemically unhealthy cultural expectations of the profession.  Five years in, one new lawyer found that the tremendous workload, low associate's salary in the face of huge student loans, and endless extra hours to stay on the partner track simply weren't worth missing out on his daughter's childhood. 84% of new lawyers we surveyed agreed. So is the culture of law doomed, or could building in a structure of support — to help people — be the answer? ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte and ALPS Claims Attorney Shea Sammons discuss.   Transcript:    MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte the risk manager here with ALPS, and it is my pleasure to have Shea Sammons join me this afternoon. As we talk a little bit about a survey that we did with young lawyers here at ALPS. But before we get into that, Shea, can you just tell everybody that's listening a little bit about yourself?   SHEA SAMMONS: So I'm a claims attorney at ALPS. I'm originally from Montana, long line of Montanans. I think I'm fifth generation. Went to undergrad here at University of Montana Western down in Dillon. Had a professor kind of talk me into going into law school. I was a little bit interested anyway, but he definitely swayed me. So I went to law school here at the university. Graduated, went into private practice, was in private practice for about five years and then came on board with ALPS. MARK: Very good. Well, very good. Again, I appreciate your joining us. Why I thought it would be fun to talk with Shea. We did a survey of young lawyers and had some, not completely unexpected responses. But as we looked at the responses and chatted about it with some of the younger lawyers here at ALPS, it became apparent that that Shea, as an example, in his own path, his own experience, really mirrored a lot of the responses that we saw. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about that and share part of your story. And see if we can get some insights and learnings from what your generation is struggling with in terms of young lawyers. You talked initially about a professor sort of encouraging you to head into law. Is there more to that? I mean, why did you end up going to law school? What was the dream, for lack of a better description?   SHEA: Yeah, so originally I went to school to be a teacher. A lot of people in my family are teachers, educators. Decided that I didn't have the patience to deal with young children after I did some field experience. So I had a degree in history and I had a degree in political science. What am I going to do with these things? It was either grad school, law school, something like that, continuing my education. And then I had something happen with a family member in law that I didn't really understand. And it was pretty out of my control, which I also didn't like. So that was kind of what maybe peaked my interest in law. And then going through my last semester of school, I had a professor, constitutional law was a requirement for me to get my political science degree. Took that class. Became not really interested in it, but it was an interesting class. And I loved the professor and he was like, "Well, have you ever thought about going to law school?" I said, "No." Just took the LSATs kind of on a whim type of thing. And then I just set my mind that I was going to go to law school. Applied here at the university, got in and ended up going. I guess that's how I went into law school. MARK: All right. Actually, your expectations in terms of what ... I think we all go into law with an idea in our head anyway, of what it's like to be a lawyer. So I'm kind of looking at what were your expectations versus the reality, both in law school and post law school? Did they line up at all? Was I ... SHEA: I think my expectations of law school were pretty spot on with the amount of work that it was, the dedication that it was, the financial burden that it is, and that it became. I knew those things going in.  The thing that didn't really align with my expectations was private practice. I think one of the reasons is I went into law school wanting to be a prosecutor. I wanted to be this champion for justice and had these noble goals of doing the right thing for people that couldn't do the right thing for themselves and righting wrongs. And then we start getting into these little kid cases and like crim pro. And I'm just like, there's no way I could be a prosecutor if I have to deal with this kind of stuff. I was interning at a law firm that first year, and I was coming home. And just thinking about these nonsense housing development disputes that we have until like 11 o'clock at night. I couldn't imagine bringing that kind of work home with me. So I switched over and started focusing on civil litigation. Because I always did want to be a litigator, be in the courtroom. I liked that sort of thing. Got through law school. My entire law school career, I clerked for ... Up until the last semester when I got hired on at the firm that I wound up working for here in Missoula, I clerked for a firm in Missoula that primarily does civil defense. We defended insurance companies, basically. At that point, I kind of realized that I had, I don't know if consigned is the right word for it. But I had just given up that the noble law avenue. And I was just going to pursue this avenue through law that provided a good living. That I knew that work was always going to be there, that our clients were going to pay their bills. That sort of thing. Graduated, went on with a firm here in Missoula. And I did not expect the amount of hours that I had to put into things to be as heavy as it was in law school. Even clerking and seeing the amount of work that partners were doing, that sort of thing at the firm that I was clerking at. And some of that might've been my own personal way that I work. And not being able to figure out right away the most efficient way to do things or get through a brief or whatever it is. I was kind of in a lucky position. The firm that I stepped into had a couple of really good partners that really wanted to bring me along and were dedicated in developing me as a litigator. Really good at basically just holding my hand through a lot of it. "This is the motion. This is how the motions games work. You want to file this motion when this sort of thing happens. Don't make that argument. You're just giving the court reason to give the opposing party what they want," that sort of thing. So I was lucky that I had that handholding, but still the amount that I was expected to work and the amount that I had to work were not something that I was prepared for from law school. I think that they do a good job, at least the law school I went to did a great job of preparing me substantively for the legal issues that I was going to encounter like intellectually. They did a great job of preparing me for it. Trial wise, I don't know if I had ... I did trial class and I was on moot court team, but we didn't really have any trial prep outside of that. Or we didn't do any sort of deposit ... How do you go through a deposition with people? Motions in limine, that sort of thing. There was no preparation for that in law school. And maybe you can't prepare for that. MARK: I think it'd be hard. I think you can, through perhaps ... I've looked at the medical school model practicums and internships and things. Maybe there's something there, but law schools ... I'm quite a bit older and your description of law school is very, very similar to mine. I've always thought, I think law schools really do a pretty good job of teaching how to be a lawyer. But a horrible job at teaching you the realities of how to run a legal business. How to make this thing work day to day in any kind of same way. That's sort of how I responded to all of that. But any regrets? Would you do it again? SHEA: I think that I would do it again. I would try to get in the door at ALPS a lot quicker than ... Not to kiss boots or anything, but that's a little bit. I mean, I think private practice was just so demanding just by its nature. You have to put those hours in or else you don't get the work done, and you're going to have mad clients. You're going to have poor work product, that sort of thing. You're not going to have a job eventually, but other than just, maybe I wasn't prepared for the amount of work that it was, or the way that the work is also expected to be done. But I wouldn't say that I regret going to law school. I would have thought a lot harder about it. The other part of that, the other side of that coin, I guess, would be the financial burden that you have after law school. I knew that I was taking out student loans going through law school, but it's not something that really hits you until you get out of law school. And you're like, "Holy cow. That's some loans." And then on the outset, you're just making first year associate money. Which lawyers make a decent amount of money as compared to some other professions or whatever. But I would say that, or I'm going to say that, I think that lawyers are probably underpaid for maybe the first two or three years. Considering the amount of financial burden that a lot of them have to take on to get out of law school.  I had friends that were making $45,000 a year with $120,000 worth of debt that they took on just to get through law school. And I mean, you can't even pay the principal on the loan with that amount. MARK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And at what you're sharing for those listening here today, a lot of Shea's insights really match what others have said on the survey. That just tremendous cost and not having a true realistic understanding of what the work environment and the financial side of all this is post law school. You see some same things in Madison. Some people think you can make a lot of money and some people do. But a lot of people—   Shea Sammons: —Don't.   MARK: It's day to day. I mean, it's okay. Pardon me. I have a little cough here. Excuse me. But at that load it, you see the same thing in Madison. It's just sometimes even quite a bit higher. And they just can't ever get out of that. SHEA: I think- MARK: Yeah, please go ahead. SHEA: I'm going to just interrupted you a little bit. MARK: No, please. SHEA: I think also the way that the business is structured in law with the partnership structure, which is usually the common way that firms are structured. You're on partner track, you put in three, five, seven, nine years, whatever the partner track is at your firm. But until you make partner, you're still making that associate money. And then you're hoping to maybe supplement that with some kind of bonus that your boss is willing to throw you, or hopefully you get a raise. Otherwise, it's just, you're making that little amount of money to make partner. MARK: Would you say the environment was sort of a sink or swim environment or was it more really geared to mentoring and they really did ... What was your experience? SHEA: I think that's the one, and maybe not just the only one, but one of the areas where my experience isn't really the norm from what I've talked to with my classmates, at least. Because I was really brought along, I had two partners that were very good. They'd been attorneys in the area. A lot of them were practicing for 30 years. They'd help write some of the laws in this state. Really great attorneys. And they really cared about bringing me along as an attorney. So I had, it was more of that mentorship for sure. But I think that's the exception to the rule in some places. MARK: Wow. That's again, what we see a lot on the survey. Yeah. I think your experience is a bit of an exception there. What really led you to say, "Okay, the private practice life isn't, you know ..." SHEA: Not for me. MARK: Yeah. You start looking elsewhere. SHEA: I think it was a couple of things. So I have a four-year-old daughter. The main thing was that I was having to work enough that I was starting to miss things in her life. Like they're going to go fishing, once I get off work we got a brief due on Monday. I'm going to have to be at the office for another three hours. You guys got to go without me. Or she's in T-ball or whatever it is. And I have to miss a game. That sort of thing. That just in my experience, is something that I wasn't willing to sacrifice, just so that I could put in enough hours to make partner, make as much money as I possibly could. That sort of thing. Work at that point, wasn't worth more than missing out on things with my daughter. So that was the main driver, I think. The other one was just the workload, it's crazy. But I mean, by nature, it sort of has to be that. And some of my friends that I graduated with, love it. They were born to be letting [inaudible 00:14:33] 70 hours all week, every week. You know, those sorts of people. That's just not how I'm wired, I guess. And that comes to another point that a lot of people were making on the survey that it's really hard to find that life-work balance. You feel worked to death and there's no area, no room for anything else outside of work. MARK: Yeah. I love how you talked about your daughter and the importance of that and driving the change. I've spent a lot of years on the road. And in prior years, long before you got here, I was traveling two weeks every single month. And again, we had five kids and I feel why [crosstalk 00:15:29].   SHEA: It takes a toll. MARK: It does take a toll. And I think I did what you did just in a different way. You just have to find ways to ... And we've talked about this a little earlier. For me, it's not about finding balance. It's about finding creative ways to make each day aspect of your life, whether it's work. I don't like this notion of compartmentalizing either. SHEA: I don't either. MARK: And really sitting and saying, okay. So although I'm 2000 miles away, I may sit down at a restaurant, get a glass of wine and call my wife. And we'll just chat for 15 minutes. And the kids know, okay. One of the other things that I did, it was kind of fun. I took each one out on the road with me. And they got to see what my life was like. SHEA: Exactly. I bet they loved it. MARK: And then they had some great dad and son or dad and daughter time. On a weekend, we'd go. And we have some really good times. SHEA: I bet. MARK: I'd love your thoughts, if you can take a couple minutes and say, speaking to both lawyers that ... or young lawyers that are thinking or people think going to law school or in law school. And young lawyers that are the first couple of years of whatever their professional life looks like. What are your thoughts, thoughts about what can we do in light of the current reality of a lot of debt for a lot of people to go to law school? And I don't know that that's readily solvable, but the long hours. Let's try to shed a little light or offer a little, a window of hope perhaps, for those that sit here and say, "Oh man." You started to second. So I'll let you run however you want to run with that. It's a bunch of things in there.   SHEA: I think then the first thing, at least that helped me to accept. Just to accept that the way to you achieving some sort of happiness. Because I think that's what you're talking or we're talking about with this, the concept of life work balance. It's being happy while also being able to maintain this lifestyle of being a lawyer. The work aspect of it. MARK: Okay. Yes. SHEA: So I think part of it is just accepting that the profession, at least the way that lawyers work, that's just the way that it's going to be. If you're not up for working or putting in a certain amount of hours. Like with me, I litigated. If you're not up for putting in those 60 hour weeks at the beginning, especially when you start practicing, then you probably shouldn't be a litigator. There's other areas of law that don't require that hour workload. I think the other thing is as well, is it ... And this is something that I've kind of gained perspective on just recently in coming on with ALPS, I think is that I worked a ton when I very first came out of law school. But I got more efficient at getting my work done. And I maximized my hours in a more efficient way, I guess, for lack of a better term. I think people need to view that our load and that the insane amount of hours that maybe they will have to work as soon as they got out of law school or whether they do or not in a more of a longterm perspective. The first five years of practice, you might have to bust your butt and work 60 hour weeks every single week. And you get a week of vacation every year and that's it. That's all you get. But maybe on that sixth year, you make partner and you don't have to do that anymore. You didn't have this ... I don't know. To use the term again. And I agree, I don't really like the term life work balance because it insinuates something that they're separate and you need to put this amount in this one and this amount in this one to balance them out. And how do you do that? That sort of thing. I think the point is, is that you might not have that balance at the beginning of your career, but by the middle of it, you probably will. At least that's been my experience. And I obviously I switched out to get that balance. I'm not private practice anymore. But as I was coming up on those five years, I had a decision to make. The partners were kind of retiring and I could take over the bulk of business that we had at the firm and our clients. And just continue on with this thing as my own, or I could go do something else. And I made the decision that I wanted to go do something else. And that was with ALPS. Yeah. MARK: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have some takeaways on that and I'll share shortly. The one thing that my thought is ... And I think your experience was a little better in terms of having some mentoring and those kinds of things. SHEA: It was, for sure. MARK: But I'm not convinced. I guess I'm further down the road in a non-traditional legal career. Boy, I've worked with thousands of lawyers and you look at all the data on how unhealthy our profession is. I'm not so convinced that once you hit that partner track that it's- SHEA: I agree. MARK: It's all roses. Sometimes I think it can get even crazier. SHEA: Worse. MARK: Which just underscores the value of getting to this balance thing, getting to this finding a health and wellness in all aspects of your life. I mean, some of the things that I take away from Shea's story. I liked the fact again, that you really sat down and said, "Okay, I went into law with I think a relatively good understanding of what you're getting into in terms of studying long hours, that kind of thing." But the other side of that experience, I hear a little bit about, it's not everything that I thought it would be. SHEA: No. MARK: And you are sitting down and saying, "Is this what I want the rest of my life to look like?" And it's in no small part driven by this sweet little thing that you brought into this world. And you look and say, "What are my priorities here? Am I living to work or am I wanting to work to have a life?" And I think you made a very well reasoned and intentional decision in your career. And to me, that's one important takeaway to all of this. When I look again at a lot of the survey responses. I want to say to these folks, at the end of the day, whether you have regrets or might do things differently. You are where you are and you can make choices. This is your life. I'm another great example. I actually kind of was very interested in doing the same kind of thing you did early on. But I also there's a non traditional legal career and there are lots of lawyers that are non traditional legal careers of all ... There's just so many things. I think that's one of the value adds for lack of a better description of a law degree.   SHEA: I agree. [crosstalk 00:24:00] MARK: Because you can do all kinds of stuff. If you listening to this are sort of ... can relate to Shea's story or feel some of the things that we're sharing with some of the others young lawyers in this survey, in terms of these responses. You are in control. I mean, not saying it's easy but you really have to sit down and ask some tough questions and decide what are my priorities in life. But the other thing that I think is important too, that I like. Sort of underscoring the difference that you shared with your own experience in the law firm. This is where I've made a big mistake. I kind of jumped out and hung up my own shingle with a law school classmate. We were both green and had just no clue what we were doing. SHEA: It's so tough, right? Yeah. MARK: You feel alone. You feel scared. You feel isolated. And let's be honest, you feel incompetent because you don't have any real experience under your belt. SHEA: Because the way that they teach you a law is not necessarily the way that it's practiced. Then all those little pointers and tips that you get to pick up with a mentor. MARK: Yeah. Pardon me, I need a little sip here. My throat's dry. But if you feel alone, isolated, not entirely competent. SHEA: And any of those. MARK: All of those, any and all of this stuff, I think it's very, very normal, first off. So don't feel like, oh, it's just you." SHEA: I felt that way. And I had somebody holding my hand. MARK: Yeah, I did too. And I really do hope that ... To those that are can relate to this whole discussion, you are not alone. You are not unique in feeling what you feel. I'm not saying it's great. I mean, it, unfortunately, in some ways it comes with the territory. But the good news is, again, you can control some of that. But I also think reach out and look core mentors and try to find people. SHEA: I don't know. I might be speaking out of turn. MARK: No, please. SHEA: I don't know if this program still exists in Montana. It did when I was in law school, but there's a mentorship program here. That if you get ahold of the state bar, they can hook, they they'll set you up with somebody to ... You meet up, you have coffee, you bounce ideas off each other. How should I write this brief? What do I need to do here? MARK: Right. And a number of bars all over the country have various programs. They may be structured a little bit differently, but mentoring, there's a tremendous need for it. But what a lot of folks don't realize, particularly in terms of the younger lawyers, there are also a lot of people out there that are more than willing to do it. There is an availability, particularly the more senior among us. SHEA: Right. And you get on the backside of the practice. MARK: Right. It's a way to give back. They start to slow down. I've talked with enough lawyers that do say, "I have something I would love to give and share." And here's another thought, some of these lawyers still want to practice for a number of years, but you know what they're afraid of and not competent in? And sometimes it's just how to use some of the tack. And what I have found at times, some really interesting mentoring relationships where the senior lawyer's talking a little bit about- SHEA: Just back and forth. A little symbiotic relationship. MARK: "Here's how you do a [inaudible 00:27:46] and don't do this in front the judge." And the other lawyer's saying- SHEA: This is how you [crosstalk 00:27:50]. MARK: Yes, yes. "Here's how you put the screen up one Zoom." It really can be-   SHEA: Value goes both ways.   MARK: Value goes both ways. But I also think at the end of the day, you can get some really meaningful relationships out of it, in terms of just support systems, professional support systems that really add to life.   So this has been awesome, Shea. Do you have other thoughts or points or things that you'd like to share? I want to make sure you get- SHEA: Yeah. Well, the only other thing that I was thinking is I think we've touched on this subject that people are having these experiences. My experience might be a little bit different than your experience. There were a lot of different experiences in the poll. I think the last point that I'd really like to make is we're all obviously individual. And what's going to work for me in trying to find happiness and with my personal life and work might not work with the other person. One of the ways that I started to try to relieve that work stress and try to relieve my mind from working was going running, or getting outdoors. That sort of thing. And that's what worked for me. Maybe for somebody else it's knitting or playing racketball, or sitting there starting a new TV series or whatever it might be. I think again, to touch on your point of it's about internalizing, figuring out what works for you and making a really intentional decision after that thought process on, is this the way that I want to go? Is this the way that I want to go? Is this something that is going to be able to work for me? And then just following through on it. Yeah.   MARK: I absolutely agree. You're speaking, you're saying things, I think I would have said myself in your shoes. I'm just, again, many years further down the road. But for me it's bike riding and cooking. I love.  And interestingly enough, even the choice to be a road lawyer. That like you were saying, some people love to the hours of litigation and the thrill of the courtroom and all that. I am a guy that just loves to move. I mean, I really do. And so I had my challenges to find ways to make that work for my family, because I need to support and take care of my support system. And I'm also a support system to them. So I need to be there, but you can do that. It just took me a little while to learn that I'm the one in control of these decisions. SHEA: Yeah, exactly. MARK: And so I think we'll leave it there. That's, I think the message that we're both trying to make. And I hope that again, walking away with, reach out to support systems, be a support system. But really you're in control of your life. And all that you're feeling is normal. We all feel it it. It's just natural, but there are so many opportunities out there. Just take the time to find ways to reach out and make it work. So I hope you found something of value today. Shea, thank you for taking a little time.   SHEA: Thank you. Yeah. This was fun.   MARK: It really truly has been a pleasure. For those of you listening, please don't hesitate to reach out to me anytime. If there's something I can do in terms of risk question, an ethics issue, a cyber concern of some sort. You do not need to be an ALPS insured to visit with me. My email addresses MBASS, M-B-A-S-S @ALPSinsurance.com. That's it, folks. Thanks. Bye-bye.    

We are using personal devices for work (and working from home) more than we ever have before. These are both big risk factors as cybersecurity threats have soared during the pandemic. So, how do we make security sustainable and not live life at the hackers' mercy? ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Sherri Davidoff, CEO and Founder of LMG Security and the latest addition to the ALPS Board of Directors, to give you some practical advice in guarding your data like the gold it is. TRANSCRIPT: Mark: Let's rock and roll. Hello. Welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I am really excited about our guest today. I have heard her speak and have read a book about her. And let me just share, our guest is Sherri Davidoff, the CEO of LMG Security. And I believe, Sherri, that is short for Lake Missoula Group. Is it not? Sherri Davidoff: It's true. We're named after the lake that we're sitting at the bottom of. Mark: For those of you, it's worth looking up in Wikipedia or Google or something to get a little bit of history of Lake Missoula. That's a whole nother story. But Sherri is a noted speaker, trainer, white hack, excuse me, white hacker, and author of the recently released book, Data Breaches, Crisis and Opportunity. As a recognized expert in cybersecurity and data breach response, Sherri has been called, and I love this, a security badass by the New York Times. I just think that's fantastic. Mark: She has conducted cybersecurity training for many distinguished organizations, including the Department of Defense, the ABA, the FFIEC, the FDIC, and many more. She's also a faculty member at the Pacific Coast Banking School and an instructor for Black Hat, where she teaches her data breaches course. She is also the co-author of Network Forensics: Tracking Hackers Through Cyberspace. It's a Prentice Hall publication, out in 2012. And this is a noted security text in the private sector and a college textbook for many cybersecurity courses. Mark: Sherri is also a GIAC certified forensic examiner, a penetration tester, and holds her degree in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT. She has also been featured as the protagonist in the book Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called Alien. And so welcome, Sherri. And I can say I love the book. Sherri Davidoff: Thank you so much, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Mark: It was a lot of fun. It was a good read. Sherri Davidoff: Good. Mark: What you and I had been visiting about in terms of just having a conversation today, obviously in light of all that has happened in recent months with COVID-19, global pandemic, and this fallout of a very rapid move into working from home did not overlook lawyers. Many, many had to immediately jump and try to figure out how to make this work. And it seems some were pretty successful at that. Others, there were a few struggles, but they got there. But what I really want to focus on is the security side, the security piece of this. Mark: I think remote security is exposing not only lawyers, I think businesses of all shapes and sizes, to unexpected or perhaps a broadened way, broadened their risk, their exposure just because we have at times home systems. And I guess initially, would you agree, is the remote work setting a concern for you? Sherri Davidoff: Well, absolutely. There's an expanded attack surface now that so many people are working remotely. And I'd say that's for two reasons. Number one, because many people have moved to the cloud, or have started logging into work remotely, and therefore poked holes in their firewalls and things like that in order to facilitate it. And everybody did what we needed to do keep going and to keep business up and running. And that's fine. I'm here to tell everybody it's all fine. Sherri Davidoff: Our goal is progress and not perfection. But now's the time to step back and think, "What do we do?" And start cleaning things up, start thinking about, "How do we sustain this potentially long-term?" Because I think remote work has been here for a while and has definitely ramped up, and is here to stay. And the other reason why the attack surface has expanded is because a lot of people are using personal devices for work more than we ever have before. Sherri Davidoff: And so all of a sudden, you have sometimes very sensitive data on your personal device that you also share with your kids, or your friends, and you play games and this and that. And there's a different risk level that we have in our personal lives versus what's appropriate when we're handing this very sensitive information, so we have to balance those issues. Mark: Yeah. I like sort of two comments here, briefly. Initially, I like that you're saying lawyers haven't done anything wrong, in other words, by transitioning. It's so tempting to try to scare the bejeezus out of everybody and say, "You're not doing anything," but they did what they needed to do. And now is the time because I think you're absolutely right, this work from home evolution in terms of the rapid rise of it, is here to stay in a lot of ways. And so now it's time to say not, you've done anything wrong, or you're bad, but let's try to fix it. Sherri Davidoff: How do we make it sustainable and not get hacked all the time? Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to come back to here a little bit down the road, but I do really appreciate the comment of personal devices. And I think that's worth exploring a little bit. Where I'd like to start, if we may, and I don't know if you agree or disagree with this, but even again today, I have come across additional articles talking about an exposure that is I think for so many, flying under the radar. And that is simply the wireless access points, the routers and whatnot that all of us typically have in our homes. And do you feel, is that an overblown risk? Would you have any thoughts about some basic things that staff and lawyers should be thinking about? Sherri Davidoff: Well, it depends where you are. I used to live in the middle of Boston, and there were a zillion people around my house all the time. Now I live in the middle of Montana, and wireless security is always important, but less of a concern. So first of all, consider physically where you are and who might have physical access to that wireless network. And absolutely, your network is only as secure as the devices that are on it. And we've seen time and time again that if a computer gets infected, it will try to infect all the devices around it. So if you have a neighbor that starts using your wireless network, and they happen to have a computer that's been infected, that could absolutely cause risk for systems on your network as well. Mark: Very good. And thoughts about, are there any just practical steps you think folks might be able to take to minimize that likelihood? Sherri Davidoff: Sure. Well, as we were talking about ahead of time, there have been a number of vulnerabilities in common routers and wireless access points. So step number one, make sure that your software is up to date, your firmware is up to date on those devices. And you can do that either, sometimes they have an app that's paired with your smartphone, so you can update it that way. Or you can go into the device itself in the administrative interface and do updates. So every now and then, sit down, have a glass of wine, whatever, update your router. It's fun. It's easy. And change that password. Make sure that the password is not a default, that it's secure, it's not your phone number or your address, because guess what, people know that. Sherri Davidoff: And also that the name of your wireless network is something that does not draw attention to you, that it's a little bit under the radar, boring. Make your network look boring. Mark: I like that. I like that. Sherri Davidoff: Really slow wireless, that's what you should call it. Nobody will want this. Mark: I think your idea of maybe having a glass of wine to do this isn't a bad one because there have been times where I've been trying to do some things in terms of ... I take security very, very seriously because I've been telecommuting, and boy, there are times when certain things aren't as easy as they should be. And just instead of throwing the computer, you could have a little sip of, just relax. Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. Well, risk is your job at ALPS, so I could imagine it's something you take seriously. Mark: That's right. That's right. For a moment, let's just say that I am a lawyer. I'm the owner of a small firm, couple of staff. And we have made this transition out, and everybody's at home for the time being. May or may not be coming back. We'll just see how this all evolves. But as the owner of this small business, what kinds of things really should be on my radar that may not be? What should I think about? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. The number one thing to think about right now is two-factor authentication. And I know that's a big word. I cannot even tell you how important that is because we're living in a world today where all of your passwords have been stolen, just assume that, because if you get a virus on your computer, it's going to steal all your passwords first thing before you even know it. And you're not fooling anybody by keeping it in a Word document with a totally different name. I know that it's there and so do the criminals, and they're just going to grab it. Sherri Davidoff: The other thing is if you reuse passwords on different websites, and one of those websites gets hacked, criminals have automated tools that will try your password in a zillion other websites. It's called credential stuffing attacks. And Akamai, which is a big tech company, reported that there were 61 billion credential stuffing attacks just in the past 18 months. So assume somebody's going to steal your password. You're not going to know about it because that company may not even know they have a data breach. Or if they know, maybe they'll report it to you six months to three years later. Sherri Davidoff: And in the meantime, you need to protect your accounts. The FBI recently reported that the number of business email compromised cases is going up because of coronavirus. Scammers are using tactics to try to trick people out of their money, so they're breaking into email accounts. They're finding examples of invoices, or payments, or things like that. And they're saying, "Oh, due to coronavirus, that bank account is being audited, and I really need these funds. Please send it to this other place." Sherri Davidoff: So you should guard your email account like it is gold because it is. You have valuable information in it. And remember with lawyers, information is your business. Right? If it's valuable to you, or if it's valuable to your client, it is valuable to a criminal. They can leverage it somehow. So protect that email account like it is gold. And your email account can also be used to reset your password on anything else, and the criminals know that, so they're after your email. Mark: That's a great point, that really is. Can you take just a moment or two and explain just a bit more about what you mean by two-factor authentication? I'm not sure that everybody in our audience, I think a lot do, but I know that there are more than a few that really don't understand. And I assume we talk about this, you're really saying we want to use this if we can in any and every setting, so email account, bank account. Sherri Davidoff: Yes. Cloud, you name it. Mark: Cloud, right, right. But can you just share just a little bit more to make sure everybody's with us? Sherri Davidoff: Absolutely. This is my favorite question, Mark. Thank you so much. So two-factor authentication is what you need to know. Authentication means how we verify someone's identity. So online you might have your identity verified with a password. Passwords are dead to me now. In the real world, you might verify your identity with your driver's license. Right? Two-factor authentication is when you use more than one method of verifying someone's identity together. And it makes it a lot less likely that your account will be broken into. And you might not know it, but we use two-factor authentication all the time. I don't know if you can think of a place where you use two different methods of verifying yourself. Mark: Well, the one that comes immediately to mind to me is just a debit card at the ATM machine. Sherri Davidoff: Yes. I'm giving you a prize. I have to rummage through my swag and drop it off at your office. Absolutely, yes. You're the only person I have ever worked with who's gotten it right off the bat. But yes, your debit card. And when ATMs first came out in the '60s, they did not all have a pin number associated with them. You were in England, you'd get your punch card. And if you lost that punch card, some criminal could pick it up and get your money. And it actually took over a decade before all the ATMs in the world had pins. But now, if you had a choice, if your bank said, "Oh, you don't need a pin on that ATM card," how would you feel about it? Mark: I would have a problem with that. Sherri Davidoff: You'd have a problem with it. And it's going to be that way on the internet pretty soon. People will be like, "Really? You don't have two-factor authentication? That's so dangerous. I can't believe it." Mark: Yeah. Sherri Davidoff: I can give you some examples of what you can use for two FA if you want. Mark: Sure. Sherri Davidoff: Okay. So when you're logging into your email for example, some of you are probably familiar with the case where you get a pin on your phone. Right? You log in, it sends a pin to your phone. That's better than nothing, but it's not the best because those are not encrypted. I don't know if you've heard of simjacking attacks, where attackers can take over your phone, or they can get your phone number sent somewhere else, so those are not the best. Sherri Davidoff: What's better than that is an app on your phone, like Google Authenticator, which is free, or Microsoft's Authenticator. And it'll show you a code that you type in. Or even better, it'll just pop up a message that says, "Do you want to authenticate, yes or no? Is this acceptable?" And so you type in your password and then you hit yes, or you type in your code, and then you get in. And so the criminal actually needs your phone and your password in order to get in, and that is so much safer than just a password. Mark: And I want to follow up. You had talked as we started this discussion a little bit about they're into your email and they're capturing your passwords. One of the things I want to underscore for our listeners is that you don't know they're in your system monitoring and capturing all this stuff. I still run into a lot of people that say, "Well, I've never been hacked because the computer still works." Nobody's going to send you a thank you card for doing something silly and saying, "We've been in. And thank you, we got all this." Mark: But you made the comment about passwords. And one of the things that I hear from time to time as I talk about password policies, long passwords, passphrases, complex passwords, those kinds of things, and the pushback you always get. How in the world do I remember all this? And your comment of a Word document is absolutely not the way to do this. But I have talked about password saves. And one of the questions that comes up from time to time is, well, here I am putting all this information into a file. And sometimes these safes, I have one, Iron Key, that's a jump drive. But they're also cloud-based. And what are your thoughts about the security of that? Because I had a lot of pushback of people saying, "How in the world can that be safe if they're hacking in?" Mark: I certainly have my thoughts about it. But I'd love to hear from your ... I mean, you do the pen testing. How reliable are these password safes in terms of helping us try to be as secure as we can? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. So you're probably thinking, "Well, why would I want to put all my eggs in one basket?" And then hackers know they're going to attack that basket. Right? Mark: Exactly. Sherri Davidoff: The reality is that it's more complex than that because first of all, that basket LastPass, Dashly, OnePassword, you name it, they are especially designed to be hardened against attacks. For example, they're resistant to the common attacks. They're constantly researching it. And if they autofill a form for you, they're using different hooks in the operating system that make it harder for the attacker to grab that compared with a regular web browser, for example, so that's the first thing. Sherri Davidoff: The second thing is I use password managers not just for their ability to store passwords, but for their ability to generate passwords. And that's perhaps even more important. You need a unique password for every single website, maybe not the really junky ones that you don't have anything important in them. But most people underestimate the importance of an individual account. Ideally, you want a totally different login for each website because you never know which website's going to get hacked. Right? Sherri Davidoff: And the human brain is not designed to remember 20 billion passwords. I mean, it's probably all we can do to remember three passwords. And so then you get people picking the password fluffy1984, like their dog and their kid's birthday, which people can totally guess, or spring2018bicycles, and then that changes to summer2018 when you have to change it. The hackers are onto you. They have automated tools that will automatically try different variants on your favorite password that they have already captured. They'll put an exclamation point at the end. They'll put a one, and then a two, and then a three, and then a nine and a 10. Sherri Davidoff: And they'll change spring to summer and 2018 to 2019. So those ways that people modify their passwords are not very secure. So use your password manager. Use two-factor authentication on it if it's in the cloud. And if you hear, LastPass, for example, was actually hacked several years ago. And what happens in that case is you want to change at least your master password if [inaudible 00:21:58] passwords. Sherri Davidoff: But it is so much better than keeping your passwords in a file on your computer because people get their computers infected so frequently. And that's the first thing that goes out the door. The criminals are automatically stealing your files, and then you won't even know you've been hacked until your money's been missing, or a spam email goes out to all your clients. Mark: So what I'm hearing then as the owner, I need to be really concerned about authentication and protecting passwords, strong passwords. Are there other concerns that come to mind as the owner? Sherri Davidoff: Ransomware. A lot of attorneys are hit with ransomware. Ransomwares steal your information often before they hold you for ransom. And that's the thing that a lot of attorneys don't think about because I've seen many law firms even put up out of office messages that say, "Hey, we have ransomware. We'll get back to you tomorrow." That's not cool for your clients. Mark: No. Sherri Davidoff: That means chances are their data was stolen too. And the trend that we are seeing in 2020 is that criminals have started to realize that people have better and better backups. And if you don't pay them the ransom to get your data back, they will threaten to publish it. And in that case, you've got two options. You can either say, "Okay, we'll pay the ransom," in which case, they could come back to you in six months and say, "Pay us again or we'll release it again." You can't trust them. Sherri Davidoff: Or you don't pay the ransom, and all your data's published. And what does that mean for your clients and your relationships and your status as an attorney? So you really need to protect yourself with ransomware. And you do that with two-factor authentication, super important. Mark: Yes, right. Sherri Davidoff: And making sure you have a secure method to connect to your data. So for a lot of people who have just poked holes in their network and they're going through RDP, remote desktop protocol, that's not a secure way to do it. There's other better ways to do it, like using a VPN. Or you can, if you choose to store your data in the cloud, there are some benefits to that, especially if you use two-factor authentication. Mark: Let's talk a little bit about this. And for those of you listening, if you're not completely sure, VPN stands for virtual private network. And we're really talking about disguising our location at times, in terms of what servers, when I use my VPN for instance, I am picking servers in Canada and other parts of the United States. I can go all over the world if I wanted to. So you're hiding your location a little bit, but it's also encrypting the data stream, so that's what we're talking about in terms of any remote connection. And I think it's particularly important in the wifi space. Mark: But there are a lot of free VPNs available and a lot of other just tiered pricing of all kinds of things. Do you have any thoughts about is it unwise to use the free VPNs as opposed to spending a little bit of money? I hear at times the VPNs that are free, they may be monitoring and monetizing the information they're learning about what you're doing. But I truly don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? Sherri Davidoff: In general, there's no such thing as a free lunch in our society. Right? If you're not paying for a product, you are the product, so they say. So I would be careful about that. In general, I would get an experienced IT person's advice when you're setting up your VPN. I wouldn't do it on your own because if you make a little mistake, again, it's all your data on the line. There's some pretty serious consequences. Also, consider if you really need a VPN. Are you just trying to get into one computer? And if so, is it just a certain type of data that you need? Sherri Davidoff: Personally, I am a proponent, I've become a proponent of using the cloud. And I was a slow adopter. Being a security professional, I was fairly conservative about it. But you have some really strong options like Microsoft Office 365 is a great option for attorneys. There's a lot of compliance. There's a lot of regulations that they adhere to, and you can get them to sign off on that. There's other providers as well that are very good. And again, if you're using that two-factor authentication, they have some very advanced security features built in. They are maintaining that software, so I think it takes a lot of the pressure off of small and solo practitioners to just use the cloud. And then you don't have to worry about somebody remoting into your whole computer. Mark: One question that comes up every once in a while from lawyers as they start to think through some of the things we're talking about, but in the context of ransomware the cloud, they're learning. And I think for the most part they have as a profession, have a pretty good understanding what ransomware does at a basic level. And it can infect the network and this kind of thing. But I think some believe one of two things, but first, the cloud one is if I put things in the cloud, I'm safe there because there's this break. Would you put that to rest? Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. I mean, if you can access it, so can criminals. Right? Mark: Oh, yeah. Sherri Davidoff: Especially because often we see people click on links in phishing emails. Their computers get infected. And the criminals will even install ransomware in your cloud drives, like One Drive. If you can get to it and a criminal has access to your account, then the criminal has access to it. And there are times, in fact, I have a little video example that we took in our laboratory, where criminals will deliberately remote into your computer and use your computer to break into your bank accounts or your email accounts because you have your password saved there. And you don't have ... You've clicked trust this computer, so it's way easier for them than trying to break in from Thailand, or Russia, or wherever they happen to be. Mark: And I want to respect your time here, Sherri. The stuff you're sharing is just awesome, awesome stuff. I want to just take a few moments and shift a little bit now. So we've talked about some really good security things that lawyers, business owners, firm leaders need to be thinking about. And of course, all of this needs to apply to everybody. But let's talk about the home place. So what do I need to think about in terms of making sure my employees do, or understand? Do you have concerns about what the individual is actually doing in their own home? Sherri Davidoff: Yes, of course. A big issue that comes up is sharing of computers, so you need to have a clear policy as to whether it's okay to share computers. Is it okay to have certain types of documents on their personal computers? Remember that personal computers are much higher risk. You are likely to get a virus on a personal computer, especially if multiple people are sharing that. So whenever possible, keep work documents on work systems, or systems that are just used for work. And again, the cloud can help you with that. Sherri Davidoff: For example, you can allow people to access documents in the cloud and prevent them from downloading those documents. And it's all well and good to tell people that. But ideally, you want to actually implement that control and prevent them from a technical measure. We also see people emailing documents to their personal emails, and now it's totally out of your control. It's up in Google somewhere else. You may have violated some policies, especially if you deal with health information. You might've violated some regulations just by putting it up in Google, or violated your client's privacy. So mainlining control of your data, especially during these times, is absolutely critical. Sherri Davidoff: I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention mobile device management software, so if you have people using personal devices, you can deploy what we call an MDM. It's a piece of software that allows you to have some level of control over that personal device. So if that employee leaves, or if the device is stolen, it'll wipe your data from it. It can require that there's a pin or a passcode set on that device, even though you don't own that device. It can require antivirus software, and that's another one. If you do nothing else, require antivirus software. And you can buy it for employees to use on their home computers if they're using those for work. Mark: Yeah. The takeaway for me, and there are a lot here, and we can talk about this for hours. Maybe I could. Sherri Davidoff: I've been talking about it for 20 years. Mark: But I do like, when I think about our confidentiality rules in law, I do think saying we really ... You can't use a home computer for work that the teenage kids have access to in the evening, and the gaming. That's just victim here on the forehead if you ask me. So it underscores the value of saying, "If you have the financial wherewithal, let's supply our employees and staff and associates, whoever may be involved here, with company-owned equipment," because we can enforce the rules. We have control over that. I really like that. I but I also think that there's value in having some policies and then thinking through some of the issues that you just identified. And let's have written policies that staff are well aware of, so that if they are constantly breaking the rules, which is so easy to do because we trust our personal devices. Do we not? Mark: We seem to trust our personal devices a little bit more than work devices, whether it's because we know we're not being watched, if you will, in terms of just when you're on corporate device, they have the ability to monitor what's happening to the device, that kind of thing. I don't know what it is. But I think having a policy allows you to, well, not monitor, but hold people accountable. Sherri Davidoff: Absolutely. Mark: And say, "Look, if you're not doing something." Sherri Davidoff: Yeah. A policy's a great first step. And remember, progress not perfection. I do recognize, especially right now, a lot of people just don't have any other option besides using personal devices. And if you do that, again, that next step is to create a separate account at least. So you're not sharing the same account as your kids or as the other people you're working with. And if you can, having a separate device for work is definitely the way to go if you are able to do that. Mark: Well, Sherri, it's been a pleasure. I want to share with our listeners that Sherri has made available some remote work cybersecurity checklists for employees and managers. And this isn't live yet, but when it will be, you can click right there and have access to these. They're excellent tools. And Sherri, thank you very much for making that available to our audience. For those of you listening today, I hope you have found something of value. And if you have an idea of a topic that you feel strongly about that you think others would enjoy hearing, or you have a speaker that you'd be interested in seeing if we can have join the podcast, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. My email address is mbass, M-B-A-S-S, @alpsinsurance.com. Mark: And before I close, for those listening to the mileage score, you have to go back to earlier podcasts. I'm up to 700 even as of today, so I'm getting there. That's it. Thank you all. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.

On this episode of ALPS In Brief, at the beginning of Lawyer Wellbeing Week and Mental Health Awareness month, Mark sits down with Liesel Brink, head of HR at ALPS to ask her a loaded question: Why would an employer want to invest time or money in prioritizing employee wellness?  Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello. Welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager with ALPS, and I'm delighted to have as my guest a colleague, Liesel Brink, who has been with ALPS for five years and she is the Manager of HR at ALPS. In her prior life, I guess, leading up her background, she has a vocational certificate in business administration and a bachelor's in applied science among other things that she's done over the years, like still, in fact, serves as a consultant with HR Solutions. Oh, I'm sorry, HR Specialties. Excuse me there, Liesel. And I've been excited to learn that for the past 23 years or so, she has been involved with the Moose Organization, and, boy, so I look over her bio, there's a long list of responsibilities and it sounds like you have been very, very active with this. And that's awesome. Great for you. Well, let me just say welcome and I guess explain, we're here to talk about wellness. And before I jump into some questions with you, Liesel, I'd like to share for our audience. May is a month where nationally we focus on mental health, it's a Mental Health Awareness Month, but May is also a time where the ABA and Bar Associations really try to prioritize wellness. And that's why I really wanted to have you participate here today. And, can we generally, just start out, how would you define wellness? I mean, what does that term mean to you as someone responsible for part of the wellness program in ALPS? LIESEL BRINK: Well, thanks for having me, Mark. It's a pleasure to be able to speak with you in this forum. I always love hearing your ALPS and briefs, so thank you. And talking about wellness, I love it. It's not something that everyone always thinks about and that's one of the reasons why I like it. For me, the definition of wellness is thinking about yourself in the full picture or the whole picture rather than breaking it out into little bits. You want to think about yourself as a whole. MARK:  Okay. Then that makes sense to me. One the things that I have done in past years is write about the importance of finding balance between our personal and our professional lives. And of late I've really decided that's not right, at least for me, because if you have to find balance between two things, it sort of suggests or implies that one is unhealthy and the other we need to work on. You see where I'm going? And I like how you... Wellness really encapsulates this in the sense that we're talking about oneness, wholeness, something like that. Okay. Very good. Let's see. I have a list of questions here I want to look at and talk about. Why do you feel that wellness is important, generally, in the workplace setting? Why would an employer want to invest, whether time and money? Thoughts. LIESEL: Yeah. Well, it's a loaded question, Mark. If I may say that, one, an employer wants to consider wellness for their employees for a variety of reasons, one being the return on investment. If you're considering helping employees think about financial wellness, that's less stress on them perhaps in the more ability for them to focus on the work that you're asking them to do. If you're thinking about a health aspect of wellness, whether that be in biometric screening or physical activities, that might enlist or allow, excuse me, individuals to actually think about their health a little bit more which could possibly lead for less absenteeism at work. Just a few reasons why an employer might want to consider wellness outside of the fact that it can improve morale at the company, even though it's a small company, and it can also improve the culture. MARK:  I like where you're going with that in terms of underscoring health, physical health, looking at financial wealth. I am not a mindfulness guy, and my wife tries to get me to go there at times. She thinks it would be good for me and I won't disagree with her, but for a long time I sort of equated mindfulness, the mindfulness movement, to the wellness movement and sort about... I'm thinking goat yoga and all of this crazy stuff. And that just doesn't... But I'm not saying goat yoga is not a good thing, but it doesn't speak to me. But you're really... Again, just underscores the... Looking at all aspects of a person's life. Before I go with my next question, I'd like to share, too, a little bit of a background or story about ALPS just as somebody that has been with the company now a little over 22 years. And ALPS, I really feel very blessed to have been with the company all these years. MARK:  And as any company, it's had its good days and its bad days. Its tremendous successes and some struggles. And I'll be honest and share, there have been times where, as you were talking about morale, was not always what could it be or should be or what I would hope for. And wellness was not something that... There was never a focus on it. And as a person that's gone through, having you join the company, new CEO, I can just share. There has been a sea change that is phenomenal and I would say the work that you have done and that David have done, our CEO, really has... I mean, the two of you are responsible for this. I mean, let's just be honest about that. MARK:  And you made me a believer. You really have, and it just... Again, morale. I've never experienced in a workplace setting, out of my whole career done all kinds of things over my life that allows me to feel so much as a team, sort of a home, that kind of thing. So I'm trying to share to our audience the value and significance and just hearing how this can impact somebody directly from the source. Now, so, okay. So, with all that out there, we've talked a bit about how you see this as important to a company, but can you talk about ALPS specifically? Why did... and we do all kinds of things and please feel free to share the kinds of things that we've done. You can go in any direction here, but why was wellness so important to you and to David in terms of... For ALPS? LIESEL: Right. So to be completely honest, Mark, it started off with just the health insurance costs, right? MARK:  Yeah. Right. LIESEL: Everyone knows that those are astronomical and a large part of anyone's budget. And we were trying to find a way to start honing in on what is costing us so much. Like other small companies, we don't have access to a lot of the data that can give us those answers. So what we decided to do was start small. Invite a biometric screening company in and incentivize employees to participate in that so that they could start thinking about their own health. And for us not to be a big brother about it, right? We're not telling them that they have to do this. It was totally voluntary, but it was free. So, why not participate? And, yeah. And so that's where we started. And from there, there was an ask. One employee came and asked, "Hey, can we do fun stuff during the year?" LIESEL: And, being a department of one, I said, "Sure. How about we try quarterly," and with a budget of $50 for the year, you start small. You can create a certificate for the team that wins if you want to do a team challenge. And that's how we started it out. We incentivized individuals to participate in group activities. Hiking, we all met at... And when I say, "We all," there were two or three of us who showed up and we did a hike together. We incentivize people to take the stairs at work. We also did a corporate gift, compression socks, which is also an aspect of wellness, right? MARK:  I still have mine. LIESEL: And so... idea, right? And we did another challenge this past winter. We had individuals wear their socks sometime during one week, and they took a sock selfie. And so, it's little things like that that can start individuals thinking about their own health overall. And not to jump ahead, Mark, but one of the other things that in the last two years I've been trying to push a little bit more about is mental health. And we offer some services already. We have an employee assistance program. LIESEL: And then I also found out that through our life insurance company, we have additional employee assistance available to us. So law firms can possibly, or any employer, can be looking at something like that that's already out there that they just didn't know about. And then there is a free National Mental Health Crisis number that employers can push out. If you're having a tough time, call this number. They're here to help. And just breaking down the stigma that seems to be around that. MARK:  We're a diverse group of people, and that's going to be true pretty much of the workforce at any business regardless of how, unless you're truly, for instance, just a sole attorney, it's just you. But how do you try to determine what the needs are and then follow up and try to meet the needs of this diverse group that you're working with in terms of trying to keep us all well? Is it sort of spontaneous, do you... LIESEL: Well, Mark, every HR person has a crystal ball and that's how we determine everything. No, I... To be honest, we did work with our insurance broker and we put together a survey that we did push out to all of our employees to tell them what... excuse me, to ask them, what aspects of wellness are they interested in in having us focus on? And from that survey I was very surprised we had a large percentage of individuals who participated say that they wanted more help with financial wellness. MARK:  Yeah. Okay. LIESEL: Yeah, it was exciting to see and also something that allowed me to reach out to a local credit union and bring in someone to help us with budgeting, and they were nice enough to do it as a community service to us. So, again, with that small budget, which, that was in the first year, helped out a lot. So the survey definitely... But even putting out the question to the employees in general, some people are comfortable enough to saying, "Hey, it would be fun if we could do X, Y and Z." Or, "People in my department would like to do this." So, giving some leeway could be beneficial depending on the size of the company. LIESEL: The other thing I would say, Mark, is that, starting small is fine because wellness is just about getting people thinking about these different aspects. Because most of the time we're so involved in our lives, in the things that we have to get done in that day and the things that are causing us stress. These are the things that are pulling our focus, and having a wellness program or even wellness monthly emails get people to at least come out of that thinking for a short period of time. MARK:  What do you think about space? Physical space? Office setup, those kinds of things? I mean, is there a component to wellness there as well? LIESEL: Definitely, Mark, and as far as the morale goes, I would say that that would be something that could be high on the list as far as ergonomics, making it available to employees to have an ergonomical evaluation of their workstation done. Locally, I know that our office supply company is able to do that for us. I know that our insurance broker has someone on staff that was willing to come in and do that with us. It also allows employees to, as far as risk to the company, minimizes Workers' Comp claims. MARK:  Sure. LIESEL: But also allow someone at the end of the day to possibly not go home with a headache or not have that stress. I do feel that that's important, and one of the first steps a company could possibly take in that mindfulness/morale for the company as whole. MARK:  Yeah. I can recall many, many years ago in a prior life, prior job, a big company, actually a government job, sort of big government office, but horrible lighting, these big old computer screens and you're just stuck and, oh, the headaches. You just... And I agree with you that just surroundings can make a huge difference. As you think about the past five years with ALPS, you have any thoughts on what has worked well, what hasn't worked, and would you do anything different? Just... LIESEL: Yeah. Five years. That's great. I can't believe it's been five years already. It seems like yesterday. MARK:  I know. It goes so fast. LIESEL: Yes. So, I would say what has worked well, variety, right? Not.... We are lucky in our company. We have a lot of individuals who love to be physically active. But what I like to think for individuals is not just catering to the individuals that are already thinking about their health. I like to try to get individuals engaged who aren't normally engaged. So, variety, fun, and one of the things that was most successful was the quick walk during our break. We did one during the morning break and one in the afternoon break, just so those that were interested could participate. LIESEL: And, again, we're very lucky. Just outside we have a walk path that we could do a quick 10 minute walk and everyone could be back in the office within an allotted time. One of the things that I personally took to heart but I've grown from is that participation wasn't as high as I would have liked it to be. And in talking with and networking with other HR professionals, I found out it was higher than theirs. And so, I was like, "That's fantastic." MARK:  Yeah. Yes. LIESEL: You try to get individuals into that set of thinking about their health overall, but you can't make them do things. And that's one of the things I would stress to individuals, is try your best, provide the resources, but don't stress if there's individuals who just aren't participating. MARK:  Okay. I was just sitting here thinking, we're in the, thankfully, at least here in Montana and nearing the end of this COVID stay at home situation. Our state is in the process of slowly "reopening." Who knows what's going to happen around the country and whether there's... You hear all kinds of, "Oh, my gosh, we may be back into this situation again at some other point." I don't know. MARK:  But I think, regardless, there's been a shift in this country that this COVID pandemic has accelerated a little bit. And it's a move toward telecommuting, and I think telecommuting has been happening, but I think it's accelerated a little bit and that's not going to go away. I'd just be curious, we've never talked about this before, but in terms of wellness, in the telecommute context, are there challenges? What are your thoughts about that? I'd love to hear. LIESEL: Yeah. So, to be honest, we've kind of been doing this week, been fortunate enough to have individuals who work remotely on our staff regularly, but to the extent that we have now and to the extent that the world is doing this, yeah, it is a bit of a struggle to be fully aware of what individuals are able to do when they're at home. So, taking that into consideration, trying to include things that people can do within their own home, making more touch points with employees, more connections with them, whether it's on the phone, or, we're lucky enough to have video options, too, to be able to engage with them on any questions that they might have or walk them through any of the challenges that we've set up in our wellness program. LIESEL: I will also say that we have opened up a platform for our employees through our information and system for employees to share resources on like children's yoga or the things that can be beneficial for everyone in the household now that everyone is home. I also encourage individuals to share humor, work-appropriate humor, but humor, because laughter after all is the best medicine, right? And it's not beneficial for everyone, but it does help individuals kind of remove themselves from their current thinking for a moment and put their mind into a different spot. MARK:  Yeah, couldn't agree more. Let me follow up with just two thoughts to underscore your point. We've been very blessed as a company for many, many years to have Nancy as our receptionist, and I can't remember how many years ago she started this, but there's always this morning email to the office with something funny. And she tells her stories, and I'll tell you, my wife gets a kick out of these. We get to laugh in here at home, but it does make a big difference. I do think humor is a great way to deal with some stress at times, but also just to feel good. If you start the day with a smile or a laugh, I think the odds are of the rest of the day being a little happier go up. And let me also share for our listeners, and I am one of the people you've referred to in terms of telecommuting for many years now, I think 10 or 11, something like that. MARK:  People have asked me how has COVID impacted me? And I'll sit here and say, "There's some things. Staying at home and not being able to go to a restaurant, those kinds of things. That's not fun." But from a work perspective, we're currently visiting via video on Microsoft Teams, and ALPS has really, significantly or substantially increased the use of teams during this process, and we're going to continue, I'm sure, to have this tool available for years to come. But the ability to video chat as opposed to just sending an email or picking up a phone, I can't tell you what a difference that makes. It's hard at times, as a remote person, to feel included in terms of what's happened at the office. There's lots of little things that go on at the office that we're just not part of because we're not there to have these conversations. MARK:  But that changes significantly with video. And I think a lot of folks... the technology and the tools are already there. It's just not being utilized in a way that could be beneficial. So, I'll throw that out there. I'd like to shift and as we start to wrap this up a little bit, bring this back to law. And a significant portion of our book really is the solo small firm space. So when you think about a small law firm and an attorney or an office manager just saying, "Oh, we really should look at this," or, "I'd like to take... But I don't even know where to start." What sort of practical tips or advice would you share that might get them moving in the right direction? LIESEL: So, Mark, I actually have previous work experience in law firms. MARK:  Oh. LIESEL: That's where I started many moons ago. MARK:  Oh, wow. I did not know. Very cool. LIESEL: Yes. And so I have a little bit of understanding of law firms. To be honest, there are a lot of free resources out there for anyone to take part of. We talked about ergonomic reviews. There are free resources out on the internet for how to set up your workstation properly, where your monitors should be versus how your chair should be and where your knees hit and how they tip the floor. So those are free resources. Hanging up your employee assistance program flyer or posting the free mental health phone number anywhere in the breakroom, those are free and fantastic good steps in as far as other free options, small places to start. Maybe having a lunch out at the picnic table as far as just disconnecting from work for your 20 or 30 minute lunch. Those are good things to start people in wellness. MARK:  Right. I'd like to circle back to one of your earlier comments as you wrapped this up, too. You shared, in terms of ALPS, you started out with 50 bucks and try and make something happen and you were talking about just a small staff. I want to underscore that because I think that's really important. You never get anywhere until you take that first step. And if you just take the step and start moving, it will evolve. None of us move forward day-to-day in what we're doing work-wise without making some mistakes now and again, but you do have to take that step. Well, I'm going to wrap it up here, Liesel. Do you have any final comments you'd like to share? LIESEL: You know, Mark, just start small. Every little bit is helpful, and don't be afraid to reach out to us here at ALPS if you'd like some more tips and tools. MARK:  Well, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. LIESEL: Thank you, Mark. MARK:  And folks, for you listening to the podcast today, I hope you found something of value. And as Liesel said, please, we are here. We are your resource. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. My email address is mbass@alpsinsurance.com, and you don't need to be an insured to talk with me. If there's something I can do to help or connect you with Liesel, if that would be helpful, that's what we're here to do. One final comment for you, regular listeners. In a prior podcast I talked about trying to ride a thousand miles this year. If you're curious as to the current count, I'm at 305. Here's hoping. Have a good... Bye-bye.

There are all kinds of finishing lines in life. Some of those will be positive, and others won't. So go ahead and feel what you feel, but remember the journey isn't over. Sooner or later, you're going to have to decide what's next, figure out how to get there, and then start moving. Mark illustrates the importance and value of listening to your life. Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:  Hello, and welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here with ALPS. Today, I thought we'd take a little time to talk about listening. I've been blessed to have married my absolute best friend in life, and she and I are very honest with each other and have some crazy and interesting and wonderful conversations. At times she will be, like I said, very direct and honest. She'll say, "Mark, you're just not listening," and she's right. I mean, there are times, as she will describe and I readily agree, I have too many planes up in my head. I really am having trouble focusing and paying particular attention. But listening isn't just a skill that is limited to communication between two individuals. I, with this podcast, would like to talk about listening to one's life and exploring a little bit about what that means in my experience. I would consider myself someone who does a pretty good job of listening to my life. I have seen a number of people have no idea what I'm talking about, no clue how to do it, and no desire to learn. I've seen some people even get hit, in my mind, upside the head by life with some meaning and something you're here to learn, and they just don't do the learning because they're not looking for it, perhaps. Others are very, very good at this, particularly for the big, loud things that life has to say. But I would really like to explore looking at this on the day-to-day, because I think there are all kinds of learnings that can come up day-to-day if we just stop to take the time to listen and to look for the learning. So let me give you an example of what I think about and what I mean when it comes to listening to one's life. When I was a younger adult, there was a period of time where I was really into bike riding. It was primarily as a means of transportation, and also a way to get a little exercise during a commute. I learned to strip a bike down, clean it up, put it back together, and I had a lot of fun. Then kids, life, all kinds of things get in the way of that, and bikes pretty much got put away for a number of years. I would say though, in the last three to four years, I've really started to get back into it, and I've really enjoyed it. I've been doing quite a bit of riding, both in the winter, sometimes because there's just too much snow here you can't get out, and in the club in terms of stationary bikes. But, boy, when spring's here, you go. You tune the bike up a little bit, and you just get out and start riding. So let me use this example of bike riding and share some things about what bike riding says to me and what I take away from it. It has been a great workout. I've put on a lot of miles, and to me it helps keep me in shape. I have found, at times, the more I ride, sometimes some pickup trucks actually, in the neighborhood, in particular, as I work my way around or through the neighborhood, are just going slow and getting in the way. There's some obstacles there, and I've learned to just ride around them in a very safe and responsible way. It's a lot of fun to get out and ride, particularly when it's a beautiful day and I can take some really long rides. I've been known to go as much as 40 miles in a day, which, for me, at 60, I think is a pretty good thing. But on the long rides, I need to remember, hey, take a phone, because sometimes you need to call for help if you have a bike breakdown and you don't have on hand what you need to repair it, or serious weather changes. Things happen, so it's helpful to have a phone. You take a little water because it's important to stay hydrated. You always wear a helmet. Again, you never know what can happen. We have a number of bike trails in the area, and there are some bike tunnels that go under roads and areas where paths dip down and go below railroad tracks and highways and things, and there are some pretty tight turns. I've learned to just approach with caution. Sometimes there's another bike coming at me or somebody standing on a bridge fishing or a little ice in that tunnel because it's still early in the season. I just don't want to end up flat on the ground and just bruised up and bleeding from doing something stupid. I've learned, hey, when you have the wind at your back and, boy, an open road, you shift up, and you just take advantage of the support, and you have fun riding at a top speed. I really love that. Of course, at times, when circumstances change or conditions, perhaps, change, you might have an area with a lot of potholes or something, or you've got a hill to climb. You have to downshift. You have to adjust to make the ride enjoyable, perhaps, to not burn out. So there's lots and lots ... I could go on for another 20 minutes on the kinds of things that you think about and learn as a result of riding on a regular basis. So I can take this experience and all the little things and sometimes bigger things that you learn and say, okay, that's cool. I get better and more efficient at riding. I get healthier. I learn a few tricks. I get more competent and comfortable. But that's not really listening. That's just observing and perhaps learning a few things along the way, but that's not really listening to what your life ... what the experience can teach. So let's revisit some things and sort of apply it. I mean, that's the goal. You have to look for the learning, and you do that by listening. But now you also need to apply the learning to make, for lack of a better description perhaps, a life lesson out of it. This is one of the things that ... We have great kids, and they have all done so much. What I'm about to share that I hear from them sometimes isn't unique to the kids. I've had other people say these kinds of things. But I like the context of young adults. We have four out of five in their 30s now. Sometimes we'll be talking, and we'll say ... They'll say to us, why do you think you're right or we know more, we've experienced [inaudible 00:08:27]? I say, we just have perspective. We're just older. There's things we've learned. Yeah, dad, but you've never gone through this before or that before. You really don't know. My response, I don't need to experience every little thing to have some insights into how something might play out. You kind of get where I'm going? So with that in mind, let me, again, revisit riding and share some thoughts about what I've learned as a response to riding over the last three or four years. I'm talking about now ... I'm riding, 5, 600, 700 miles throughout the season, just outdoors. In fact, my goal this year ... We'll see. I'm going to give it a shot, see if I can get 1,000 miles before winter hits. Wish me luck. That's a lot of riding. So one of the things that I've learned that I really have taken to heart, I need to stay alert, and I never want to go full bore into a tight curve, because something unexpected really is just around the bend. How do I apply that? What does that mean? Perhaps let's even talk about it in the context of a legal career. Well, when I think about this learning, here's just one example. Just because a new practice area is about to seriously heat up, that isn't a good reason in and of itself to jump into this practice area before you have time to come up to speed and/or to develop any necessary internal processes that will enable you to be competent in the delivery of these new legal services. To state it another way, do this kind of stuff is really an accident waiting to happen. So stay alert. Don't go full bore into the unknown. You need to prepare. You need to be intentional about it. You need to look for problems and anticipate. Another one, and I got to thinking about this just the other day, and I don't know why it struck me, but it really did. I noted. It's really extremely difficult to balance on a bike hands-free while the bike is stationary. Try doing that at a stop sign, as an example. It's extremely difficult, but particularly to do it for very long, but it really gets quite a bit easier the faster you go. I just started to think about that. What could be a life lesson out of that? Well, for me, it's this. If you want to develop a skill and truly become proficient at it, you need to learn to take a few risks while always moving forward. Stated another way, there is value in learning to say yes to opportunities that push your comfort zone. I mean, as I see it, that's how you grow, professionally and as a person. How about this? I will share. Over the years, I've had a few what I'd describe as close calls. Once in a while, the close call was intentional in the sense somebody was messing with me. At other times, it's just crazy things happen when you're riding on a road or a highway. I try not to do that a lot, but here in Montana sometimes you need to, to get to the trails or the pass that you really want to ride. So one of the things that I've learned is this. Sometimes someone will try to mess with you in the middle of a ride. Know that it can happen. Do what you can to be prepared, and keep pedaling. Most importantly, don't let it frighten you. You still have more than a few miles to go. Now what can you take away from that? Well, again, in the context of practicing law, here's one of the thoughts that I have. Some people will try to intimidate you. Perhaps it's an aggressive, over the top negative online review or opposing counsel practicing incivility in the extreme during a deposition. There's all kinds of things you could create here. But the fact that these things happen, that says nothing about you. Don't let this get under your skin, because you still have work to do. Continue to focus on what lies ahead. Now I talked a little bit earlier about ... I try to stay in shape and, during the winter season, keep riding. It's stationary bikes. So I'll go out to the club and take care of that, in terms of trying to work out. But here's a learning from that sort of experience. I will say, even if it's bad weather at times, during the season, you have to make this choice sometimes. Do I want to go out on the road? Or do I want to just go to the club and watch TV as I ride? Yes, I have to admit, and I've learned this, it is a lot easier to ride indoors, particularly when the weather isn't the best. It's an easy choice. But no matter how fast you pedal, you still end up where you started, and I think that's important to appreciate. What that means to me is, if I want to get anywhere in my career and in my own life, I actually have to go outside and make it happen. No one's going to do it for me. Here's another one that I like, and sometimes you'll see people. They just don't want to do this, and I get it. I do. I get it. But I'm a firm believer. Always wear a helmet, because it's your head we're talking about, the place where you keep all your intellectual capital, things like how to ride a bike and how to get back home. Why is that important? What's the takeaway for me, or what's the learning that life's trying to tell me with that insight? Well, in my mind, it's if you fail to prioritize taking care of yourself, all you end up doing is increasing the risk of injury or illness, which can have serious consequences, to include the ability to even earn a living. There are times when I will ride in circles, and what I mean by that ... And it's not a negative. It's just I have a loop so that, if I have a little time over lunch, I can go out, and I'm not pounding out 10 miles out of town and back. You just can't do that over a lunch hour. So I have a loop, and I ride locally. At other times, nice days, weekends, I will do some extended riding. Sometimes it's just exploring, and sometimes it's very intentional. But one of the things I've learned from going off the loop and going out and exploring is some trails eventually end. Once there, it's good to take a little time to feel what you feel, but you need to get back on the bike because the ride isn't over. I started to think about that too. What does that teach me? Here's what I take away from finding that some trails just come to an end. Endings happen. Now think about a career change, a retirement, a divorce. There are all kinds of ends that happen in life. Some endings are going to be positive, and others aren't. So go ahead and feel what you feel, but remember the journey isn't over. Sooner or later, you're going to have to decide what's next, figure out how to get there, and then start moving. So the point of this whole short podcast is just to share a skill or an insight that is meaningful to me that has been valuable to me in so many ways. Sometimes the learnings, the insights that come from practicing learning to listen to your life are small and perhaps inconsequential in some ways. One of the things I've learned in that genre is always have a rubber band with you. You'd be surprised how often the one thing I need to fix a minor problem is a rubber band. It comes in handy all the time. I think it should be on the list. The three things that you need in life are a good can of WD-40, some great duct tape, and some rubber bands, and you're good to go. But more often the learnings are a bit more significant and can really help me keep focused, keep moving forward. So I guess I'll just leave it at that and share what I've been musing about, what I've been thinking about on rides in recent months, and encourage you. There is value in taking time to listen to what your life is saying, even if it's just a whisper. That's it, folks. I hope you found something of value today, and please don't hesitate to reach out any time if there's any other topics you'd like to hear, if you just have a question or concern you would like to discuss. You can reach me at MBass@ALPSInsurance.com. Thanks much. Have a good one. Bye, bye.

Do you feel like you're living on another planet right now? There's a reason. Humans are social animals and social distancing and isolation is not our normal here on Earth. Mark sits down with his son Tristan, and Carmel Johnston, two crew members from NASA's HI-SEAS IV study to learn what is required to survive and even thrive during an extended mission to Mars and how we can adapt our own behaviors to stay happy here on Earth. Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Welcome. You're listening to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and today we're going to have a little fun, do something a little bit interesting. Believe it or not, I'm going to try to make some connections between Mars and all of these stay-at-home or stay-in-place orders all over the country. Now, how are we going to do that? I guess saying Mars is a little bit misleading. We are going to talk about a Mars simulation and I am so pleased and excited to have two very special guests on today and honestly both of them are very special people in my life and in the life of my wife. The first is Carmel Johnston. MARK: Carmel is quite an outdoorsman. Boy, trying to get her to do a podcast can be a bit of a challenge, but just because you never know where she is. I was watching this morning, a YouTube of her as she was doing a TV show in Australia of all places, but she also spends quite a bit of time now in Glacier National Park, another place that is near and dear to many of our hearts as folks in Montana. Carmel has a background from Montana State University, a master of science in land resources and environmental sciences. And now she is the Utility Systems Repairer and Operator at the National Park Service. And actually, Carmel, you're going to have to explain, is that the same position in Glacier? CARMEL JOHNSTON: Yeah, so it's called Utility Systems Repair Operator, but essentially it's a water and wastewater operator position so, all the water that people drink we create, and then all the wastewater that happens afterwards, we treat before it is given back to the earth. MARK: Okay, very good. And I'll explain a little bit more about Carmel here in just a minute. The other guest that I'd like to introduce is someone that goes back in my life quite a few years. We first met in, I believe it was, Tristan, wasn't it 1984 if I'm remembering correctly? This is Tristan Bassingthwaighte and Tristan among, and again, like Carmel, these two, you can find them all over the world at different times. Of note, Tristan received his Masters in Architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai, and then went on to complete his Doctorate of Architecture from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Tristan has done all kinds of things, but my interest in having him visit with us today is, some of what he does is, how would you describe it, in terms of the different, I'm losing my words here, Tristan, but what type of architecture ties in here? TRISTAN BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: I specialize in the design of habitats, research bases, even you could say, drilling platforms, the areas people would go on earth or in outer space that are isolated, dangerous working environments, confined environments, and then how to understand the social and psychological issues that occur with people there, being removed from family and society and walks in the park and fresh coffee, and trying to address them architecturally, so that we could say, live on Mars for 10 years and not have everybody go crazy or something along those lines. MARK: My senior moment was extreme environment design. That's what I was struggling with, just every once in a while recall isn't what it should be. While you listeners might be wondering why I have these two guests visiting with us today and what Mars has to do with stay-at-home orders. Both of these folks were participants in a Mars simulation. It was, what is called HI-SEAS IV, and it was a 366 day mission, and Carmel was the crew commander for this mission and Tristan was the crew space architect, and they really have all kinds of stories and insights and experiences to share. But this was a project between NASA and the University of Hawaii, and they literally lived in a very small space for 366 days, never being able to go outside on the side of, it was Mauna Loa, if I'm remembering correctly, but Carmel, could I have you just share a very brief little background in terms of what this experience was about? And Tristan, of course jump in anytime. TRISTAN: Hmm. CARMEL: Yeah, so we were the six participants of the Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation Mission Number Four and that consisted of the six of us living in a 1200 square foot dome on the side of Mauna Loa for the year, and like you said, we couldn't go outside unless we were wearing a space suit and we lived off freeze dried, dehydrated powdered ingredients for the year unless we were able to grow our own vegetables, and we were the guinea pigs studying the effects of isolation and confinement on all of us and out of all the different tools and techniques that people have thought of up to this point for dealing with those psychological aspects of confinement. MARK: Yes. Yep. Very good. And Tristan, maybe you can share just a little bit when we talk about isolation, there were six for those of you listening, a total of six individuals participated in this year long mission and I believe it's to this day, the longest isolation experiment run yet here in the States anyway, but there's isolation, too, in terms of communication and Tristan, could you share a little bit about that? TRISTAN: Yeah. When you actually go up there, you find you've got your row of laptops so we can all do our work and research and everything. You've got several electronic devices like iPads and everything to do quizzes and surveys, enter the various information for the experiments we're doing, write about how we feel, et cetera, sort of tracking our emotions and reactions during the course of the year. But also there's a viciously delayed internet that only allows access to a few research sites because that's what we were doing. Phones don't work. TRISTAN: There's no real time communication with anybody that's not in the dome. So if I was going to say, write an email to grandma, I could compose the whole thing and send it off and it would be held in an ESSA server for 20 minutes and then delivered to her. So, all of our digital communications that people focus on these days are light speed delayed the way they would be if we were actually on Mars. So, you're very, very, very removed from everybody physically and in terms of communication and every way you can imagine. So it's not just, oh, you're in a tent but you can hang out on Snapchat if you want. MARK: Very good, thank you. When you guys signed up for this and got selected in terms of what you were thinking it would be like versus what you ultimately discovered, did you know what you were getting into? TRISTAN: Yeah, I would say I had a fair idea because I was actually applying to this near the tail end of my Masters research and the Masters research was also on [inaudible 00:08:24] environmental architecture, sociology, psychology, and I only found HI-SEAS because I was trying to research analogs that were on earth and then honestly, just ask some of the participants questions and that accidentally turned into applying. MARK: How about you, Carmel? CARMEL: Yeah, I think we knew a lot about what we were getting into, but there's definitely a component to it that we had no idea how isolating it really would be. And several of us had done previous analog simulations before, not to that length of time, but two week simulations here and there, and each simulation you go through whether it's HERA or MDRS or HI-SEAS or SIRIUS, any of those, they all have different components to it. And so, ours was the delayed communications. You had unlimited amount of data to be dropping data packages if NASA needed to send us something, but it would be delayed and it would be in the say, constraints of how they would actually send data to Mars. CARMEL: Whereas other ones it's, oh you have unlimited real time communication but you only get a certain amount of data per day or per week or something. And then every simulation space suits are different and the different things that you're testing are different, which is great because we're compiling all these resources of the different aspects of isolation and confinement, and then, the ultimate test is going there. And so, hopefully if we practice all these different components to it here, then it will it make easier for actually getting there. MARK: Maybe, I'm just going to take a tangent for a quick second, in light of our listening audience here and I really didn't explain what HI-SEAS stands for. It is the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. So it's H-I dash S-E-A-S, if you ever want to look something up and see what HI-SEAS is all about. Was it hard? CARMEL: Oh yeah. MARK: How so? CARMEL: I would say that it, well, up to this point, it's been the hardest thing I've done in my life, but that is barring that my parents are still here and so when they go, that'll probably be the hardest thing I have to deal with. But having a lack of communication because our connection to society and our friends and family is humongous and each one of us, Tristan will tell stories about his friends that fell off. Each one of us had friends that wouldn't write back or they'd forget about us until the Martian came out, and then all of a sudden we get a lot of emails and people saying, "Oh, we're thinking of you." And you're like, well, where were you two months ago when I really needed you to respond back to an email? CARMEL: And it's kind of the out of sight, out of mind concept of as soon as you're gone then people forget because you're not in their regular life all the time. And we were just stuck up there doing our research and it was very easy to feel disconnected from the people that we cared about the most, which made us feel like, well, maybe we don't mean that much to them or you start playing all these games in your head about why people don't respond back. It's probably because they have kids and they're living their lives. But to you it seems like, well, this is really important to me. MARK: Tristan? TRISTAN: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I had all sorts of people that kind of vanished and dropped away. I mean, half of our relationships these days seem to be over email or text anyways. So, you'd think they'd be able to keep up, but it kind of gave you a good opportunity to, healthy or unhealthy, coping mechanisms can help get you through some stuff. So, it was a chance to pick up some hobbies and try and focus on work and do some other things as well, but you definitely feel it. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). How did you make peace with that, I guess? How were you able to move forward? Because nobody at the end came out crazy, ready to be hospitalized. Nobody died, in terms of, you didn't kill each other, that kind of thing. So how'd you do it? TRISTAN: I think the big thing for me was a string of tiny little fun victories mixed with a few larger goals over the course of the last eight months perhaps. So, Carmel and Cyprian got really into trying to run a marathon and I thought that was the worst idea ever because who wants to run forever? That just hurts. And eventually, Carmel talked me into it and I ended up doing that. So I mean that was a, what did I do, like two and a half months of training to actually get up to that? CARMEL: Yeah, I don't remember having to talk you into it. I think you were like, "Hey, I think I could do this." And we were like, "Well, make your training plan. You can totally do it." TRISTAN: Yeah. Yeah, something like that. So, you start to run and everything and then I think she and Cyprian were coming by every half hour leaving treats on the treadmill and spraying me with water bottles and stuff. So, you've got your camaraderie on the inside and then when there's not some massive thing that you're working on or accomplish that day, Carmel and I invented the pizza cupcake, a lot of fun, small things that like, "Oh, this is today's victory. I have changed the culinary world." MARK: Can you, Carmel, just share for everybody listening again what running a marathon in a dome looks like? CARMEL: So, we have a treadmill there and at the beginning of the year, the treadmill was kind of adjacent to the window and then we found that Cyprian kept falling off of it because he was looking out the window, and so we put it in front of the window and then at least you had the same Mars landscape to look at while you're running, but for the most part you have to watch a lot of movies because running a marathon in general is pretty time consuming depending on how fast you're grounding. Either way, it's a lot of movement and listening to movies or watching movies or listening to podcasts or something, it's kind of the only way to take away from the monotony of one foot in front of the other for so darn long. MARK: Yeah, and for those listening again, can you appreciate what they're sharing? They're running marathons on a treadmill and trust me, this isn't a state-of-the-art brand new high tech thing, in front of, I wouldn't say a window, my memory is it was the window, and it is about the size of maybe a large pizza pan. It's just a circle and you're looking out at volcanic rock. There's nothing out there. So, just trying to put that in perspective. Crazy kinds of stuff. Did you want to share? Go ahead. I think I cut you off. CARMEL: Oh, you're okay. Sometimes there were clouds so that really broke it up and made it a little change of scenery. But yeah, it was pretty monotonous the whole time when you're running, but at the same time, that's the thing that's breaking the other monotonous cycle of your life, which is research and cooking food and being around the same people all day every day, and so that's actually kind of an escape is doing something pretty monotonous. It's funny that way. MARK: Let's shift gears just a little bit. These stay-in-place orders really are having an impact on people. I've been talking with some lawyers in recent weeks, several of whom work in the domestic relations space and they're reporting tremendous increase in families, whether it's just some abuse kinds of things going on to just divorce. People are getting a little crazy and stir crazy. A lot of people I heard in Paris for instance, you're not allowed to exercise outside now and I'd love for you guys to talk about what going outside meant for you, both in terms of how it was done and what it meant for you, but Michigan has just issued an order forbidding contact now with friends and family in terms of extended, you are not to go out and visit with anybody. You can only interact with people that are in your physical home. MARK: Now, of course, I guess you can say hi or smile at somebody at the grocery store. But that's a different thing. So, in light of the challenges, so many are having to face, that have never dealt with anything like this, and for some it's going to be four to six weeks. Others, it might be eight to 10 weeks, nothing like 366 days. But perhaps through the context of sharing your stories, how you survived and things, you could share some tips and insights into how people going through these stay-at-home, stay-in-place orders can again, come out the other side without too many bruises and nobody's killed each other. So, I'll let you guys chat here for a little bit on that. TRISTAN: Yeah well, I mean part of it is this is being forced on everyone, where as we got to volunteer. So we had to begin ours with slightly different mindset, which helps out. But I think, when you go into something like this, the problems that occur sort of, I mean you, you can imagine them being created because you're stuck inside and can't leave and there's no communication, whatever. But really, wherever you go, like when you go on a vacation, your problems are waiting for you when you get back because you were just on vacation. And when you go into isolation. You're just taking your life and your problems with you. So, I would argue that the people who are getting to spend a month with their spouse and then realize they can't stand the way they chew food and they get divorced, probably had other issues, it was likely not the the quarantine them split them all up. TRISTAN: So if you're going to be stuck somewhere and you can't go to the bars and hang with all your friends and do the normal life distraction stuff that defined your existence before all of this, you're going to, whether you realize it or not, meet yourself in some ways and realize where your priorities lay, the character traits that you actually enjoy and hate about the people you're living with. Even start to ask existential questions maybe. I know in the last like couple of weeks I've been like, what am I doing with my life and trying to just figure some of that stuff out again because I've got the time now. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's great. You're so spot on. Carmel. CARMEL: Yeah, I think that's really well put, especially because we did choose to be isolated and so, it takes a special kind of special to even want to do that. And I mean honestly, isolation isn't for everyone and we know that because there are only certain people that volunteer for isolation studies or to go to other planets or to live on the ISS or go to Antarctica. Not everyone's volunteering to do that because it just doesn't mesh well with them, and you see people who choose to overwinter in Antarctica year after year. They enjoy it or they are at least able to get through it because that matches with that personality. So, having this forced upon everyone in the world right now really is kind of taking a lifestyle choice for some people and making it a mandatory lifestyle. So, finding coping mechanisms, things that help you make your life as easy as possible for where you are at right now is probably the best step for a lot of people because they might enjoy certain aspects of it, but they definitely aren't going to enjoy everything about it, as we did as well. There are certain things I miss terribly about the dome and then there are some things I'm like, I never need to go back there again for others. MARK: What would you say you missed? I find that interesting. TRISTAN: Oh, the food. CARMEL: The food. I actually kind of do miss the isolation because we were up there and you could just get so much work done and you didn't have a lot of distractions in some ways and I had a treadmill that I could run on most of the time because a couple of weeks ago they took away the gym at work and so now you're forced to exercise outside except for that it's snowing all the time, and they closed the park and they closed the reservation and you literally can't leave a one mile square radius anymore. And so, I'm going a little crazy for other reasons right now. MARK: You raised the term coping mechanisms and I think that's a good, can we explore that a little bit and just have both of you talk, what were your coping mechanisms? What really worked for you and if there was something that you tried and didn't, I'd love to hear that as well. TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean, I would say, part of the reason that we had said food was such a great thing is because Carmel's mom actually taught her to cook very well and I got to be sous chef two days out of the week inventing new things or learning how to make old favorites, whatever. We actually pulled off a super respectable salmon eggs Benedict, a double layer chocolate cake, the aforementioned pizza cupcakes. We made Swedish meat, no, not Swedish meatballs, oh, what were the meatballs we made? Italian meatballs or something and they were actually better than the meatballs at the restaurant we went to when we all got out. So it was a bit of a playing around and creative aspect there. MARK: I was working on my dissertation while I was there so I had some of my personal work as well. Some of my best selling tee shirts, I came up with the ideas and drew them while I was up there because I had the time. You sort of have the option between say, for people going through isolation now, you can do something that is numbing like getting through your favorite series or watching Battlestar, all four seasons, over the course of two weeks and you're sort of pausing yourself as a person in your life while you enjoy something. Or you could say, well I'm going to do something productive or creative and actually find ways to engage the part of yourself that wants to learn the language or an instrument or start doing art or becoming an incredible bonsai Shaffer person. One of those will actually let you survive a year and one of them will let you get through a couple of weeks. TRISTAN: So, I think we're actually going to start to see as these stay- at-home orders carry on, more problems, because a lot of people are doing the numbing route, where they're investing heavily in say, television or whatever, something that's sort of a passive hobby, instead of something that actually lends meaning to what they're doing and helps them feel like they are progressing. MARK: Following up on that, I get concerned, too, about alcohol abuse. If there's not, the numbing kind of thing, just to kind of get through it and it's so easy to just casually increase and increase and increase and what becomes after dinner or before dinner beverage or two, you have a little bit at lunch, you have some in the afternoon. What the heck? I've got another beer or so in the fridge to get the nine o'clock movie and on and on. Carmel, how about you? Your thoughts. CARMEL: Yeah, I think, I have lots of thoughts. I've been thinking about this for five years now. I think right now it's okay to acknowledge that it sucks. Nobody's really having a great time right now and it's okay to say, this is not where we wanted to be and it's changing everything and it's hard, but what can we gain out of it? And it's okay to live in the grumpy mood for a little bit, but then the thing that's going to bring you out of it is planning and having a goal for the day, or I had one person who was retired, they told me the other week, I have at least one thing I have to accomplish every day, even if it's just making my bed or it's stacking firewood or something else. I have to write on the list, I did one thing every day because then once you do one, it'll be find, you'll start doing a bunch of other things, but if you sit in bed first thing in the morning and start watching a show, then it's six shows later, you're like, hmm, I guess I'm kind of hungry now and I might make something or I might just eat leftovers. And so having things to do in your day that need to be done that day is actually helpful because you have a drive and a reason to go. CARMEL: And I'm so thankful that I am still working right now because I have something that makes me, I mean, I would be not getting out of bed otherwise, but you know I have a purpose and I am contributing every single day right now and that gives me a lot of fulfillment knowing that I am still able to do this and I'm not forced to be at home because that would be extremely challenging for anyone to be told, you can't go to work, you're still getting paid, but then you're like, well heck, what am I even contributing right now? So, as Tristan said, coming up with workouts or a craft or a hobby or something you want to master that gives you a purpose for every single day. It's very easy for all your days to run together and to not know what day of the week it is, but if you have something that keeps you going forward every single day, that's a longterm game plan versus a short term plan. MARK: I obviously vicariously went through this experience just as a parent and trying to stay in touch and so I kind of lived the experiment as an earthling. It seemed apparent to me that two coping mechanisms that were very, very effective, and I think not only for the two of you, but that became effective and helped others in the dome, and that would be the use of humor and the ability to get outside. Now, I want to underscore for people listening, getting outside of the dome is not like you get to walk through the air lock and take your tee shirt off and get a little sun and go for a run up the hill. You're in spacesuits, you don't get the fresh air, the sun isn't on your skin for 366 days. Either both of you, if you would just share some thoughts about the importance of, did that matter? How did it matter, in terms of humor or just a change of scenery? TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean the big thing is it's a new stimulus. So, instead of the treadmill to try and escape from whatever's going on or doing our work or our hobbies, you actually can go over the landscape. The physical exertion is, while it has the same unpleasantness as jogging for a long time, it can at the same time feel cathartic and like you're moving your body because you are, so it can help meet some of your exercise goals and help you workout some stress. TRISTAN: But we were lucky enough that, I don't know if it's on the entire mountain, but we had several in the local area we were allowed to explore, but we had lava tubes so you could schedule an EVA, and do all this paperwork and get everything set up, and then the next day, you suit up and go outside and your teams and everything. And instead of just walking around on a barren landscape, which can be beautiful for its own aesthetic reasons, you're getting to wiggle through strange holes and cracks and find giant house-sized volumes under the lava that are totally empty or have a little skylight at the top with a shaft of light and trees and it's dark and a little scary but super pretty, and just this really wonderful fun exploring thing. And that was a massive stimulus and change of pace compared to whatever was going on inside the dome because we had dozens of these lava tubes and pits and everything that you could explore. MARK: Very cool. Carmel. CARMEL: Yeah, I agree that those are probably, I'd say humor, going outside, and exercise are the top three mechanisms for keeping yourself sane while you're there. Tristan was the diffuser of almost all situations we had when anything would get tense, he'd crack a joke about something and we'd be laughing and then everything would be better or at least, it would be better than it was before. And so, one of the most valuable roles you have in a crew is to have humor, to maintain humor around a situation. You can be serious and get your work done, but being lighthearted for certain things is absolutely necessary because if you can't laugh about it then you're going to be in a world of hurt later. CARMEL: And I agree, going outside was huge and we did have, most of our EVAs were, our extra vehicular activities, [inaudible 00:30:28] outside. We put on our space suit and most of them were meant for doing geology research or lava tubes or the different tasks that the research team had for us to do out there. But sometimes it was just to go have fun because things would be so tense. You're like, I just need to go outside and maybe walk in a straight line because you can only do like 21 steps in the dome before you have to turn and round a corner, and you can't just keep doing laps. You have to go back and forth and just go outside and use your long distance vision and stretch all your muscles and you can even just run down the road if you wanted to, just totally different than being inside, and so mixing up that, like Tristan said, the stimuli of being indoors versus outdoors was really, really important. MARK: Yeah, I'm finding that's what's helping me right now. Now I telecommute so a stay-at-home order isn't quite the same impact for my wife and I than with other family situations perhaps, but I've been getting out. Since the stay-at-home, Tristan, you might be impressed here with your old man. I put 150 miles on my bike since the stay-at-home, just get outside, you can still socially distance. Nobody's within six feet of me, but I'm pedaling like crazy, and it's just been good. It really does make a difference, even just in mood. CARMEL: Fresh air is super good for everyone. That's got to be good for, if you are sick, having some fresh air go through your lungs and if you're not sick, helping keep yourself healthy and moving strong. MARK: Well, I feel like I've taken a lot of your time here and I so, so appreciate your willingness of both of you to share a little bit with the ALPS audience. Before I let you go, do you have one final tip or comment you'd like to share in terms of just, this is your chance to say it again, people that are just trying to make it work and figure out how not to go stir crazy. A final thought from each of you. TRISTAN: Yeah, I mean, I'd say the biggest is you've got the time down to let your vices squeeze you. So try and balance that out with less immediately fun but more longterm productive goals because it sucks now. Nobody wants to go and work out for two hours a day or do that paperwork that's lying around but actually producing something instead of just indulging in something will make four weeks feel a lot more like four and less like 10. MARK: Yeah, yeah. Carmel. CARMEL: I like that. I like that a lot. I also think, finding more than one thing, because one of my downfalls in the dome was that running was my thing and then anytime the treadmill wasn't available, whether it was power or it was broken or whatever, I was a wreck because I just didn't have the ability to do my one coping mechanism, and so having a whole suite of them, whether it's painting or you have some online videos you could do or a whole variety of things that make you happy and are helping you and can be productive at the same time, that would be good because if all of a sudden the gym closes and then it's bad weather outside. Then now you're like, well, what am I supposed to do? And you have all this stress or anxiety built up that I can't get rid of. You need to have a whole suite of things you can do in order to be able to relieve that. MARK: Yeah. To that, I would like to add in terms of the comments both of you shared. Just as a family member that was on earth during this whole experience, I would like to underscore the importance of social connectivity that both Carmel and Tristan talked about earlier in this podcast. We can't necessarily go out and meet friends at the local brew pub or something and have a nice evening, but there are alternatives, and to try to just call a little bit more, talk on the phone, do some Zoom meetings with family. We've done a little bit of this with some of the kids and that's been a lot of fun. MARK: So, don't underestimate as well, the value of staying socially connected. I think that can make a big difference. Well, that brings the podcast to an end. To those of you listening, thank you very much for taking the time. I hope you found something of value and please don't hesitate to reach out to me at ALPS. It's m bass, mbass, B-A-S-S @alpsinsurance.com. Happy to try and help in terms of any questions, concerns you might have on ethics, risk management, or even just getting through a stay-at-home order. That's it, folks. Have a good one. Bye bye.

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares two real-world stories of attorneys struggling with behaviors that often lead to malpractice claims. As a legal community, it is our duty to lift each other up and to provide hope and support to one another. It is time for us to concede that addiction, depression, and burnout are symptoms of a problematic legal culture, not a “problem lawyer.” Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaigthe: Welcome. You're listening to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the Risk Manager here at ALPS and today I'm going to return to the storytelling format. I have two stories that I'd like to share that I think have some real value, hopefully, to at least some of you. A number of years ago I received a phone call from a solo attorney and it was a very interesting conversation. You could tell at the outset that the attorney was, for lack of a better word, troubled. And in short, he was calling to let me know that he was about to commit malpractice and that kind of struck me as odd a little bit. In a way, the malpractice hasn't happened yet. You're telling me you... and you just kind of listen. And what I learned was that he had reached a point in his career where he simply could not do anything else. He could make no more decisions, just nothing left. And he had a statute of limitations date that it was about to run and was calling to let me know that he was going to walk out of his office and quit and never return and just was giving us a heads up. Now thankfully we were able to... We can't send somebody out and take care of this, but we were able to work with a local bar and have that matter addressed. But this gentleman actually did shortly after hanging up the phone with me, walk out of the office, never returned. He was done. And I can share, I've heard that story or situations like this I should say, more than one or two times in my 22 years here at ALPS. This does happen from time to time. Now a second story that I would like to share has to do with a small firm. And in this situation we learned through a number of claims and I will fill you in in a moment on that, but what basically happened, one of the lawyers really reached a point similar to the attorney in the first story. He just got to a point where he too could not make any more decisions. Now, he didn't walk out, he didn't walk away, but he was unable to practice anymore. He enjoyed coming into the firm every day, was very interactive and polite, enjoyed visiting with staff, having his cup of coffee in the morning and visiting with the attorneys and just his normal self or so it appeared. Unfortunately, as he was bringing in new clients and surprisingly he still was bringing in a few clients, he was hiding files. Some were in the trunk of his car. Some were under the carpet. Some were behind furniture in the office. He just couldn't make any more decisions and he didn't know what else to do. Now in that situation, we did have some claims arise out of that and actually the number of claims went into the double digits as a result of this. It's a small... My memory is, I think, a four or five lawyer firm. Why do I want to talk about these stories or share these stories? Wellness is as I'm sure most, if not all of you, are well aware, is a significant topic in the bar today. There's an emphasis on wellbeing and I fully support it, but I want to share how failing to address the health issues that can arise can lead to very, very significant outcomes. And we really do need to take the topic seriously. Now impairments we can broadly define. Today I'm kind of focusing a bit here on depression, but there are all kinds of impairments from burnout, stress, over-work, alcoholism, chemical dependency, gambling addictions. I mean, the list goes on. But let me just share a couple of comments based on these two stories and place it in the context of wellness and wellbeing. In the first situation, we have a solo attorney here obviously, but I want to underscore if you see someone who is feeling, or I should say demonstrating some signs of depression, reach out to them. And if you are someone dealing with depression, please, please do not just sit and ignore the problem. And I do understand that we don't want to be labeled as being weak or something like that. I just think that's not the experience of most people that reach out and try to deal with becoming healthy again and try to work through the problem, deal with depression. But please understand, thinking about the fallout in the second story, depression, we have fatigue, feeling worthless, helpless, all those kinds of things, sort of the normal stuff that people feel. But in some it's not uncommon. Depression can lead to impaired concentration. It absolutely can lead to indecisiveness, a loss of interest in pleasure in activities formerly enjoyed, such as practicing law. Insomnia is often there and in all of this, it adds up to poor judgment. Failing to address, even if you're a solo and isolated from others, can have some significant consequences, not only for you but for your clients. So I encourage you to reach out, find a friend, a loved one, some support system. Heck, if you need to call me and I'm here for you. We need to try to find a way to move forward for your best interest and the interest of your clients. In terms of the second story, I just want to share another sad reality of what happened here. Fortunately I think it's not extremely common, but I can say this was not by any means the first time I've ever come across a situation like this. I shared that a number of claims came up as a result of the attorney's depression and the firm's response was one of, "ALPS, why are you penalizing us? As soon as we found out about the depression, got rid of the problem lawyer and the rest of us did nothing wrong, why are we being punished in terms of the fallout of these claims?" Obviously deductibles are in play, defense, losses, the normal things that happened in malpractice claims were in play here, and that struck me. I did share in many situations, trying to deal with depression is something that is not shameful. And many times people will step up and are supportive, but occasionally that doesn't happen and I understand the conundrum there and I don't have the answer. But I do want to say if any of you are ever find yourselves in a situation where you're dealing with a staff person or a fellow colleague who is depressed, the choice to say, "It's not our fault," is absolutely the wrong choice. I mean, put yourself in the shoes of the individual going through the difficult time. Is this how you would want to be treated? And please understand when you form a firm, thinking about our ethical rules, 5.1 responsibilities of supervisory lawyers, managing partners, that role we are, it's what I call the partners keepers rule. We are our partners keepers. We sink or swim together. And honestly that's the way it should be. So I encourage you, again, impairments are a significant source in terms of the underlying true cause of malpractice claims. They really are. The industry doesn't track it. We'll sit here and say, "Okay, we tracked. The date got blown," whatever it might be. It's the, "What happened?" We don't track the why. I'm telling you I've been in this business for 22 years. This is one of the major why's that a significant number of claims happen. So we need to be sensitive. Our rules do not require us to be physicians and to be able to diagnose depression or to identify someone and say, "You do have a chemical addiction." That's not our role. But in the context of depression, what can you look for? What can you think about? How can you catch this early so that you don't ever find yourselves having to deal with multiple claims because depression went unrecognized, undiagnosed? You cannot bury your head in the sand. So be aware of just some of the warning signs. Depressed individuals often become isolated. They can become sarcastic or withdrawn. There may be sudden changes in behaviors such as absenteeism, loss of interest in family and friends, an increased need for sleep, the onset of insomnia, and sometimes you even see self destructive behavior. Changes in appearance actually are also quite common. There could be a significant change in weight or a loss of interest in personal appearance and what quite severe. Obviously depression can lead to suicidal thoughts and I will just take one brief aside and say, if someone, again, one of your peers that in a firm or a staff member, if there's ever an expression of a suicidal thought, please take that very seriously and seek help immediately. Okay. Particularly if there's any kind of plan expressed or they start to give away possessions. Take that very, very seriously. Get help, help them get help. But at the end, I guess my takeaway is depression really is a significant problem in our profession. I have worked with, talked with, more lawyers struggling with depression than I ever thought I would before I got into this. It's not a mark of shame. It's not something that we should be shamed, shameful in terms of feeling depressed. Just please accept it for what it is. It's a human being going, struggling with life, going through something difficult and let's be there. Let's be the support system to try to help, to have attorney return if that's what he or she ultimately decides to do to the practice and get back up and go on full steam or perhaps they really have come to the point where they say, "This isn't for me," and that's okay too. So they... We help them exit gracefully and move on to bigger and better things, whatever that might mean for them. I think, in my mind, it's one of the hallmarks in terms of doing the kinds of things I'm talking about here of just being professional. Let's rise to the occasion and help our colleagues and help our peers and help ourselves if it's us that are struggling. There's no shame here. So those are my stories. I'm just trying to do whatever I can in whatever small ways I am able to give a little hope and to just give a message. You can get through this and that we are our partners keepers, even if it's a solo down the street. I mean after all, we have a local community professional. So that's my two cents for today. Folks, I hope you found something of value out of my brief podcast here and if have any questions, concerns, want to talk about this topic a little bit more in depth or just need a little additional information, please don't hesitate to reach out. I would be happy to help in any way that I can. You may reach me at mbass@alpsinsurance.com or call our 800 number, 800-367-2577 and ask for Mark, the risk manager. Hey, it's been a pleasure. So long.

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with ALPS CEO David Bell to discuss David's past, ALPS future, why every company should have a vision for their core cultural values (and what shouldn't be in it). Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:       Welcome. This is ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS and joining me today is David Bell, our CEO. David, maybe can we take just one minute or so here for listeners that may not know a bit about who you are, what your background is. I'd love to have you just share a little bit because I think your background and experience is relevant to where we're going to go today in our conversation. DAVID BELL:        Sure. Well thanks, Mark first and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you. I guess the short version of my short history is I started my career in insurance out of college with Chubb and with that in a large company with a long history and a long vision for the future. Then after moving up through various roles at Chubb, after 9/11 Chubb, AIG and Goldman Sachs started a joint venture and I went with Chubb's capital to start that. And over the course of the next decade plus, we took that organization independent from its founding shareholders public and it was ultimately sold. DAVID:                 In 2012, we moved back to Montana where I had gone to college and my wife had been raised and had the good fortune of joining ALPS in 2012 and a very different type of organization, very different size. My career before that had been in a big multinational company. ALPS is a smaller domestic only company and really a fascinating juxtaposition of different types of cultural priorities and different types of opportunities. So, just I feel fortunate and blessed to have had this journey and to have the point in my journey be right here in this moment. MARK:                  Very good. You recall we sat down about two years ago and spent some time discussing the ALPS corporate vision at the time. I thought it'd be fun to kind of revisit that topic today. If I may, I'd like to start by asking a few questions about the process that you go through with us in terms of the company, with the hope of having this discussion and example serve as a concrete example to others wanting to learn sort of the how to, so putting their own vision in place. Before we really even start to dig into this, would I be correct in assuming that the success that you in the large multinational setting as well as the ALPS setting, you're contrasting these two, is very different, but does vision have a role? Do you feel that that was significant in terms of your success in both spaces? DAVID:                 100%. Even when the vision is quite different, as they have been over the course of my journey, not having one is dangerous and I think would lead to a rudderless ship type of approach organizationally, even if you feel like you're generally going in the right direction. If you have a community of people, whether that community is two or three or two or 3,000, if they're not rowing in the same direction with some sense of rhythm, then success would only come by accident and that's not a really good plan. MARK:                  I like that. I really do. I want to come back to that here in just a moment. Can we start just by having you share some of the highlights, whatever you feel comfortable sharing in terms of the ALPS vision for 2020? DAVID:                 Sure. Well the ALPS vision for 2020 is more of our strategic operational objectives. When you have a vision for the short term, this 12 month duration, it's more actionable, quantifiable, executable milestones. So, I would describe the vision as how do the success of those fold up more broadly into an intermediate and longer term vision? And that pertains to the vision as respects where the organization is going. I mean, why are we laboring as hard as we are and making sacrifices personally with time and otherwise to be here to try to strive to be better? There has to be a reason and it has to be beyond monetary in order to affect people, particularly people at all levels because you're going to have folks at the managerial level who are very much privy to the discussion around the why and the vision. Then you're going to have people who are just doing their job every day and they don't have the benefit of the philosophical discussions as to why. So, the vision needs to be as relevant for them as it is for the vision creators. DAVID:                 So, the 2020 vision is a puzzle piece that is simply the beginning of the equation for the intermediate and longer term vision of why are we doing what we're doing. We're all conditioned as humans to first and foremost think, how does this affect me? What's in it for me? So, I think from a managerial perspective, we would be wise and probably have an obligation to go to that place first. We're really going to think about this as it is seen through the filter of everybody else individually as why is this relevant to everybody who's here, and why should they care and sacrifice in order to realize this vision? And how bought in are they to the vision, and how much is the vision a function of their own engagement and involvement and contribution? MARK:                  What I hear, and I love that, it seems to me that part of this is really kind of trying to give some meaning and purpose at the individual level all the way to the corporate level in terms of these whys. I like that. Very, very good. I think this next question kind of relates to what you've been sharing, but I would like to be very specific about it in terms of some clarity. What is the value from a business sense and perhaps personal sense of having a corporate vision? I think we've hit that some, but I'd like sort of a concrete statement. DAVID:                 Sure. Well, I would break that down into two different categories. MARK:                  Okay. DAVID:                 The value of having a vision about the core values, meaning the cultural values of an organization, I think is essential. In fact that frankly, it's more important than the financial and operational vision because if you get the cultural values vision right, the rest of it will more naturally fall in place. If you don't get it right, it'd be very difficult to successfully execute on operational and financial objectives if at its core the culture has a cancer in it. So, you have to start with the cultural side. I think never more so than now when the labor force is increasingly made up of purpose-driven people, people who have an absolute expectation that there is something broader than a paycheck that's part of this compact. DAVID:                 So, the cultural vision, the cultural value that we've established at ALPS is intentionally very simple. We ask ourselves four questions and these questions, they are prominently placed around our environment but it's not kind of a sentence written on a wall for the purposes of marketing. It is really supposed to serve as the litmus test through which not just the words that we speak but ideally the thoughts that we have are filtered through that litmus test. They are quite simply, is it the truth, is it fair, does it benefit our people and the company and does it help us make a profit? Right. We didn't hire a fancy consultant to help us come up with those. I'm sure they could be worded more eloquently in some ways. DAVID:                 But it is, at its basic level, the most honest, intentional approach to say what are some things that we want to exhibit as individuals working in community that if we strive towards these four things, will life be better for all of us? I think we think the answer is yes. If we're committed to telling one another the truth and we are committed as an organization to speaking the truth externally, even when it's uncomfortable, then it doesn't mean that every day will be rainbows and unicorns, but every day will be a day that we can feel proud about what we've done. MARK:                  Yes. DAVID:                 That type of thing is important to people to have worth in their role. The second is, is it fair? Fairness is a subjective measurement. So one person's idea of fair is not the same as the other person's idea of fair. So, what the question of is it fair means is, do you as an employee of this company have confidence that the underlying motivation of the decision maker is to strive for fairness? It doesn't mean that we're always perfect or that we get it right all the time as it pertains to decisions about our own people internally or the endeavors that we have with our constituents and the people around us. We don't claim to be right 100% of the time, but we are always trying to be fair and we aren't afraid to pull back and correct ourselves if we feel we've jumped off course. So, it's the pursuit of fairness. DAVID:                 Then the third and fourth are somewhat kind of unapologetic affirmations of the reality. The third one is, does it benefit our people and the company? I mean, there is an unapologetic self interest that we have as an organization. Is what we're spending our time and money on going to benefit the people here and this organization because if it's not, then we should be thoughtful about how we allocate those resources. Then fourth, doesn't it help us make a profit? I think the need to make a profit can't be understated. It's very intentionally on the list and it's also intentionally not first. DAVID:                 It is there and we shouldn't gloss over the reality that without financial solvency and financial strength, we are not able to accomplish all of our other goals. So, we should keep a really sharp eye on that question. But we also don't wake up and work our days simply and solely for the purpose of making a profit because there's candidly no inspiration longterm for anybody. So, those are four of the cultural values. In our recent vision meeting, we asked what we don't want just so we can keep an idea of what we do want by acknowledging characteristics that many of us have seen exhibited at other companies or read about or watched. DAVID:                 I think it's healthy to spend just a few moments in discussion about what we don't want just so we call it for what it is. We put a label on it, don't want that, right. And some of those, there's just five of them that we talked about in the most recent meeting, which was "corporate" culture where you're just a job. You're a number. You're a commodity. You can be unplugged and somebody else plugged in there. That's not inspiring if you feel like you are commoditized. So, we don't want that. We don't want uncertainty from the fear or concern of financial instability. But it's one of the reasons why making a profit and financial success is on our top four that we do because it gives people a sense of calm and confidence in everything else that they're doing knowing that we do this from a position of strength. DAVID:                 Third, we don't want me people. We want we people. We acknowledged in our discussion that, I'll just speak for myself, as human beings, I am an inherently selfish person, right. My default position is one of self interest and selfishness. I believe that that's just the way that we were created. So, in order to not be a me and be a we, we have to consciously fight against that and be thinking first and foremost about the people around us. Then another is, we don't want to have a kind of that's not my job mentality. I mean, if the coffee needs to be changed, I should change the coffee. It doesn't matter who you are, if you come across it and it needs to be done, then you should do it. You should do it comfortable that other people do the same thing. DAVID:                 Then finally, and this is really important, gossip. I mean, gossip is a cancer that can debilitate companies. So, we are almost transparent to a fault, and in large part, in an effort to preempt any type of gossip. So those are things that you don't want, and then that quickly leads you to the type of cultural vision that you do want. You want folks that just take initiative. When people see a problem, they address it. When people have an idea about something that can be done better than the way we're doing it today, the first instinct should be action. The first thought should be empowerment that I have an idea that I think would benefit others, and I know that I work for a company that that idea can be put in motion in a relatively short period of time. DAVID:                 You want to be a solution provider both for our folks internally and for our customers. We have a business where we have a finance department and other and a HR department. We have legal departments where their constituents, their consumers are internal. They're our own people or our customer. Then we have departments, the business development and account managers and others and claims who are external facing. Their clients are our policy holders, our customers. So, we want to be solution providers for everybody. DAVID: Finally, we're just wrapping up here on the cultural what you do want, you want this to be a fun place to work. I'm not suggesting for a second that this is Disney World and that every day is like a vacation. I know the adage, if you find a job that you love, you'll never not work another day in your life. I personally don't subscribe to that. I think we can be honest about the fact that we come to our jobs because it's a living and we get paid for it. And hopefully it provides the means through which we can pursue some of our other passions in life. Hopefully, it is not the singular interest in your life. I think that would be unhealthy, but we are involved in a serious business. We take risks. We make promises. DAVID:                 There's lots of law and finance in what we do, but we should still be able to have fun. We should not take ourselves too seriously. We should be self-deprecating and people should not feel guarded. I think as we talked about this in the all company meeting, I think the sense amongst our staff is that we do a pretty good job at that. You want people around you to want you to win. I think whether it's who we're working next to or our marriage or our friendships, you want to be in community with people who are "for you", who genuinely want to see you succeed and to enter your success with you. DAVID:                 Then again, just from a vision perspective, size through diversification, right. I mean in our business there is strength in size and there is strength and protection in diversification. So that is something that we're quite intentional about. We want everybody finally to just know that they're supported, whether they're in our home office in Missoula or in any one of our number of remote locations around the country. I mean, whether I get to see you physically, regularly on a day to day basis or whether you're in Atlanta, Georgia or Richmond, Virginia or any of the other places, you should feel like you are as a valued and that the resources you're giving to succeed are as high a priority as anyone else. DAVID:                 So, those are cultural vision checkpoints. I would suggest that if we are wildly successful on making all of those real in the lives of everybody that work here, we will be and continue to be the best legal malpractice carrier in the country. Candidly, we would be the best in anything we were doing. If we, for whatever reason, stopped doing this and started doing something else as an organization full of people working together, we would do that well too. MARK:                  Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let me sort of share, just speaking personally for a moment. I have participated as all of us at ALPS have at the all company meetings and talking about these things. I like you're sharing the point of the discussion where folks, what don't we want? I think taking risks like that to invite these kinds of discussions really enables people to make it real. I describe our culture, what we do, and I think at an individual level as well as at the company wide level, we are really striving to be, and I think we accomplish this, authentic and intentional in our actions. Even in terms of just how we interrelate with each other, how we interrelate with our customers. MARK:                  I'll share David, for many years I would sign my email as you're emailing with different customers, internal and external, Mark and things like that. But in more recent years, I have a signature. I'll say, "Please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything else I can do," but I'm more and more adding if I can be of service to you. I really take great pride in, and I think I am not alone or unique in this, I take pride in that's my experience of who and what ALPS is. That we do take joy and pride in being in service to others in what we do. MARK:                  So, I'm just trying to give our listeners a sense of what you're talking about is being internalized and taken up by those that you're trying to share the vision with. But can I ask, what is your process? When you sit down and think about vision, any thoughts to share or insights? Is this something that's very organic? How do you go about it? DAVID:                 Sure. Well, the cultural vision is an exercise of really drawing on both my personal experiences with positive cultures and destructive cultures. Then being in discussion with others internally in this company and just externally people who you just benefit from talking about their experiences and taking the good and the bad, and then coming up with a vision of what you want to pursue. So, I think it is generally in a constant state of evolution in that it's kind of being refined but at its heart, the truth and fairness, those are kind of time-tested, immovable virtues for a company. DAVID:                 So, when you hear people... When you do some of these things well, and we are by no means perfect. In fact, we make mistakes regularly and we strive to be better. The fact that we feel like we get better means that we've always got room to improve. But when you do these things well and as you hire people and they're exposed to this culture for the first time as an employee and they come from reputable companies, competitors or otherwise. And you listen to them as they describe their experiences here, it's really inspiring. It makes you want to make it better, refine it more because you kind of feel like you're really onto something. It does tap into a part of the psychology for all of us that just numbers alone I don't think can tap into. MARK:                  I think you and I have seen this over the years in terms of our professional experiences and looking at competitors and whatnot, but I think businesses, corporations, small law firms, you can come up and create a good vision. I think have something that's pretty solid and yet it doesn't go anywhere. The vision fails for lack of a better reason. Just it never gets implemented perhaps. Why do you think that is? What gets in the way of, in terms of your experiences, success with a vision? Any thoughts about that? DAVID:                 Well, that's a great one. I suppose there are risks that a vision is established, but it's not a core conviction, and so it's not front of mind. When we first started this discussion, Mark, I talked about the four cultural vision points, the truth and fairness. I described those as the litmus test, the lens through which all things should be filtered. You really have to, whatever your vision is for your small firm or your family or your nonprofit, if it's not important enough that it will resonate with you and with everyone else such that it's front of mind in all thoughts and actions, then there's a real danger that you drift away from it. I think that's one risk because you can have a strategy session with the people who you work with and two weeks later no one could even quote a single sentence of what was discussed in that. MARK:                  I have been through that more than once. Yes. DAVID:                 I'm sure there is value in those types of days, but it really needs to be something that people are genuinely bought into. So, I think drifting away from it as is one risk. A second risk that I suggest and I've experienced this in my various failures to pursue certain vision elements, I think a vision, like most other things, can be distilled down to a project needing project management. If you have a certain vision characteristic, you need to disaggregate it into its pieces, put it in align sequentially of what needs to be done and then manage it towards that goal. DAVID:                 A vision is a point that if you slice it into 10 sub points and then line them up from where you are right now to what would realize that vision, then you kind of methodically and actionably check off on those things. I think sometimes we think of visions in the softer context. So, we're not as disciplined at project managing our way, methodically checking off certain actions or behaviors that are marching towards realizing that vision. Then we wake up one day disappointed that we haven't realized the vision. MARK:                  Yeah. Yeah. I think when I look back on my own career over the years where it has failed, there tends to be we come up with this vision and then you sort of say it at the front line to the bulk of the company, "Implement this and do it." There's no tools. It's not a bottom-up kind of process in my mind. When you try the bottom-up, it fails. It has to be a top-down in the sense that, in the ALPS example here, you and upper management really do genuinely live and exemplify the vision just in the day to day interactions with everybody you interact with, again, internally and externally. I think that is also key to some of this. You have to walk the talk. That's been my experience anyway. DAVID: Yeah. Well thank you. I appreciate that observation. There are aspects of a vision that need to be top-down because in some ways that's the charge of leadership is to be spending time thinking and deciding about vision. But the vision is carried out by everyone else. So, if you just, in an autocratic kind of way, instruct people on what they're going to do when, that generally is not a recipe for success. But if you go to the folks who are going to be executing and say, "This is the vision. Can you do this? Do you have the resources necessary for you to accomplish this? And how long do you think reasonably it will take under an aggressive timeline for you to get it done?" DAVID:                 If the people are engaged and just being asked if they're prepared to sign up for this vision, being asked if they have been armed with the resources to fulfill what they've just committed to and just being asked how long they realistically they think it's going to take. Those are not particularly complex questions, but it's amazing the difference of whether or not you go through those other steps and ask those questions. Versus just barking out an instruction to people who then look at you as though you're hopelessly unrealistic about what it actually takes to get these things done. MARK:                  I absolutely agree with you. The way I describe that is there is a difference between allowing the workforce, however you want to define that, allowing them the opportunity to own the vision, giving them tools, explaining, those kinds of things. Versus having sort of the dictator approach, this is the vision, make it happen and I'm out. It has to be owned from top to bottom. Again, I think that's another key reason why ALPS has been successful at this. I'd like to switch just a little bit. Wellness and wellbeing has been a significant issue, as you're well aware, particularly in legal profession in recent years. MARK:                  ALPS has been involved in the national movement to put together some emphasis on wellbeing and some resources. It's been an exciting time. I think ALPS has done internally a good job focusing on wellbeing. Do you see, is there a connection, is there a relationship between the vision that you have, the vision that ALPS has embraced here and wellness, a wellness, a wellbeing component? Is there a connection there at all or in your mind is that sort of separate topics? DAVID:                 No, I think there's very much a connection between the division and the cultural priorities and wellness in general because whether it's at ALPS specifically where we happen to employ a lot of people who are attorneys and have been in their prior lives practicing attorneys and the legal community that we insure. That's obviously the wellness category is, at the legal profession, pretty well documented. I mean mental health, substance abuse, physical wellbeing, stress in the job. I mean, the role of the attorney is one where people can quite literally and often do work themselves to death because there really is not a governor on when it becomes an unhealthy. I think the small firms and solo practitioners or perhaps even most susceptible to it. They don't really have the check and balance of a lot of other people in an organizational structure. DAVID:                 So, I think there's similarities between the community of people of 20,000 people that we insure all around the country and the people that are within this organization itself. I think wellness it is really important. It's a tricky one because the cause and effect of what you spend time on and what you spend money on and how that correlates directly to measurable wellness outcomes is very difficult. So I'm a big metric fan and I tend to rely much of my decision making on data of some sort. The data there is a little bit harder to pin down, but you just know that there is a correlation and that that correlation is necessary even if it's not as mathematical as some of the other decision points that drive our business. MARK:                  One final little question I'd like to throw your way, before I ask it, I need to explain something to the listening audience here. In recent years, David has taken the time to meet individually with every single employee in the company. It is what we call a coffee talk. It's just sit down for however long that the conversation goes. There's no rules on the conversation. You talk about anything you want. So, I'm going to ask the question. Why do you do or what is the value of coffee talk to you? DAVID:                 That's a great question. Something as simple as a 45 minute conversation shouldn't have as many and as complicated benefit and reason as it does, but I get the benefit of a lot of information from those discussions. It's also a great opportunity for me to help demonstrate in our flat managerial structure that we aren't a hierarchy. That everybody has access to everybody else and that no manager should have any apprehension about me having a discussion. I should have an appropriate level of deference in the role that the manager's tasked with not to do anything to undermine them by having this direct one on one conversation with their staff member. But I learn a ton about what makes people tick, what's important to them. I get a ton of information about where there are obstacles in the day to day aspects of people's jobs, obstacles that are not that difficult to remove, but for whatever reason, it kind of helps to talk about it and enlist some assistance. DAVID:                 I pick up a lot of personal context of the journey that people go through, and this is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this. In my old life in the role that I had before, I was the COO of a large publicly traded multinational insurance company. So, I just didn't have the benefit of knowing people personally. I didn't want people to be a number, but there just wasn't really another option. I didn't have context of the life of that person in London or in New York in the decisions that I was making. DAVID:                 So, there's a real blessing to being in an organization of this size where you really get to put your thumb on the pulse of these people and the journey that they're going through and how their profession intersects with that, where it intersects positively, where it creates challenges. So, it really makes the whole game more of a human one but it is a pain to schedule. If we just be honest about the challenge, I had two coffee talks today and they're so different and they were both great. But when I'm traveling, and so these are generally done, unless I'm in one of our other locations with another employee, I'm generally doing these when I'm here. So, it is not an insignificant commitment of time, but it is a commitment that yields a result and return that makes it well worth it in my mind. MARK:                  Yeah, I would agree. Let me share again for our listening audience here why I think coffee talk is valuable. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to when you couple it with emphasis on wellbeing, the corporate meetings we have, we get together and have these discussions. But there's a two way street in play here and it's when a corporation through management and even you, David as the CEO, take the time to personally invest in the employees. It creates the opportunity again for the employees to reciprocate and invest personally in the vision and the mission of what the corporation is doing, what ALPS is doing. In my mind, I think that's just a huge invitation. I see that as fundamental to the success of implementing the vision and really keeping things moving forward so that we're not drifting to use your word. You're keeping the pulse on us, but we're also keeping the pulse on you as representative of the corporation. It's really good stuff. MARK: Well folks, we are out of time. David, I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down and visit a little bit. It's always a pleasure when we get together. I hope for those of you listening that you can appreciate. I thought this would be valuable because it's a real world example of how when a thought leader creates a vision and has the ability and a desire, intent, energy to implement this, you really can have some tremendous success. I don't think that these kinds of processes aren't limited to a corporation. This can happen in a three man law firm. So, I hope you found something of value. Thanks for listening folks. It's a good one. So long.

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares an insightful story of a dream cruise, a freak accident, and an attorney whose casual favor for a friend became a malpractice nightmare. Transcript: Welcome. You're listening to ALPS In Brief. The podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, and I'm the Risk Manager here at ALPS. And today, I thought it'd be fun to go in a slightly different direction. Rather than sitting down with a guest, I thought it'd be fun to share a story of a situation that I learned about during a risk management call that came in. And I think going forward, I'm going to periodically share some stories from calls when they are particularly interesting in terms of the learning they provide. This particular story is a good one, from my perspective, because it's a reminder about the perils that can arise from a failure to follow through. So let me share a short version. I'll interpret the story that was shared with me, and then I will follow-up with a few takeaways, things that I felt were important, in terms of the learning, that we all can take away from the story. So here's the story. A longterm client reached out to his attorney to ask for a favor regarding the client's daughter. While away on a cruise, the daughter had been struck in the face by a falling object and apparently that resulted in some substantial damage to her teeth. Although the daughter was working with an insurance adjuster, the client would feel much better having his attorney look into the matter and the attorney agreed. Shortly thereafter, the attorney was able to obtain an offer of $3000. Of course, before any offer could be accepted, he needed to check in with his client's daughter. By way of an email, he let her know about the offer and reminded her that the total costs of all injury-related dental work would need to be known before any offer could be accepted. He went on to tell her that once she had a final number she could check back with him if she wanted to and he would let her know if the current offer was sufficient. With that accomplished, the attorney returned to his normal work routine. Now a year goes by without any contact from the daughter, and this is when the attorney's phone rang. The long-term client was calling on behalf of his daughter who had just reached out to the insurance adjuster, only to learn that the statute of limitations date had run on her claim, so no recovery would be forthcoming. In light of this development, the daughter had immediately asked her dad to contact his attorney in order to have the problem fixed and this is when the attorney finally realized he had a problem because it was becoming rather clear that the daughter believed he was her attorney too. This is when the call to me occurred, and its purpose was to discuss the ins and outs of this attorney trying to settle a likely forthcoming malpractice claim on his own. After the call ended, I was left wondering why this attorney never took the time to simply replace a reminder in his calendar to contact his client's daughter, maybe 60 to 90 days before the statute ran. He was certainly aware that a deadline was in play, and following through with this one simple step could have prevented all of this from happening. Another important takeaway here is that an attorney never gets an accountability pass just because the representation is framed as a favor. One can't casually look into a legal matter, pass along a little legal advice and expect there to be no fallout if something goes wrong later on. As an attorney, you are either in or out. There really isn't much of a middle ground here. Finally, never try to settle a potential malpractice claim on your own before reporting the matter to your malpractice carrier. While specific policy language will differ between insurers, as an insured, you do have a contractual obligation to report all actual and potential claims. So just know that failing to do so can have serious repercussions down the road. So that's my story for today. I hope you found that a bit interesting. And I hope you really will take the takeaways to heart. The failure to follow through is a common problem, and we really do see attorneys finding themselves at times in what I would call the accidental client situation. And this favor setting is not uncommon as well. And finally, lawyers do at times want to try to settle what they would consider perhaps smaller matters, frivolous matters maybe, I don't know, on their own. And carriers, at times, are actually okay with that. But you really need to report this and have the carrier sign off if you will, or agree that they're comfortable having you handle something on your own. The failure to do this really can turn out to have a consequence that is not going to be something you want. It could be the claim could be denied, and worse things can happen. It's unusual and uncommon, but it can. Even to include rescinding coverage for failure to report if the carrier learns that this is something more common. And have I seen that situation in my 20 plus years at ALPS? Absolutely, I have. So, I hope you found something of value today. And please, if you have any thoughts of topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, a guest that you'd like to hear from, please don't hesitate to reach out and share your thought. You may reach me at mbass@aplsinsurance. So, that's it, folks. Have a good one. Bye-bye.