Podcasts about thompson reuters

Each episode on Unstoppable Mindset I ask all of you and my guests to feel free to introduce me to others who would be good guests on our podcast. Our guest this time, Erin Edgar, is a guest introduced to me by a past podcast guest, Rob Wentz. Rob told me that Erin is inspirational and would be interesting and that she would have a lot to offer you, our audience. Rob was right on all counts. Erin Edgar was born blind. Her parents adopted an attitude that would raise their daughter with a positive attitude about herself. She was encouraged and when barriers were put in her way as a youth, her parents helped her fight to be able to participate and thrive. For a time, she attended the Indiana School for the Blind. Her family moved to Georgia where Erin attended high school. After high school, Erin wanted to go to college where she felt there would be a supportive program that would welcome her on campus. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapple Hill. After graduating she decided to continue at UNC where she wanted to study law. The same program that gave her so much assistance during her undergraduate days was not able to provide the same services to Erin the graduate student. Even so, Erin had learned how to live, survive and obtain what she needed to go through the law program. After she received her law degree Erin began to do what she always wanted to do: She wanted to use the law to help people. So, she worked in programs such as Legal Aid in North Carolina and she also spent time as a mediator. She will describe all that for us. Like a number of people, when the pandemic began, she decided to pivot and start her own law firm. She focuses on estate planning. We have a good discussion about topics such as the differences between a will and a living trust. Erin offers many relevant and poignant thoughts and words of advice we all can find helpful. Erin is unstoppable by any standard as you will see. About the Guest: Erin Edgar, Esq., is a caring, heart-centered attorney, inspirational speaker and vocal artist. She loves helping clients: -- Plan for the future of their lives and businesses, ensuring that they have the support they need and helping them find ways to provide for their loved ones upon death. --Ensure that the leave a legacy of love and reflect client values -- Find creative ways that allow them to impact the world with a lasting legacy. She is passionate about connecting with clients on a heart level. She loves witnessing her clients as she guides them to transform their intentions for their loved ones into a lasting legacy through the estate planning process. Erin speaks about ways to meld proven legal tools, strategies, and customization with the creative process to design legal solutions that give people peace of mind, clarity, and the assurance that their loved ones will be taken care of, and the world will be left a better place Ways to connect with Erin: Facebook: https://facebook.com/erin-edgar-legal LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/erinedgar About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. We're glad that you're here with us, wherever you may be. Hope the day is going well, and we have Erin Edgar on our episode today. Edgar is a very interesting person in a lot of ways. She's a caring, heart centered attorney. She is also an inspirational speaker and a vocal artist. I'm not sure whether vocal artistry comes into play when she's in the courtroom, but we won't worry about that too much. I assume that you don't sing to your judges when you're trying to deal with something. But anyway, I'll let her answer that. I'm just trying to cause trouble, but Erin again. We're really glad you're with us. We really appreciate you being here, and I know you do a lot with estate planning and other kinds of things that'll be fun to talk about. So welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Erin Edgar ** 02:14 Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here, and I haven't sung in a courtroom or a courthouse yet, but I wouldn't rule it out.   Michael Hingson ** 02:23 I have someone who I know who also has a guide dog and his diet. His guide dog, it's been a while since I've seen him, but his guide dog tended to be very vocal, especially at unexpected times, and he said that occasionally happened in the courtroom, which really busted up the place. Oh, dear.   Erin Edgar ** 02:45 I imagine that would draw some smiles, hopefully, smiles.   Michael Hingson ** 02:48 Well, they were, yeah, do you, do you appear in court much?   Erin Edgar ** 02:53 Um, no, the type of law that I practice, I'm usually, I don't think I've ever appeared in court after I've written people's wills, but I have done previous things where I was in court mediating disputes, which is a kind of a separate thing that I used to do, so I've been in court just not recently. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 03:17 Well, that's understandable. Well, let's start a little bit with the early Erin and growing up and all that sort of stuff. Tell us about that? Sure.   Erin Edgar ** 03:26 So I was born in cold, gray Indiana, and, yeah, chilly in the wintertime, and I started out I was blind from birth, so my parents thought it would be a good idea to send me to the school for the blind for a while. And back when I was born, um, teen years ago, they did not mainstream visually impaired and disabled students in that state, so you went where you could, and I was at the blind school for until I reached third grade, and then we moved to Georgia, and I've been in the south ever since I live in North Carolina now, and I started going to public schools in fourth grade, and continued on that route all the way up through high school.   Michael Hingson ** 04:21 Oh, okay. And so then, what did you do?   Erin Edgar ** 04:29 So after, after that, I, you know, I was one of those high school students. I really wanted to get out of dodge and leave my high school behind. I went visiting a couple of colleges in Georgia, and I said to my parents, I said, I really don't like this. It's like going to high school again. Literally, I was meeting people I had been in high school with, and I decided, and was very grateful that my parents. Were able to rig it some way so that I could go to an out of state school. And I went to UNC Chapel Hill here in North Carolina, Tar Heels all the way. And I was there for undergrad. And then I got into law school there as well, which I was very excited about, because I didn't have to go anywhere, and graduated from law school again a while ago in the early 2000s   Michael Hingson ** 05:31 Okay, and so then you went straight into law from that.   Erin Edgar ** 05:37 I didn't I did some other things before I actually went into law itself. I worked with some local advocacy organizations, and I also mediated, as I said earlier, I did mediations with the county court, helping mediate criminal disputes. And we're talking about like things with you get in a dispute with your neighbor and you yell at each other, those kind of People's Court type things. They were fun and interesting. And then I did go into law. After that, I started working with Legal Aid of North Carolina, which is a an organization that helps people in poverty who cannot afford a lawyer to go and have have their options communicated to them and some help given to them regarding their public benefits or certain other, you know, public things that we could help with we weren't able to help with any personal injury, or, you know, any of the fun stuff you see on TV. So and then, when the pandemic hit, I started my own law practice and completely changed gears and went into writing estate plans and wills for a living.   Michael Hingson ** 07:07 Do you think that your time doing mediation work and so on taught you a lot about humanity and human nature and people?   Erin Edgar ** 07:16 It did. I bet it did. It was invaluable, actually, in that area taught me a lot about, I don't know necessarily, about human nature. However, it did teach me a lot about how to talk to people who were on different pages. You know, they had, perhaps, values and principles that weren't quite the same, where they had a different way of looking at the same exact situation, and how to bring those those people together and allow them to connect on a deeper level, rather than the argument we're able to get them to agree to kind of move forward from that, so nobody has to be found guilty, right? And you know a judge doesn't have and you don't have to drag a criminal conviction around with you. I think the most rewarding cases that I had, by far were the education cases. Because I don't know if anyone knows this, but in most states, in the United States, if you don't send your kids to school, you are guilty of a crime. It's called truancy, and you can be arrested. Well, the county that I live in was very forward thinking, and the school system and the court said, that's kind of dumb. We don't want to arrest parents if their kids aren't going to school, there's something behind it. You know, there the school is not providing what the child needs. The child's acting out for some reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it. So what they did was they set up a process whereby we come in as neutral observers. We did not work for the court. We were part of a separate organization, and have a school social worker there or counselor, and also have a parent there, and they could talk through the issues. And in a lot of cases, if the children were old enough, they were teenagers, they were there, and they could talk about it from their perspective. And truly amazing things came out of those situations. We could just we would discover that the children had a behavioral issue or even a disability that had not been recognized, and were able to come up with plans to address that with you know, or the school was with our help,   Michael Hingson ** 09:42 going back a little bit, how did your parents deal with the fact that you were blind? I gather it was a fairly positive experience   Erin Edgar ** 09:50 for me. It was positive. I was so fortunate, and I'm still so grateful to this day for having parents who you. I were very forward thinking, and advocated for me to have and do whatever, not whatever I wanted, because I was far from spoiled, but, you know, whatever, yeah, yeah, you know. But whatever, however I wanted to be successful, they advocated for me. And so my mother actually told me, you know, when I was born, they went through all the parent things like, oh, gosh, what did we do wrong? You know, why is God punishing us? You know, all that. And they, very early on, found support groups for, you know, parents with children with either blindness or disabilities of some sort, and that was a great source of help to them. And as I grew up, they made every effort to ensure that I had people who could teach me, if they couldn't, you know, how to interact with other children. I think, for a while when I was very little, and I actually kind of remember this, they hired an occupational therapist to come and teach me how to play with kids, because not only was I blind, but I was an only child, so I didn't have brothers and sisters to interact with, and that whole play thing was kind of a mystery to me, and I remember it sort of vaguely, but that's just A demonstration that they wanted me to have the best life possible and to be fully integrated into the sighted world as much as possible. So when I was at the blind school, and I was in this residential environment, and there was an added bonus that my parents didn't really weren't happy in their jobs either, and they weren't happy with the education I was getting, that they decided, well, we're just going to pick up and move and that was, quite frankly, as I look back on it now, a huge risk for them. And they did it, you know, 50% for me and 50% for them, maybe even 6040, but as I look back on it now, it's another demonstration of how supportive they were, and all the way through my school age years, were very active in ensuring that I had everything that I needed and that I had the support that I needed.   Michael Hingson ** 12:19 That's cool. How did it go when you went to college at UNC?   Erin Edgar ** 12:25 Yeah, that's an interesting question, a very good question.   Michael Hingson ** 12:29 You didn't play basketball, I assume? Oh no, I figured you had other things to do.   Erin Edgar ** 12:33 Yeah, I had other stuff to do. I sang in the choir and sang with the medieval chorus group, and, you know, all this other, like, musical geek, geeky stuff. But, or, and when we were looking for colleges and universities, one of the criteria was they had to have a solid kind of, like disability, slash visually impaired center, or, you know, support staff that would help in, you know, allow people with disabilities to go through the university. So at UNC Chapel Hill, the they had as part of their student affairs department Disability Services, and it just so happened that they were very aware of accommodations that blind people needed. I wasn't the first blind student to go through undergrad there. That's not law school, that's undergrad. And so you know, how much was it? Time and a half on on tests if I was doing them on the computer, double time if I was doing them in Braille. A lot of the tests were in Braille because they had the technology to do it. And also the gentleman who ran the Disability Services Department, I think, knew Braille, if I'm not mistaken, and could transcribe if necessary. But I was at the stage at that point where I was typing most of my exams anyway, and didn't need much that was in Braille, because I had books either electronically or they had a network of folks in the community that would volunteer to read if there was not, you know, available textbooks from RFD, and what is it, RFP and D? Now was at the time, yeah, now Learning Ally, there wasn't a Bookshare at that time, so we couldn't use Bookshare, but if there weren't textbooks available, they would have people in the community who would read them for them, and they would get paid a little bit. Now, when I went to law school, it was a totally different ball game, because I was the first law student who was blind, that UNC Chapel Hill had had, and it was a different school within the school, so that student affairs department was not part of law school anymore, and we had quite a time the first semester getting my book. Works in a format that I could read them in. They did eventually, kind of broker a deal, if you will, with the publishers who were either Thompson Reuters or Westlaw at the time to get electronic versions. They were floppy disks. This is how old I am. Floppy disks. They were in this weird format. I think it was word perfect or something. Usually it was, and they   Michael Hingson ** 15:27 didn't really have a lot of them new or no, they didn't know now, newer publishing system,   Erin Edgar ** 15:32 yeah, there wasn't PDF even, I don't think, at the time. And the agreement was I could get those, and I actually had to buy the print textbooks as well. So I have this whole bookcase of law books that are virgin, unopened, almost. And they are, you know, some of them almost 25 years old, never been opened and of no use to anyone. But I have them, and they look nice sitting down there in that bookshelf antiques books. They're antiques. So the first year was a little rough, because for a while I didn't have books, and we were able to make arrangements so that I could kind of make up some classes on a later year and switch things around a little bit. And it ended up all working out really well once we got started.   Michael Hingson ** 16:16 Yeah, I remember when I was going through getting my bachelor's and master's in physics, I needed the books in braille because, well, it's the only way to be able to really deal with the subject. You can't do it nearly as well from recordings, although now there's a little bit better capability through recording, because we have the DayZ format and so on. But still, it's not the same as reading it in Braille and for mathematics and physics and so on. I think that the only way to really do it is in Braille. And we had challenges because professors didn't want to decide what books to use until the last minute, because then, oh, a new book might be coming out and we want to get the latest book, and that didn't work for me, right? Because I had a network that I, in part, I developed with the Department of Rehabilitation out here, helped our office for disabled students didn't really have the resources to know it. They were very supportive. They just didn't really deal with it. But the bottom line is that we had to develop, I had to develop the network of transcribers, but they needed three to six months to do the books, at least three months and and sometimes I would get them one or two volumes at a time, and they barely kept ahead of the class. But, you know, it worked, but professors resisted it. And my the person who ran the Office for Students with Disabilities, said, Look, you have to work on these things, but if you're not getting cooperation from professors, and you come and tell me, and I will use the power of this office to get you what you need, there's another thing you might consider doing, she said. And I said, What's that? And Jan said, Go meet the chancellor. Make friends, yeah, friends in high places. And so I did. And Dan, oh, there you go. Became pretty good friends over the years, which was pretty cool,   Erin Edgar ** 18:15 you know, it was weird because we didn't, I didn't have that problem with the professors. They were, you know, I had a couple of old codgers, but they weren't really worried about the books. They were fine with me having the books, but it was the publishers. The publishers were irritated that that I needed them, and, you know, in an alternative format. And I didn't really, I was not. I was one of those people that if someone said they were going to do something for me, I kind of let people do it. And at the time, I was really not an advocate, advocator for myself, at that time, a very good self advocate. And so I kind of let the school interface with that. I think it would have been really interesting, if I look back on it, for me to have taken a hand in that. And I wonder what would have happened well, and at this point, you know, it's neither here nor there, but that's really fascinating. Making Friends with the chancellor, sometimes you have to do stuff like that   Michael Hingson ** 19:15 well. And the idea was really to get to know Him. And what there was, well, obviously other motivations, like, if we needed to go to a higher court to get help, we could go to the chancellor. I never had to do that, but, but the reason for meeting him and getting to know him was really just to do it and to have fun doing it. So we did,   Erin Edgar ** 19:36 yeah, and I kind of had a comparable experience. I met the Dean of the Law School for that very reason. And he said, you know, if you've got trouble, come to me, my parents got involved a little bit. And we all, you know, met together and maybe even separately at some points just to make sure that I had everything that I needed at various times. Mm. Yeah, and I made friends with the some of the assistant deans at the law school, in particular because of the situation, and one of whom was the Dean of the Law School Student Affairs, who was helping me to get what I needed. And for a while, when I was in law school and beyond. He was like, We lent books to each other. It was very funny. We found out we had the same reading tastes beyond law books. It wasn't, you know, legal at all, but we were like, trading books and things. So a lot of really good relationships came out of that.   Michael Hingson ** 20:37 And I think that's extremely important to to do. And I think that's one of the things that that offices for students with disabilities that tend to want to do everything for you. I think that's one of the things that it's a problem with those offices, because if you don't learn to do them, and if you don't learn to do them in college, how are you going to be able to be able to really act independently and as an advocate after college, so you have to learn that stuff   Erin Edgar ** 21:05 Absolutely. That's a very good point.   Michael Hingson ** 21:09 So I, I think it was extremely important to do it, and we did, and had a lot of fun doing it. So it was, was good. What are some of the biggest misconceptions you think that people had about you as a blind child growing up?   Erin Edgar ** 21:25 Oh yeah, that's a great question. I think that one of the biggest misconceptions that people had about me, especially when I was younger, is that I would know I would be sort of relegated to staying at home with parents all of my life, or being a stay at home parent and not able to be kind of professionally employed and earning, you know, earning a living wage. Now, I have my own business, and that's where most of my money goes at the same at this point. So, you know, earning a living wage might be up in the air at the moment. Ha, ha. But the the one thing I think that the biggest misconception that people had, and this is even like teachers at the blind school, it was very rare for blind children of my age to grow up and be, you know, professionals in, I don't want to say high places, but like people able to support themselves without a government benefit backing them up. And it was kind of always assumed that we would be in that category, that we would be less able than our sighted peers to do that. And so that was a huge misconception, even you know, in the school that I was attending. I think that was the, really the main one and one misconception that I had then and still have today, is that if I'm blind, I can't speak for myself. This still happens today. For instance, if I'm if I want, if I'm going somewhere and I just happen to be with someone sighted, they will talk whoever I'm, wherever I'm at, they will talk to the sighted person, right? They won't talk to you. They won't talk to me. And so, for instance, simple example, if I'm somewhere with my husband, and we happen to be walking together and we go somewhere that I need to go, they will talk to him because he's guiding me, and they won't talk. And he's like, don't talk to me. I have no idea, you know, talk to her, and part of that is I'm half a step behind him. People naturally gravitate to the people that are leading. However, I noticed, even when I was a young adult, and I would go, you know, to the doctor, and I would be with my my parents, like, maybe I'm visiting them, and I need to go to the doctor, they would talk to them and not me, yeah, which is kind of sad. And I think it happens a lot, a lot more than people realize.   Michael Hingson ** 24:10 Yeah, it does. And one of my favorite stories is, is this, I got married in 1982 and my wife has always been, or had always been. She passed away in 2022 but she was always in a wheelchair. And we went to a restaurant one Saturday for breakfast. We were standing at the counter waiting to be seated, and the hostess was behind the counter, and nothing was happening. And finally, Karen said to me, she doesn't know who to talk to, you know? Because Karen, of course, is, is in a wheelchair, so actually, she's clearly shorter than this, this person behind the counter, and then there's me and and, of course, I'm not making eye contact, and so Karen just said she doesn't know who to talk to. I said, you know? All she's gotta do is ask us where we would like to sit or if we'd like to have breakfast, and we can make it work. Well, she she got the message, and she did, and the rest of the the day went fine, but that was really kind of funny, that we had two of us, and she just didn't know how to deal with either of us, which was kind of cute. Mm, hmm. Well, you know, it brings up another question. You use the term earlier, visually impaired. There's been a lot of effort over the years. A lot of the professionals, if you will, created this whole terminology of visually impaired, and they say, well, you're blind or you're visually impaired. And visually impaired means you're not totally blind, but, but you're still visually impaired. And finally, blind people, I think, are starting to realize what people who are deaf learned a long time ago, and that is that if you take take a deaf person and you refer to them as hearing impaired, there's no telling what they might do to you, because they recognize that impaired is not true and they shouldn't be equated with people who have all of their hearing. So it's deaf or hard of hearing, which is a whole lot less of an antagonistic sort of concept than hearing impaired. We're starting to get blind people, and not everyone's there yet, and we're starting to get agencies, and not every agency is there yet, to recognize that it's blind or low vision, as opposed to blind or here or visually impaired, visually impaired. What do you think about that? How does and how does that contribute to the attitudes that people had toward you?   Erin Edgar ** 26:38 Yeah, so when I was growing up, I was handicapped, yeah, there was that too, yeah, yeah, that I was never fond of that, and my mother softened it for me, saying, well, we all have our handicaps or shortcomings, you know, and but it was really, what was meant was you had Something that really held you back. I actually, I say, this is so odd. I always, I usually say I'm totally blind. Because when I say blind, the immediate question people have is, how blind are you? Yeah, which gets back to stuff, yeah, yeah. If you're blind, my opinion, if you're blind, you're you're blind, and if you have low vision, you have partial sight. And visually impaired used to be the term, you know, when I was younger, that people use, and that's still a lot. It's still used a lot, and I will use it occasionally, generally. I think that partially sighted, I have partial vision is, is what I've heard people use. That's what, how my husband refers to himself. Low Vision is also, you know, all those terms are much less pejorative than actually being impaired,   Michael Hingson ** 27:56 right? That's kind of really the issue, yeah. My, my favorite example of all of this is a past president of the National Federation of the Blind, Ken Jernigan, you've heard of him, I assume, Oh, sure. He created a document once called a definition of blindness, and his definition, he goes through and discusses various conditions, and he asks people if, if you meet these conditions, are you blind or not? But then what he eventually does is he comes up with a definition, and his definition, which I really like, is you are blind if your eyesight has decreased to the point where you have to use alternatives to full eyesight in order to function, which takes into account totally blind and partially blind people. Because the reality is that most of those people who are low vision will probably, or they may probably, lose the rest of their eyesight. And the agencies have worked so hard to tell them, just use your eyesight as best you can. And you know you may need to use a cane, but use your eyesight as best you can, and if you go blind, then we're going to have to teach you all over again, rather than starting by saying blindness is really okay. And the reality is that if you learn the techniques now, then you can use the best of all worlds.   Erin Edgar ** 29:26 I would agree with that. I would also say you should, you know, people should use what they have. Yeah, using everything you have is okay. And I think there's a lot of a lot of good to be said for learning the alternatives while you're still able to rely on something else.   Michael Hingson ** 29:49 Point taken exactly you know, because   Erin Edgar ** 29:53 as you age, you get more and more in the habit of doing things one way, and it's. Very hard to break out of that. And if you haven't learned an alternative, there's nothing you feel like. There's nothing to fall back on, right? And it's even harder because now you're in the situation of urgency where you feel like you're missing something and you're having to learn something new, whereas if you already knew it and knew different ways to rely on things you would be just like picking a memory back up, rather than having to learn something new. Well, I've never been in that position, so I can't say, but in the abstract, I think that's a good definition.   Michael Hingson ** 30:34 Well, there are a lot of examples, like, take a person who has some eyesight, and they're not encouraged to use a cane. And I know someone who was in this situation. I think I've told the story on this podcast, but he lived in New Jersey and was travel. And traveled every day from New Jersey into Philadelphia to work, and he was on a reasonably cloudy day, was walking along. He had been given a cane by the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, but he they didn't really stress the value of using it. And so he was walking along the train to go in, and he came to the place where he could turn in and go into the car. And he did, and promptly fell between two cars because he wasn't at the right place. And then the train actually started to move, but they got it stopped, and so he was okay, but as as he tells the story, he certainly used his cane from then on. Because if he had been using the cane, even though he couldn't see it well because it was dark, or not dark, cloudy, he would have been able to see that he was not at the place where the car entrance was, but rather he was at the junction between two cars. And there's so many examples of that. There's so many reasons why it's important to learn the skills. Should a partially blind or a low vision person learn to read Braille? Well, depends on circumstances, of course, I think, to a degree, but the value of learning Braille is that you have an alternative to full print, especially if there's a likelihood that you're going to lose the rest of your eyesight. If you psychologically do it now, that's also going to psychologically help you prepare better for not having any eyesight later.   Erin Edgar ** 32:20 And of course, that leads to to blind children these days learn how to read, yeah, which is another issue.   Michael Hingson ** 32:28 Which is another issue because educators are not teaching Braille nearly as much as they should, and the literacy rate is so low. And the fact of the matter is even with George Kircher, who invented the whole DAISY format and and all the things that you can do with the published books and so on. The reality is there is still something to be said for learning braille. You don't have sighted children just watching television all the time, although sometimes my parents think they do, but, but the point is that they learn to read, and there's a value of really learning to read. I've been in an audience where a blind speaker was delivering a speech, and he didn't know or use Braille. He had a device that was, I think what he actually used was a, was, it was a Victor Reader Stream, which is   Erin Edgar ** 33:24 one of those, right?   Michael Hingson ** 33:25 I think it was that it may have been something else, but the bottom line is, he had his speech written out, and he would play it through earphones, and then he would verbalize his speech. Oh, no, that's just mess me up. Oh, it would. It was very disjointed and and I think that for me, personally, I read Braille pretty well, but I don't like to read speeches at all. I want to engage the audience, and so it's really important to truly speak with the audience and not read or do any of those other kinds of things.   Erin Edgar ** 33:57 I would agree. Now I do have a Braille display that I, I use, and, you know, I do use it for speeches. However, I don't put the whole speech on   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 there that I me too. I have one, and I use it for, I know, I have notes. Mm, hmm,   Erin Edgar ** 34:16 notes, yeah. And so I feel like Braille, especially for math. You know, when you said math and physics, like, Yeah, I can't imagine doing math without Braille. That just doesn't, you know, I can't imagine it, and especially in, you know, geometry and trigonometry with those diagrams. I don't know how you would do it without a Braille textbook, but yeah, there. There's certainly something to be said for for the the wonderful navigation abilities with, you know, e published audio DAISY books. However, it's not a substitute for knowing how to   Michael Hingson ** 34:55 read. Well, how are you going to learn to spell? How are you going to really learn sit? Structure, how are you going to learn any of those basic skills that sighted kids get if you don't use Braille? Absolutely, I think that that's one of the arenas where the educational system, to a large degree, does such a great disservice to blind kids because it won't teach them Braille.   Erin Edgar ** 35:16 Agreed, agreed. Well, thank you for this wonderful spin down Braille, Braille reading lane here. That was fun.   Michael Hingson ** 35:27 Well, so getting back to you a little bit, you must have thought or realized that probably when you went into law, you were going to face some challenges. But what was the defining moment that made you decide you're going to go into law, and what kind of challenges have you faced? If you face challenges, my making an assumption, but you know what?   Erin Edgar ** 35:45 Oh, sure. So the defining moment when I decided I wanted to go into law. It was a very interesting time for me. I was teenager. Don't know exactly how old I was, but I think I was in high school, and I had gone through a long period where I wanted to, like, be a music major and go into piano and voice and be a performer in those arenas, and get a, you know, high level degree whatnot. And then I began having this began becoming very interested in watching the Star Trek television series. Primarily I was out at the time the next generation, and I was always fascinated by the way that these people would find these civilizations on these planets, and they would be at odds in the beginning, and they would be at each other's throats, and then by the end of the day, they were all kind of   Michael Hingson ** 36:43 liking each other. And John Luke Picard didn't play a flute,   Erin Edgar ** 36:47 yes, and he also turned into a Borg, which was traumatic for me. I had to rate local summer to figure out what would happen. I was in I was in trauma. Anyway, my my father and I bonded over that show. It was, it was a wonderful sort of father daughter thing. We did it every weekend. And I was always fascinated by, like, the whole, the whole aspect of different ideologies coming together. And it always seemed to me that that's what human humanity should be about. As I, you know, got older, I thought, how could I be involved in helping people come together? Oh, let's go into law. Because, you know, our government's really good at that. That was the high school student in me. And I thought at the time, I wanted to go into the Foreign Service and work in the international field and help, you know, on a net, on a you know, foreign policy level. I quickly got into law school and realized two things simultaneously in my second year, international law was very boring, and there were plenty of problems in my local community that I could help solve, like, why work on the international stage when people in my local community are suffering in some degree with something and so I completely changed my focus to wanting to work in an area where I could bring people together and work for, you know, work on an individualized level. And as I went into the legal field, that was, it was part of the reason I went into the mediation, because that was one of the things that we did, was helping people come together. I realized, though, as I became a lawyer and actually started working in the field, most of the legal system is not based on that. It's based on who has the best argument. I wanted no part of that. Yeah, I want no part of that at all. I want to bring people together. Still, the Star Trek mentality is working here, and so when I when I started my own law firm, my immediate question to myself was, how can I now that I'm out doing my own thing, actually bring people together? And the answer that I got was help families come together, especially people thinking about their end of life decisions and gathering their support team around them. Who they want to help them? If they are ever in a situation where they become ill and they can't manage their affairs, or if you know upon their death, who do they want to help them and support them. And how can I use the law to allow that to happen? And so that's how I am working, to use the law for healing and bringing people together, rather than rather than winning an argument.   Michael Hingson ** 39:59 Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think there's a lot of merit to that. I I value the law a great deal, and I I am not an attorney or anything like that, but I have worked in the world of legislation, and I've worked in the world of dealing with helping to get legislation passed and and interacting with lawyers. And my wife and I worked with an attorney to set up our our trust, and then couple of years ago, I redid it after she passed away. And so I think that there was a lot of a lot of work that attorneys do that is extremely important. Yeah, there are, there are attorneys that were always dealing with the best arguments, and probably for me, the most vivid example of that, because it was so captivating when it happened, was the whole OJ trial back in the 1990s we were at a county fair, and we had left going home and turned on the radio, only To hear that the police were following OJ, and they finally arrested him. And then when the trial occurred, we while I was working at a company, and had a radio, and people would would come around, and we just had the radio on, and followed the whole trial. And it was interesting to see all the manipulation and all the movement, and you're right. It came down to who had the best argument, right or wrong?   Erin Edgar ** 41:25 The bloody glove. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Yeah, yep, I remember that. I remember where I was when they arrested him, too. I was at my grandparents house, and we were watching it on TV. My grandfather was captivated by the whole thing. But yes, there's certainly, you know, some manipulation. There's also, there are also lawyers who do a lot of good and a lot of wonderful things. And in reality, you know, most cases don't go to trial. They're settled in some way. And so, you know, there isn't always, you know, who has the best argument. It's not always about that, right? And at the same time, that is, you know, what the system is based on, to some extent. And really, when our country was founded, our founding fathers were a bunch of, like, acted in a lot of ways, like a bunch of children. If you read books on, you know, the Constitution, it was, it was all about, you know, I want this in here, and I want that in here. And, you know, a lot of argument around that, which, of course, is to be expected. And many of them did not expect our country's government to last beyond their lifetimes. Uh, James Madison was the exception, but all the others were like, Ed's going to fail. And yet, I am very, very proud to be a lawyer in this country, because while it's not perfect, our founding documents actually have a lot of flexibility and how and can be interpreted to fit modern times, which is, I think the beauty of them and exactly what the Founders intended for.   Michael Hingson ** 43:15 Yeah, and I do think that some people are taking advantage of that and causing some challenges, but that's also part of our country and part of our government. I like something Jimmy Carter once said, which was, we must adjust to changing times while holding to unwavering principles. And I think absolutely that's the part that I think sometimes is occasionally being lost, that we forget those principles, or we want to manipulate the principles and make them something that they're not. But he was absolutely right. That is what we need to do, and we can adjust to changing times without sacrificing principles. Absolutely.   Erin Edgar ** 43:55 I firmly believe that, and I would like to kind of turn it back to what we were talking about before, because you actually asked me, What are some challenges that I have faced, and if it's okay with you, I would like to get back to that. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, so I have faced some challenges for you know, to a large extent, though I was very well accommodated. I mean, the one challenge with the books that was challenging when I took the bar exam, oh, horror of horrors. It was a multiple, multiple shot deal, but it finally got done. However, it was not, you know, my failing to pass the first time or times was not the fault of the actual board of law examiners. They were very accommodating. I had to advocate for myself a little bit, and I also had to jump through some hoops. For example, I had to bring my own person to bubble in my responses on the multiple choice part, it. And bring my own person in to kind of monitor me while I did the essay portion. But they allowed me to have a computer, they allowed me to have, you know, the screen reader. They allowed me to have time and a half to do the the exam. And so we're accommodating in that way. And so no real challenges there. You know, some hoops to jump through. But it got all worked out.   Michael Hingson ** 45:23 And even so, some of that came about because blind people actually had to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Yes, the bar to the Bar Association to recognize that those things needed to be that way,   Erin Edgar ** 45:37 absolutely. And so, you know, I was lucky to come into this at a time where that had already been kind of like pre done for me. I didn't have to deal with that as a challenge. And so the only other challenges I had, some of them, were mine, like, you know, who's going to want to hire this blind person? Had a little bit of, you know, kind of challenge there, with that mindset issue for a while there, and I did have some challenges when I was looking for employment after I'd worked for legal aid for a while, and I wanted to move on and do something else. And I knew I didn't want to work for a big, big firm, and I would, I was talking to some small law firms about hiring me, small to mid size firms. And I would get the question of, well, you're blind, so what kind of accommodations do you need? And we would talk about, you know, computer, special software to make a talk, you know, those kinds of things. And it always ended up that, you know, someone else was hired. And I can, you know, I don't have proof that the blindness and the hesitancy around hiring a disabled person or a blind person was in back of that decision. And at the same time, I had the sense that there was some hesitation there as well, so that, you know, was a bit of a challenge, and starting my own law firm was its own challenge, because I had to experiment with several different software systems to Find one that was accessible enough for me to use. And the system I'm thinking about in particular, I wouldn't use any other system, and yet, I'm using practically the most expensive estate planning drafting system out there, because it happens to be the most accessible. It's also the most expensive. Always that. There's always that. And what's it called? I'm curious. It's called wealth Council, okay, wealth. And then the word councils, Council, SEL, and it's wonderful. And the folks there are very responsive. If I say something's not accessible, I mean, they have fixed things for me in the past. Isn't that great? And complain, isn't that wonderful? It is wonderful. And that's, that's awesome. I had a CRM experience with a couple of different like legal CRM software. I used one for a while, and it was okay. But then, you know, everyone else said this other one was better and it was actually less accessible. So I went back to the previous one, you know. So I have to do a lot of my own testing, which is kind of a challenge in and of itself. I don't have people testing software for me. I have to experiment and test and in some cases, pay for something for a while before I realize it's not, you know, not worth it. But now I have those challenges pretty much ironed out. And I have a paralegal who helps me do some things that, like she proof reads my documents, for instance, because otherwise there may be formatting things that I'm not, that I miss. And so I have the ability to have cited assistance with things that I can't necessarily do myself, which is, you know, absolutely fine,   Michael Hingson ** 49:04 yeah. Now, do you use Lexus? Is it accessible?   Erin Edgar ** 49:08 I don't need Lexus, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have, I'm a member of the Bar Association, of my, my state bar association, which is not, not voluntary. It's mandatory. But I'm a member primarily because they have a search, a legal search engine that they work with that we get for free. I mean, with our members, there you go. So there you go. So I don't need Lexus or West Law or any of those other search engines for what I do. And if I was, like, really into litigation and going to court all time and really doing deep research, I would need that. But I don't. I can use the one that they have, that we can use so and it's, it's a entirely web based system. It's fairly accessible   Michael Hingson ** 49:58 well, and. That makes it easier to as long as you've got people's ears absolutely make it accessible, which makes a lot of sense.   Erin Edgar ** 50:08 Yeah, it certainly does well.   Michael Hingson ** 50:10 So do you regard yourself as a resilient person? Has blindness impacted that or helped make that kind of more the case for you? Do you think I do resilience is such an overused term, but it's fair. I know   Erin Edgar ** 50:24 I mean resilience is is to my mind, a resilient person is able to face uh, challenges with a relatively positive outlook in and view a challenge as something to be to be worked through rather than overcome, and so yes, I do believe that blindness, in and of itself, has allowed me to find ways to adapt to situations and pivot in cases where, you know, I need to find an alternative to using a mouse. For instance, how would I do that? And so in other areas of life, I am, you know, because I'm blind, I'm able to more easily pivot into finding alternative solutions. I do believe that that that it has made me more resilient.   Michael Hingson ** 51:25 Do you think that being blind has caused you, and this is an individual thing, because I think that there are those who don't. But do you think that it's caused you to learn to listen better?   Erin Edgar ** 51:39 That's a good question, because I actually, I have a lot of sighted friends, and one of the things that people just assume is that, wow, you must be a really good listener. Well, my husband would tell you that's not always the case. Yeah. My wife said the same thing, yeah. You know, like everyone else, sometimes I hear what I want to hear in a conversation and at the same time, one of the things that I do tell people is that, because I'm blind, I do rely on other senses more, primarily hearing, I would say, and that hearing provides a lot of cues for me about my environment, and I've learned to be more skillful at it. So I, I would say that, yes, I am a good listener in terms of my environment, very sensitive to that in in my environment, in terms of active listening to conversations and being able to listen to what's behind what people say, which is another aspect of listening. I think that that is a skill that I've developed over time with conscious effort. I don't think I'm any better of a quote, unquote listener than anybody else. If I hadn't developed that primarily in in my mediation, when I was doing that, that was a huge thing for us, was to be able to listen, not actually to what people were saying, but what was behind what people were saying, right? And so I really consciously developed that skill during those years and took it with me into my legal practice, which is why I am very, very why I very much stress that I'm not only an attorney, but I'm also a counselor at law. That doesn't mean I'm a therapist, but it does mean I listen to what people say so that and what's behind what people say, so that with the ear towards providing them the legal solution that meets their needs as they describe them in their words.   Michael Hingson ** 53:47 Well, I think for me, I learned to listen, but it but it is an exercise, and it is something that you need to practice, and maybe I learned to do it a little bit better, because I was blind. For example, I learned to ride a bike, and you have to learn to listen to what's going on around you so you don't crash into cars. Oh, but I'd fall on my face. You can do it. But what I what I really did was, when I was I was working at a company, and was told that the job was going to be phased out because I wasn't a revenue producer, and the company was an engineering startup and had to bring in more revenue producers. And I was given the choice of going away or going into sales, which I had never done. And as I love to tell people, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales. But the reality is that that I think I've always and I think we all always sell in one way or another, but I also knew what the unemployment rate among employable blind people was and is, yeah, and so I went into sales with with no qualms. But there I really learned to listen. And and it was really a matter of of learning to commit, not just listen, but really learning to communicate with the people you work with. And I think that that I won't say blindness made me better, but what it did for me was it made me use the technologies like the telephone, perhaps more than some other people. And I did learn to listen better because I worked at it, not because I was blind, although they're related   Erin Edgar ** 55:30 exactly. Yeah, and I would say, I would 100% agree I worked at it. I mean, even when I was a child, I worked at listening to to become better at, kind of like analyzing my environment based on sounds that were in it. Yeah, I wouldn't have known. I mean, it's not a natural gift, as some people assume, yeah, it's something you practice and you have to work at. You get to work at.   Michael Hingson ** 55:55 Well, as I point out, there are people like SEAL Team Six, the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers and so on, who also practice using all of their senses, and they learn, in general, to become better at listening and other and other kinds of skills, because they have to to survive, but, but that's what we all do, is if we do it, right, we're learning it. It's not something that's just naturally there, right? I agree, which I think is important. So you're working in a lot of estate planning and so on. And I mentioned earlier that we it was back in 1995 we originally got one, and then it's now been updated, but we have a trust. What's the difference between having, like a trust and a will?   Erin Edgar ** 56:40 Well, that's interesting that you should ask. So A will is the minimum that pretty much, I would say everyone needs, even though 67% of people don't have one in the US. And it is pretty much what everyone needs. And it basically says, you know, I'm a, I'm a person of sound mind, and I know who is important to me and what I have that's important to me. And I wanted to go to these people who are important to me, and by the way, I want this other person to manage things after my death. They're also important to me and a trust, basically, there are multiple different kinds of trusts, huge numbers of different kinds. And the trust that you probably are referring to takes the will to kind of another level and provides more direction about about how to handle property and how how it's to be dealt with, not only after death, but also during your lifetime. And trusts are relatively most of them, like I said, there are different kinds, but they can be relatively flexible, and you can give more direction about how to handle that property than you can in a will, like, for instance, if you made an estate plan and your kids were young, well, I don't want my children to have access to this property until they're responsible adults. So maybe saying, in a trust until they're age 25 you can do that, whereas in a will, you it's more difficult to do that.   Michael Hingson ** 58:18 And a will, as I understand it, is a lot more easily contested than than a trust.   Erin Edgar ** 58:24 You know, it does depend, but yes, it is easily contested. That's not to say that if you have a trust, you don't need a will, which is a misconception that some, yeah, we have a will in our trust, right? And so, you know, you need the will for the court. Not everyone needs a trust. I would also venture to say that if you don't have a will on your death, the law has ideas about how your property should be distributed. So if you don't have a will, you know your property is not automatically going to go to the government as unclaimed, but if you don't have powers of attorney for your health care and your finance to help you out while you're alive, you run the risk of the A judge appointing someone you would not want to make your health care and financial decisions. And so I'm going to go off on a tangent here. But I do feel very strongly about this, even blind people who and disabled people who are, what did you call it earlier, the the employable blind community, but maybe they're not employed. They don't have a lot of   Michael Hingson ** 59:34 unemployed, unemployed, the unemployable blind people, employable   Erin Edgar ** 59:38 blind people, yes, you know, maybe they're not employed, they're on a government benefit. They don't have a lot of assets. Maybe they don't necessarily need that will. They don't have to have it. And at the same time, if they don't have those, those documents that allow people to manage their affairs during their lifetime. Um, who's going to do it? Yeah, who's going to do that? Yeah, you're giving up control of your body, right, potentially, to someone you would not want, just because you're thinking to yourself, well, I don't need a will, and nothing's going to happen to me. You're giving control of your body, perhaps, to someone you don't want. You're not taking charge of your life and and you are allowing doctors and hospitals and banks to perpetuate the belief that you are not an independent person, right? I'm very passionate about it. Excuse me, I'll get off my soapbox now. That's okay. Those are and and to a large extent, those power of attorney forms are free. You can download them from your state's website. Um, they're minimalistic. They're definitely, I don't use them because I don't like them for my state. But you can get you can use them, and you can have someone help you fill them out. You could sign them, and then look, you've made a decision about who's going to help you when you're not able to help yourself,   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 which is extremely important to do. And as I mentioned, we went all the way and have a trust, and we funded the trust, and everything is in the trust. But I think that is a better way to keep everything protected, and it does provide so much more direction for whoever becomes involved, when, when you decide to go elsewhere, then, as they put it, this mortal coil. Yes, I assume that the coil is mortal. I don't know.   Erin Edgar ** 1:01:37 Yeah, who knows? Um, and you know trusts are good for they're not just for the Uber wealthy, which is another misconception. Trust do some really good things. They keep your situation, they keep everything more or less private, like, you know, I said you need a will for the court. Well, the court has the will, and it most of the time. If you have a trust, it just says, I want it to go, I want my stuff to go into the Michael hingson Trust. I'm making that up, by the way, and I, you know, my trust just deals with the distribution, yeah, and so stuff doesn't get held up in court. The court doesn't have to know about all the assets that you own. It's not all public record. And that's a huge, you know, some people care. They don't want everyone to know their business. And when I tell people, you know, I can go on E courts today and pull up the estate of anyone that I want in North Carolina and find out what they owned if they didn't have a will, or if they just had a will. And people like, really, you can do that? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I don't need any fancy credentials. It's all a matter of public record. And if you have a trust that does not get put into the court record unless it's litigated, which you know, it does happen, but not often,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:56 but I but again, I think that, you know, yeah, and I'm not one of those Uber wealthy people. But I have a house. We we used to have a wheelchair accessible van for Karen. I still have a car so that when I need to be driven somewhere, rather than using somebody else's vehicle, we use this and those are probably the two biggest assets, although I have a bank account with with some in it, not a lot, not nearly as much as Jack Benny, anyway. But anyway, the bottom line is, yeah, but the bottom line is that I think that the trust keeps everything a lot cleaner. And it makes perfect sense. Yep, it does. And I didn't even have to go to my general law firm that I usually use. Do we cheat them? Good, and how so it worked out really well. Hey, I watched the Marx Brothers. What can I say?   Erin Edgar ** 1:03:45 You watch the Marx Brothers? Of course.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:49 Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and I'm glad that we did it and that we also got to talk about the whole issue of wills and trusts and so on, which is, I think, important. So any last things that you'd like to say to people, and also, do you work with clients across the country or just in North Carolina?   Erin Edgar ** 1:04:06 So I work with clients in North Carolina, I will say that. And one last thing that I would like to say to people is that it's really important to build your support team. Whether you're blind, you know, have another disability, you need people to help you out on a day to day basis, or you decide that you want people to help you out. If you're unable to manage your affairs at some point in your life, it's very important to build that support team around you, and there is nothing wrong. You can be self reliant and still have people on your team yes to to be there for you, and that is very important. And there's absolutely no shame, and you're not relinquishing your independence by doing that. That. So today, I encourage everyone to start thinking about who's on your team. Do you want them on your team? Do you want different people on your team? And create a support team? However that looks like, whatever that looks like for you, that has people on it that you know, love and trust,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:18 everybody should have a support team. I think there is no question, at least in my mind, about that. So good point. Well, if people want to maybe reach out to you, how do they do that?   Erin Edgar ** 1:05:29 Sure, so I am on the interwebs at Erin Edgar legal.com that's my website where you can learn more about my law firm and all the things that I do,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:42 and Erin is E r i n, just Yes, say that Edgar, and   Erin Edgar ** 1:05:45 Edgar is like Edgar. Allan Poe, hopefully less scary, and you can find the contact information for me on the website. By Facebook, you can find me on Facebook occasionally as Erin Baker, Edgar, three separate words, that is my personal profile, or you can and Michael will have in the show notes the company page for my welcome as   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:11 well. Yeah. Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. This has been a fun episode. It's been great to have Erin on, love to hear your thoughts out there who have been listening to this today. Please let us know what you think. You're welcome to email me at Michael H i@accessibe.com M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, I wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. We really appreciate getting good ratings from people and reading and getting to know what you think. If you know anyone who you think might be a good guest, you know some people you think ought to come on unstoppable mindset. Erin, of course, you as well. We would appreciate it if you'd give us an introduction, because we're always looking for more people to have come on and help us show everyone that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are, and that's really what it's all about, and what we want to do on the podcast. So hope that you'll all do that, and in the meanwhile, with all that, Erin, I want to thank you once more for being here and being with us today. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much,   Erin Edgar ** 1:07:27 Michael. I very much enjoyed it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:34 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite

In this episode, Sarah sits down with Tayab Ali, Director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), to discuss the organisation's critical work in response to the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. The conversation explores ICJP's efforts and introduces Global 195, a new initiative aiming to coordinate legal interventions across multiple jurisdictions to hold those responsible for international crimes accountable. Tayab, also a partner and Head of International Law at the renowned London firm Bindmans LLP, shares his inspiring journey in law and activism. If you've ever found yourself deciding between a career in politics or law, listen in to this episode!   Tayab Ali, Director at International Centre of Justice for Palestinians. Tayab is an internationally recognised and highly respected Solicitor Advocate. His practice encompasses criminal and civil/public law in both the UK and international jurisdictions. He is a partner and Head of International Law at leading and award-winning London law firm Bindmans LLP. As a lawyer, Tayab's work and case profiles have consistently been recognised by the principal Legal Directories which have ranked him as a leading lawyer in multiple practice areas. Chambers & Partners described him as “an irresistible force – he's fearless and he always gets the right results for his clients”. He is rated as a Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters and recognised in the field of Civil Liberties by The Legal 500.   Find out more about Global 195 https://www.icjpalestine.com/2025/03/18/global-195-launched/ Find out more about the ICJP https://www.icjpalestine.com/   

On this week's episode, Maria talks with attorney Mark Anderson. They discuss his firm's recent growth, hiring a social media manager, running an office while traveling, when to add a new staff member, how much to invest in marketing, and using software to create great dashboards. Get in touch with Mark at https://maafirm.com Guest Mark Anderson (@lawishbymark on Instagram) is the founder and an attorney of Anderson Injury Lawyers in Texas. He is repeatedly named a Top Attorney by Fort Worth Magazine, and is annually voted as a Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters. Mark is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law—an achievement that only two percent of all Texas lawyers can claim. Host Maria Monroy (@marialawrank on Instagram) is the Co-founder and President of LawRank, a leading SEO company for law firms since 2013. She has a knack for breaking down complex topics to make them more easily accessible and started Tip the Scales to share her knowledge with listeners like you. _____ LawRank grows your law firm with SEO Our clients saw a 384% increase in first-time calls and a 603% growth in traffic in 12 months. Get your free competitor report at https://lawrank.com/report. Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app Rate us 5 stars on iTunes and Spotify Watch us on YouTube Follow us on Instagram and TikTok

On this week's episode, Maria talks with attorney Mark Anderson. They discuss his firm's recent growth, hiring a social media manager, running an office while traveling, when to add a new staff member, how much to invest in marketing, and using software to create great dashboards. Get in touch with Mark at https://maafirm.com Guest Mark Anderson (@lawishbymark on Instagram) is the founder and an attorney of Anderson Injury Lawyers in Texas. He is repeatedly named a Top Attorney by Fort Worth Magazine, and is annually voted as a Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters. Mark is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law—an achievement that only two percent of all Texas lawyers can claim. Host Maria Monroy (@marialawrank on Instagram) is the Co-founder and President of LawRank, a leading SEO company for law firms since 2013. She has a knack for breaking down complex topics to make them more easily accessible and started Tip the Scales to share her knowledge with listeners like you. _____ LawRank grows your law firm with SEO Our clients saw a 384% increase in first-time calls and a 603% growth in traffic in 12 months. Get your free competitor report at https://lawrank.com/report. Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app Rate us 5 stars on iTunes and Spotify Watch us on YouTube Follow us on Instagram and TikTok

AI Copyright Cases, Tumblr's Fediverse Shift & Quantum Computing Breakthroughs | Hashtag Trending In this episode of Hashtag Trending, host Jim Love covers multiple significant events in the tech world. Highlights include Thompson Reuters' victory in a landmark AI copyright lawsuit against Ross Intelligence, Tumblr's integration with the Fediverse and migration to WordPress, and Japan's unveiling of a hybrid quantum supercomputer. Additionally, the episode discusses the US and UK not signing a declaration on AI safety and development, and the rising use of AI chatbots as digital companions in the UK amid increasing loneliness. Tune in for insights and analysis on these developments and more. 00:00 Introduction and Headlines 00:30 Thomson Reuters Wins Landmark AI Copyright Case 02:08 Tumblr Joins the Fediverse 04:38 US and UK Decline AI Safety Declaration 07:15 Japan's Quantum Computing Breakthrough 09:11 AI Companions Amid Loneliness Epidemic 10:39 Conclusion and Host's Thoughts

Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis discuss the AI Action Summit in Paris, Elon Musk's bid for OpenAI, the Thompson Reuters copyright lawsuit, massive AI spending by tech giants, and ChatGPT Operator buying expensive eggs! Support the show on Patreon! http://patreon.com/aiinsideshow Subscribe to the new YouTube channel! http://www.youtube.com/@aiinsideshow Note: Time codes subject to change depending on dynamic ad insertion by the distributor. NEWS 0:02:00 - UK and US refuse to sign international AI declaration Macron touts Europe and trolls Trump at Paris AI summit Roose: 5 Notes From the Big A.I. Summit in Paris 0:10:25 - Elon Musk-Led Group Makes $97.4 Billion Bid for Control of OpenAI 0:16:00 - ‘Doomers' Review: Hunkered Down, Debating the Peril and Promise of A.I. 0:18:45 - Thomson Reuters Wins First Major AI Copyright Case in the US 0:25:55 - Tech Giants Double Down on Their Massive AI Spending 0:30:00 - Meta lays off thousands as it pivots to AI 0:31:21 - IT Unemployment Rises to 5.7% as AI Hits Tech Jobs 0:38:40 - Save the date: Google I/O is May 20-21, 2025. 0:39:51 - Google One AI Premium adds NotebookLM Plus, 50% student discount 0:43:47 - Google starts testing new Search ‘AI Mode' internally – Here's an early look at it 0:47:41 - AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed for everyone 0:50:46 - I let ChatGPT's new ‘agent' manage my life. It spent $31 on a dozen eggs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode, we welcome Andy Home, Senior Metals Correspondent at Thompson Reuters. Andy has been covering the metals markets since 1987 and joins us today to travel through time and talk about the past and future for metals including aluminum, nickel, lithium, cobalt, and uranium. We also discuss the importance of narrative in determining price and how the metals markets need to evolve for better transparency. We conclude with Andy's views on AI in journalism. 

Episode 238 FACULTY: Scott Scarano, EA and Matt Kid, CPA CLASS: #Shoperations In this episode, one of Accounting High's substitute teachers, Matt Kidd, CPA interviews Scott Scarano, EA, about his journey through accounting. Scott shared how his grandfather's CPA firm and the family software business shaped his early career, as well as the tough times he faced during college before finding his way back to accounting. He talked about his experiences with remote work, using Xero, and implementing EOS, all of which helped him transform his firm and himself. Over time, Scott grew the business significantly and reinvented his role, evolving from an accountant to a full-fledged entrepreneur.

In late 1931, several Native trappers in Aklavik, Northwest Territories, reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that a newly arrived white man, Albert Johnson, had been tampering with their traps. The RCMP dispatched two officers to Johnson's remote cabin, but he refused to speak with them, so they left to get a warrant to search his home. When the officers returned and tried to gain entry, Johnson fired a shotgun blast through the cabin door, wounding one of the RCMP officers.The incident quickly escalated when a posse of RCMP officers returned and tossed dynamite into the cabin, initiating a firefight in which one officer was killed, and a manhunt that would last more than month and unfold across more than 150 miles of some of the roughest terrain in the world. In the end, Albert Johnson would not be taken alive. And while his death may have ended the wild pursuit across the Yukon territory, it was just the beginning of another mystery that would endure into the twenty-first century.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesCanadian Press. 1932. "Long chase of slayer." New York Times, February 18: 3.Edmonton Journal. 1932. "Cornered by pursuers, wounded and fighting to last, Johnson slain." Edmonton Journal, February 18: 1.—. 1932. "Think Mad Trapper hiding in Arctic wilderness cabin." Edmonton Journal, January 27: 1.Journal, Edmonton. 1932. "Eyewittness tells story last desperate stand trapper Albert Johnson." Edmonston Journal, February 19: 1.New York Times. 1932. "Mad, hunted trapper kills constable." New York Times, February 1: 38.North, Dick. 2005. Mad Trapper of Rat River: A True Story Of Canada's Biggest Manhunt. New York, NY: Lyons Press.Roden, Barbara. 2022. "The Mad Trapper part 3: Shootout on the Eagle River." North Thompson Times, December 8.—. 2022. "The Mad Trapper part 5: The mystery of Albert Johnson endures to this day." North Thompson Times, December 22.—. 2022. "The Mad Trapper part II: A tragic manhunt plays out." North Thompson Times, December 1.—. 2022. "The Mad Trapper, Part I: a man of mystery arrives in the Arctic." North Thompson Times, November 24.Thompson Reuters. 2021. "Scientists narrow search for mysterious Mad Trapper to Sweden." Comtex News Network, July 30.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send us a textProfessor Carlos Duarte, Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor, Marine Science, and Executive Director, Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform ( CORDAP - https://cordap.org/ ), Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology ( KAUST - https://www.kaust.edu.sa/en/study/faculty/carlos-duarte ), in Saudi Arabia, as well as Chief Scientist of Oceans2050, OceanUS, and E1Series.  Prior to these roles Professor Duarte was Research Professor with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Director of the Oceans Institute at The University of Western Australia. He also holds honorary positions at the Arctic Research Center in Aarhus University, Denmark and the Oceans Institute at The University of Western Australia. Professor Duarte's research focuses on understanding the effects of global change in marine ecosystems and developing nature-based solutions to global challenges, including climate change, and developing evidence-based strategies to rebuild the abundance of marine life by 2050.  Building on his research showing mangroves, seagrasses and salt-marshes to be globally-relevant carbon sinks, Professor Duarte developed, working with different UN agencies, the concept of Blue Carbon, as a nature-based solution to climate change, which has catalyzed their global conservation and restoration.  For the past years, Professor Duarte has also lead efforts to quantify the global role and importance of algal forests.  He has conducted research across all continents and oceans, spanning most of the marine ecosystem types, from inland to near-shore and the deep sea and from microbes to whales, and has a particular focus on the role of seaweed aquaculture as a sustainable solution for multiple challenges. Professor Duarte led the Malaspina 2010 Expedition, including over 700 scientists from 38 institutions from across 18 nations, that sailed the world's oceans to examine the impacts of global change on ocean ecosystems and explore deep-sea biodiversity. Professor Duarte served as President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography between 2007 and 2010. He has published more than 950 scientific papers a and has been ranked within the top 1% Highly-Cited Scientist by Thompson Reuters in all assessments of this rank, as was ranked as the top marine biologist in the world, and recently, the 12th most influential climate scientist in the world (Reuters). He has received many honors, including the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography in 2001, the National Science Award of Spain (2007), and the I. Vernadsky Medal of the European Geophysical Union. the Prix d'Excellence by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES, 2011), the Carlo Heip award for excellent in Marine Biodiversity (2018), and the Ramon Margalef Ecology Award (2019), and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology (2020).  Professor Duarte earned a bachelor's degree in environmental biology from Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain  and obtained a Ph.D. in limnology from McGill University#Corals #Oceans #Seagrass #BlueCarbon #BlueEconomy #Mangroves #Reefs #KAUST #ClimateChange #CarbonCapture #CarlosDuarte #Aquaculture #SaltwaterAgriculture #KingAbdullahUniversityOfScienceAndTechnology #KSA #SaudiArabia #RedSea #Bioprospecting #Genomics #CraigVenter #CarbonSink #Environment #Biodiversity #COP16 #Limnology  #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast  #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

In this episode of 'Digi-Tools in Accrual World,' we dive into the latest news and trends while embracing the chaos! From monstrous acquisitions by Thomson Reuters, Simpro, Bright, and Access Group to the nostalgic nod to Excel's 40th birthday, this episode is packed with industry insights.   Don't miss our deep dive into the rise of Finfluencers and the FCA's crackdown, as well as tips on strengthening those accountant-bank relationships from special guest Sophie Hossak from Allica Bank.   00:00 Coming Up 01:26 Intro App News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 02:42 Thompson Reuters acquire LLM company 04:44 Simpro Acquire Big Change 06:20 Bright Acquire Inform Direct 10:50 Access Group Acquire HireAra 12:23 Nexly Launch for Auditors 20:05 And in other news... Happy Birthday Excel   20:45 Allica Bank - Building Bridges between Accountants and Banks 31:27 Wuvvable Dogs 34:47 Florentina Sandu - Good Judges and Bad Influencers 39:40 Outro

Episode 234 FACULTY: Matt Kidd, CPA CLASS: #Shoperations In this throwback to Sons of CPAs, Scotty chats it up with Matt about his two CPA brothers, diving into how they each built successful practices, inspired by their CPA father. They talk about managing and transitioning CPA firms, incorporating wealth management, modernizing traditional practices, tax season, and client relationships. Tune in for a comprehensive view on growing a client-centric, million-dollar CPA practice, with insights on practical strategies and overcoming challenges in the accounting profession.

Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters by Sara Taylor Amazon.com Deepseeconsulting.com A practical guide to tackling unconscious bias in a polarized world. Learn to recognize your unconscious bias and create positive change. Respected DEI expert Sara Taylor presents a down-to-earth guide on how to tackle unconscious biases and foster true equity in our rapidly changing world. Through relatable examples and practical strategies, readers learn to deliberately slow down their thought processes and become aware of their filters in various situations. Taylor encourages readers to question their own assumptions by asking, "Do I know that what I'm thinking is actually true?" and "Why might I be reacting this way?" The book demonstrates the importance of a clear set of competencies, skills, and strategies for addressing unconscious bias. By developing a culturally competent mindset and using a shared, holistic language to discuss these issues, readers gain the tools to understand, discuss, and implement change both at home and in the workplace. This approach avoids blame or shame, making it accessible and empowering for everyone. The book's insights extend beyond individuals; it demonstrates how organizations can scale up cultural competence to transform their structures and systems. With a strong sense of hope, readers are empowered to make a difference, creating a more just and equitable world for all. About the author Diversity and inclusion strategist, renowned for her visionary work in culture competence, nationally recognized speaker, and bestselling author Sara Taylor is dedicated to changing the world through the workplace by making organizations across the globe more effective and inclusive and their leaders more culturally competent. She founded deepSEE Consulting in 2002 to provide insightful consulting and strategic diversity training, paired with measurement tools to build individual and organizational cultural competence. In her deepSEE Consulting role as President, Sara has worked with hundreds of national and global companies and their executives, including Chief Diversity Officers, Organizational Development and HR leaders as well as staff at all levels throughout the organization. She helps them to understand the full complexities of today's diverse workforce and to build the competencies necessary to create inclusion and equity. Her clients over the years have included reputable companies such as Walmart, 3M Company, AARP, Cleveland Foundation, Coca-Cola, Marriott International, General Mills, United Way Worldwide, National Credit Union Administration, Ingersol-Rand, Seagate Technologies, Thompson Reuters, Thrivent Financial, among others. Prior to deepSEE Consulting, Sara was the Director of Diversity and Inclusion for Ramsey County, Minnesota, where she established a new department to lead D&I efforts for 5,000 employees. She began her career as a Leadership and Diversity Specialist at the University of Minnesota, where she developed state-wide diversity and leadership programs, created and managed a grant program to fund community-based diversity initiatives, and directed the activities of diversity and leadership educators. Sara's forthcoming book, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters (Berrett-Koehler), helps individuals tackle their unconscious bias and empower organizations to scale cultural competence to transform their structural and systematic landscapes to become more effective and equitable. She previously authored the 2017 bestselling book Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World, which is used by numerous individuals and organizations across the globe to increase success and create greater effectiveness. She has been an active member of the Society of Human Resource Management, Twin Cities Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Practitioners, Human Resource Professionals of Minnesota,

Change can often feel daunting when navigating career transitions, but it can also be the beginning of great opportunities.  In this episode, Kristine Delano and Koel Ghosh talk about the importance of embracing change and discovering fulfilling paths beyond conventional definitions of success.  Koel Ghosh is a Senior Growth Advisor at Eminence Strategy Consulting, specializing in reputation management. She is also leading the India Chapter for Women in ETFs, a global non-profit organization for the ETF industry. With over two decades of experience in finance, Koel has held key leadership positions, including former Head of South Asia at S&P Dow Jones Indices and Managing Director and CEO of Asia Index Private Limited, significantly advancing passive investing in India. Her comprehensive expertise in asset management spans various renowned financial institutions such as Thompson Reuters, UTI Asset Management, and IL&FS Asset Management Limited. A Chartered Accountant, she was recognized by the Association of International Wealth Management of India as one of the top 100 women in finance in 2019. In addition to her professional achievements, Koel enjoys painting with various mediums and has a passion for baking sweet treats. Follow on Instagram kristine.delano.writer  Visit www.womeninetfs.com to find additional support in the ETF industry.  Go to www.kristinedelano.com for your Thrive Guide: a compilation of the most requested and insightful advice from our guests on Leadership and Advancement. Koel's Acknowledgements: Alex Matturri Douglas Peterson Martina Cheung Lakshmi Iyer Ashish Chauhan

This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Pablo Arredondo, the Vice President of CoCounsel at Thomson Reuters, an AI-driven legal service that is revolutionizing the industry.  Pablo, one of my closest friends from Stanford Law School, is a legal tech entrepreneur with an incredible track record of success.  He's been at the forefront of the industry for fifteen years, co-founded Casetext in 2013, which sold to Thompson Reuters earlier this year, and has played a huge role in the development of AI tools for the legal world.       Ready to dive in? Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform.I wanted to have Pablo on the show to explore just how powerful these new AI technologies are, see where the industry is headed, and examine their potential impacts on our economy, society, and culture.  As you'll see in the episode, Pablo is a very dynamic thinker, has thought deeply about these issues, and is ideally positioned as a thought leader in the burgeoning AI legal tech world.  Tune in to this fascinating episode to learn:  What Co-Counsel's Legal AI can do and why we should all be so excited by itWhy AI should improve issues of access and affordability in legal services and potentially address other systemic issues plaguing the industry/justice systemWhy AI technology is fundamentally deflationary but not necessarily destructive when it comes to jobsWhat “slop” is and why we should care about it& Much, much moreStay tuned to the end to hear some highlights from Pablo's entrepreneurial journey and learn why he thinks that people losing the ability to write could be one of the biggest downsides of the rise of AI.  As always, I hope you all enjoy this episode.  Thanks for tuning in!Love this episode? Please rate, subscribe, and review on your favorite podcast platform to help more users find our show.

How is AI going to change the practice of law? How is one of the most forward looking law firms adapting? And will the billable hour go away? Joe Green, Chief Innovation Officer at Gunderson Dettmer and Cofounder & Director of the Open Cap Table Coalition, steered a law career starting at major Wall Street firm Simpson Thacher towards the worlds of tech and product management, with stop-offs in academia and legal publishing along the way. Ultimately, he found that his legal mindset guided him in his technical work, and his understanding of business and innovation strengthened his legal abilities. Listen as Joe discusses strategies to shift your careers towards your passion through pro bono work, stepping into board advisory roles, parsing the influx of investment into legal tech, and whether the billable hour will really go away in our lifetime. Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-48 Topics: Introduction: 0:00Moving into a tech advisor role at Gunderson Dettmer after a career start at Simpson Thacher: 2:11Moving away from the standard legal path at Thompson Reuters: 5:38Taking on side hustles that pull you towards tech and product: 8:43Founding the Open Cap Table Coalition: 11:59Rejoining Gunderson Dettmer and moving into the CIO role: 18:04Challenging the billable hour model: 20:56Leading and launching innovative projects: 30:06Shifting from a legal to a technical mindset: 33:44Discussing the influx of investment into legal tech: 37:20Predicting the future of legal services: 41:06Book Recommendations: 43:41What you wish you'd known as a young lawyer: 45:40 Connect with us: Joe Green - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joegreen1/ Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft SpotDraft is a leading CLM platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.

In the realm of B2B professional services, advertising is frequently one of the least utilized marketing tools. Earlier this year, Thompson Reuters published their "State of Global Legal Marketing & BD" report, revealing that professional services marketers rated advertising as the least effective marketing tactic, behind PR, social media, and client education. In this episode of the CMO Series Podcast, Lee Grunnell, CMO at Womble Bond Dickinson joins Charles Cousins to discuss the importance of advertising in professional services, exploring the common misconceptions and the opportunities for firms. Lee and Charles cover: Why marketers should rethink their priorities when it comes to advertising What effective advertising in professional services looks like The considerations or constraints that make advertising for a services firm unique in comparison to other industries How to approach getting buy-in for advertising efforts at a firm The results from advertising at a services firm, and how can marketers measure the success Lee's advice for CMOs thinking about implementing advertising as part of their marketing mix

Episode: 00210 Released on May 6, 2024 Description: Official title or not, tech-savvy SQL developer, Brittany Mason proves you can be an effective analyst without being called one on paper. In this episode, Brittany shares a serial rapist case that she assisted on and how she used her tech and puzzle-solving skills to do so. Brittany is currently working on a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) case that originated from a gang robbing the affluent of their watches. Brittany provides advice for aspiring analysts to invest in data analysis and tech (e.g., automation, programming) skills for the best return on investment. Brittany is currently a Police Detective in the Gang Division at Houston Police Department. CHALLENGE: There are Easter eggs in one of the tables of the Excel chapter that Jason wrote for the IACA textbook. First-person to email us at leapodcasts@gmail.com about what the Easter eggs are will receive a $50 gift card from us. Happy hunting! Name Drops: Megan Step (00:35:48), Anthony Bush (00:37:38) Public Service Announcements:  Fred Croft (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-freddy-croft-the-key-master-as-opposed-to-gatekeeper/) Barry Fosberg (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-barry-fosberg-the-data-czar/) Shannon Kail (https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-shannon-kail-intercontinental-pizza-party/)  Related Links: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/dozens-arrested-part-houston-violent-crime-initiative https://www.shadowfalltraining.com/ Association(s) Mentioned:  Vendor(s) Mentioned: I2, Clear, Thompson Reuters, TLO, Cellbrite Contact:  Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/j5irvjj2ijzhm9cf/BrittanyMason_transcript.pdf  Podcast Writer: Mindy Duong Podcast Researcher:  Theme Song: Written and Recorded by The Rough & Tumble. Find more of their music at www.theroughandtumble.com. Logo: Designed by Kyle McMullen. Please visit www.moderntype.com for any printable business forms and planners.  Podcast Email: leapodcasts@gmail.com   Podcast Webpage: www.leapodcasts.com   Podcast Twitter: @leapodcasts 00:00:17 – Introducing Brittany 00:11:43 – Getting Analyst Work 00:20:35 – ABS: Serial Rape Case  00:28:52 – Break: Fred Croft, Barry Fosberg, & Shannon Kail  00:30:15 – ABS: Gang Robbery & RICO  00:37:51 – Sworn-Civilian Relationship  00:47:54 – Advice & Training 00:51:14 – Personal Interests: Gaming 00:53:35 – Words to the World

Today, Michael Byrd and Bradford Adatto, both of ByrdAdatto law firm, join us as we discuss employment contracts. Whether you're embarking on a new job opportunity as a physician, or seeking to understand your current employment situation better, understanding the ins and outs of employment contracts is crucial, and this episode promises to equip you with the knowledge and insights to navigate your employment contracts effectively. As the son of a doctor and entrepreneur, Michael S. Byrd has a personal connection to both business and medicine. As the father of five, he has learned the importance of listening closely and thinking creatively. With his background as both a litigator and transactional attorney, Michael brings a comprehensive perspective to business and health care issues. He has been named to Texas Rising Stars and Texas Super Lawyers, published by Thompson Reuters, for multiple years (2009-2023), selected Best Lawyer in America (2024), and recognized as a Best Lawyer in Dallas by D Magazine (2013, 2016-2023). Bradford E. Adatto decided to become a lawyer during sixth-grade Career Day, when he promised to represent his best friend, a future doctor. A few decades and many miles later, he started his own law firm that focused on representing health care and corporate clients. And yes, his best friend from sixth grade is among them. Brad's background is in regulatory, transactional, and securities law. Having worked in health care law his entire career, he has an in-depth knowledge of the “do's and don'ts” of this heavily regulated industry. As the son of a medical doctor and grandson of a medical doctor and dentist, Brad has the health care industry in his blood. He enjoys helping his clients build successful businesses by showing them how to avoid legal problems, create new opportunities, develop new partnerships, and form new entities. ByrdAdatto has extensive experience serving doctors, dentists, and other providers, and can address a spectrum of legal issues in the business of medicine. The team at ByrdAdatto has a deep, personal connection to the world of medicine, as it comprises of parents, spouses, and siblings who are doctors and dentists, and one of the partners, Jeffrey Segal, is both an attorney and a neurosurgeon. ByrdAdatto consequently has a unique understanding of the medical industry and serves clients across all specialties. In this episode, we talk about essential elements you need to know to navigate the world of employment contracts confidently, and our guests share some informative points on queries you may have about employment contracts like; What are employment contracts? What should you do before signing an employment contract? What is the consequence of signing an employment contract without due diligence? How do you ensure an employment contract aligns with your goals and visions? What is a letter of intent? And many more!   This episode is sponsored by Lawrence B. Keller of Physician Financial Services.  Larry has been dealing with disability insurance and term life insurance for physicians, and other healthcare professionals, since 1990. In many cases, Larry has access to Guaranteed Standard Issue (GSI) disability insurance policies for Medical Resident and Fellows that does not require medical underwriting. To learn more or to have your existing policies reviewed, feel free to reach out to Larry at (516) 677-6211, by email to Lkeller@physicianfinancialservices.com or visitwww.physicianfinancialservices.com. While he might not be a doctor's first phone call regarding their insurance needs, he is often their last.

To her peers, Candy Montgomery was a picture-perfect wife and a popular figure within her neighborhood and church. But beneath the surface was a woman in an unsatisfying marriage with wandering eyes. Candy began an affair with Allan Gore, the husband of her friend, Betty. But she was not prepared for the deadly turn that her romantic rendezvous would take. Retired Attorney Robert Udashen was a member of Candy Montgomery's defense team. He reflects on the high-profile trial that ensued and discusses how he was able to successfully represent and defend Candy Montgomery. Robert Udashen has received many awards and accolades throughout his career. For 20 years, he was an adjunct professor of Texas Criminal Procedure, Trial Advocacy, and Criminal Law at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. Robert previously served as President of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and was named a Texas Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters. Follow Emily on Instagram: @realemilycompagno If you have a story or topic we should feature on the FOX True Crime Podcast, send us an email at: truecrimepodcast@fox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington, DC Journalist Matt Laslo returns to The Good Trouble Show with his recorded interviews with lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, in Congress on the stripping of The Schumer Amendment. This legislation was written by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Mike Rounds and would have brought transparency and accountability from The Pentagon to the UFO / UAP topic.Based on Capitol Hill, Matt Laslo is a journalist who's been covering campaigns and every aspect of federal policy since 2006. He's a WIRED magazine contributor, covering everything from data privacy and crypto to Big Tech and UFOs (or UAPs). Since moving from music to the political beat, Laslo's been a contributor with VICE News, VICE News Tonight (HBO), Rolling Stone, Raw Story, The Daily Beast.. He also runs The LCB (Laslo Congressional Bureau)—a wire service that's brought Washington to life for millions of (public radio) listeners and readers nationwide. Since 2009, he's served on the board of the Regional Reporters Association where he helps represent the dwindling numbers of local reporters based in Washington. In 2011, Laslo graduated cum-laude from the Johns Hopkins University's MA in Government program—where he's been an adjunct political communications professor since 2016. He's also taught comms. and/or journalism at Boston University (MA), George Washington University (MA) and the University of Maryland (BA). He can be found on most all social media platforms as @MattLaslo. Laslo's also had bylines in Billboard, The Atlantic, Campaigns and Elections Magazine, Countable, GEN Medium, NBC Think (their non-partisan opinion vertical), OZY.com, The Chattanooga Courier, The Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Guardian (op-eds under his professor cap), The News of Delaware County, The Metro, The Omaha World-Herald, The Trace, This American Life, Thompson Reuters (op-eds), USA Today and Washingtonian Magazine, among others. #ufoキャッチャー The Good Trouble Show:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheGoodTroubleShowYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGoodTroubleShowTwitter: https://twitter.com/GoodTroubleShowInstagram: @goodtroubleshowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goodtroubleshowThreads: https://www.threads.net/@thegoodtroubleshowFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Good-Trouble-Show-With-Matt-Ford-106009712211646

** This interview was recorded a few hours before South Africa initiated its ICJ case - the Genocide Convention is discussed in detail here. When we consider the disgraceful actions of the Israeli state, it becomes evident that they operate in a system of impunity. But what, if anything, can we do about this? My guest today, Tayab Ali, is a lawyer specialising in criminal trials. He is a partner at the legal firm Bindmans. He has been described as “an irresistible force – he's fearless.” He is rated as a Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters and recognised in Civil Liberties by The Legal 500. He has represented clients in the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights and at international political and legal institutions, including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights.Listen to the audio version of the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7vXiAjV...https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive monthly Zoom calls: https://www.patreon.com/TheThinkingMu...You can also support The Thinking Muslim through a one-time donation: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/DonateSign up to Muhammad Jalal's newsletter: https://jalalayn.substack.comFind us on:Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinking_muslim Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Connect with Nicole at: Nicole Penn | LinkedInNicole Penn is the CEO of the EGC Group, a marketing and digital agency with offices in Manhattan and Melville. A creative marketing and digital strategy veteran, Nicole and her team have led the strategic marketing direction for companies that include Canon USA, Brother International, Thompson Reuters, Mayo Clinic, among others. Under Nicole's watch, the agency has been named an Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Company, an Agency Post Top 100 Agency and a Google Premier Partner. Additionally, Nicole Penn is the Chief Marketing Officer of Digital Wellness, a leading global business committed to improving people's health and wellbeing. Nicole is also the co-founder of Raydeus, a digital marketing platform built for local marketing. She has been named among the Five People to Watch in Advertising and Top Advertising Executive. In 2015, she was awarded among the Top 50 Most Influential Women. In 2019, Nicole was selected as a member of the Forbes Agency Council. Nicole has been published in Mashable, People Magazine, MediaPost, Luxury Daily and AdWeek. Her board affiliations include The New York Foundation for the Arts, Tribe Global, the Young Presidents Organization, and she is a member of the Harvard Business School YPO Presidents Program Please leave a review or send us a Voice note letting us know what you enjoyed at:Back2Basics reconnecting to the essence of YOU (podpage.com)Follow us on IG and FB @Back2BasicsPodcast

In this episode, we get to speak to one of the industry's most influential people in fintech and the financial markets, Mr. Chris Skinner. Voted a foremost fintech observer by the Telegraph, and one of the most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal and Thompson Reuters, his opinion counts when it comes to what's next for banks and the future of money... or rather a future where we don't think about money. Enjoy the listen.

In this episode, Dan and Lauren listen as Dr. Bruce Avolio shares his experience as one of this year's ILA Lifetime Achievement Award Winners. Avolio is the Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership within the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. In the Foster School, he also serves as the Executive Director for the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking. He is recognized as being among the top 70 most highly cited researchers in the United States in Economics and Business and among the top 3,000 across all sciences around the globe (Thompson Reuters). Resources mentioned in this episode include: ----more---- "Lasso on Leadership" Bruce Avolio's list of top 100 positives amidst the Pandemic with the goal of bringing one smile to the receiver and me

For our fourth episode in the series, The Chief of Staff Association's Euan Godbold is joined by Marc Ristol, Chief of Staff at the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The charitable arm of the Thompson Reuters news agency, Marc guides the leadership team as they work to advance media freedom, foster more inclusive economies, and promote human rights around the world.Host: Euan GodboldGuest: Marc Ristol, Chief of Staff at The Thomson Reuters FoundationLearn more about the TRF here: https://www.trust.org/Sign up for their Trust Conference in London here: https://event.trustconference.Applications to join our latest cohort of members are now open. Membership provides you access to our world-leading Chief of Staff Core Competency Programme, career-defining mentorship and the opportunity to join our Executive Education programmes at the University of Oxford and Harvard Business School. To learn more, go to www.csa.org

Washington, DC, Journalist Matt Laslo returns to The Good Trouble Show with the latest interviews with members of Congress on the UFO / UAP topic. This gum-shoe journalist has been doing amazing work chasing down our lawmakers on Capitol Hill to get them on record on the UFO / UAP topic. Constantly walking the halls of Congress, Matt Laslo reveals what is now going on behind the scenes following whistleblower David Grusch 's testimony on Capitol Hill.Based on Capitol Hill, Matt Laslo is a journalist who's been covering campaigns and every aspect of federal policy since 2006. He's a WIRED magazine contributor, covering everything from data privacy and crypto to Big Tech and UFOs (or UAPs). Since moving from music to the political beat, Laslo's been a contributor with VICE News, VICE News Tonight (HBO), Rolling Stone, Raw Story, The Daily Beast.. He also runs The LCB (Laslo Congressional Bureau)—a wire service that's brought Washington to life for millions of (public radio) listeners and readers nationwide. Since 2009, he's served on the board of the Regional Reporters Association where he helps represent the dwindling numbers of local reporters based in Washington. In 2011, Laslo graduated cum-laude from the Johns Hopkins University's MA in Government program—where he's been an adjunct political communications professor since 2016. He's also taught comms. and/or journalism at Boston University (MA), George Washington University (MA) and the University of Maryland (BA). He can be found on most all social media platforms as @MattLaslo. Laslo's also had bylines in Billboard, The Atlantic, Campaigns and Elections Magazine, Countable, GEN Medium, NBC Think (their non-partisan opinion vertical), OZY.com, The Chattanooga Courier, The Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Guardian (op-eds under his professor cap), The News of Delaware County, The Metro, The Omaha World-Herald, The Trace, This American Life, Thompson Reuters (op-eds), USA Today and Washingtonian Magazine, among others.

When Jon Cross founded Pondera Solutions in 2011, his goal was to reduce fraud in U.S. government programs like Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance. By 2020, Cross and his partners had built Pondera to more than $9 million in annual recurring revenue when they received an offer from Thompson Reuters for a reported $124 million. 

In this episode, Jake Heller, CEO of Casetext, delves into the transformative potential of AI in the legal industry and shares insights from Casetext's impressive $650M acquisition by Thompson Reuters. Listen in as he unveils the journey of building a pioneering legal tech platform and what the future holds for AI-driven legal research. Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠ Investor Contact Email: jaeden@aibox.ai Facebook Community: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/739308654562189/⁠⁠ Discord Community: ⁠https://aibox.ai/discord⁠ Download Selfpause: ⁠https://selfpause.com/Podcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter... er... X: ⁠https://twitter.com/jaeden_ai⁠

Davida Perry, Esq. – Are Dress Codes Still a Thing?Have you noticed how the people you encounter at different businesses have very different ways of dressing for work? At some there seems to be a consistent dress code, while at others it seems like the wild west. Surely it should match the brand image of that business, but sometimes it doesn't seem to. I was curious as to what you, as the business owner or manager can legally require of your employees. So, I invited Davida Perry, an expert on employment law to join me and help sort this out for you.Listen to this new episode for some ideas that you can use to decide what's right for your business. About Davida Perry:Davida S. Perry is the co-founding and managing partner of Schwartz Perry & Heller, a boutique law firm focusing exclusively on representing individuals in all areas of employment law, including discrimination and sexual harassment cases. Ms. Perry holds an “AV rating with preeminence” from Martindale Hubbell, has been listed by Thompson Reuters as a New York – Metro Area “Super Lawyer” every year since 2009, has been a “Woman Leader In The Law” every year since 2012 by ALM Media and has been recognized by City & State on its Law Power 100 list. Ms. Perry has co-authored numerous articles and publications for programs sponsored by the New York State & City Bar Associations, the National Employment Lawyers Association,. Thomson Reuters and the Practicing Law Institute. Ms. Perry has also lectured extensively on employment law for various continuing legal education providers such as Lawline and The National Law Institute. Ms. Perry is a mediator with the United States District Courts of the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, as well as with the New York and Richmond County Supreme Courts. Ms. Perry also serves as a mediator and arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association.Connect with Davida Perry:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidaperry Davida S. PerrySchwartz Perry & Heller LLP3 Park Avenue, Suite 2700New York, New York 10016P: 212-889-6565dperry@sphlegal.com If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.comPlease be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

Angie Robertson is a talented and highly respected consumer lawyer based out of Chicago, Illinois.  Angie is a partner with the consumer law firm of Philipps and Philipps, Ltd.  As an aside, Episode 4 of the Next Lawyer Up podcast features an interview with the founder of Philipps and Philipps, Ltd., attorney Dave Philipps. Angie is an exceptional legal writer and researcher and I know this from first-hand experience by working with her on a number of consumer law cases over the years.  Angie also does a lot of work for the consumer law bar in our country.  She is on the national board of directors for the NACA (National Association of Consumer Advocates) and she also serves as the Illinois co-chair for NACA.  In recognition of her work, Angie was recently named as an Illinois Super Lawyer by Thompson Reuters.  I was interested to learn about Angie's journey from Nebraska to Chicago on this episode of the podcast.  I hope you enjoy it

Today on The AI Breakdown Brief: Databricks acquires Mosaic for $1.3B Ramp acquires Cohere.io  Thompson Reuters acquires legal AI firm CaseText for $650M Verge surveys 2000 people on AI MerlynMind releases education focused large language models Waldo 2.0 is drone object identification Whale song AI   SIGN UP FOR THE AI BREAKDOWN NEWSLETTER: https://theaibreakdown.beehiiv.com/   NOTE: While NLW is traveling this week, The AI Breakdown will only be releasing The Brief each morning. We'll be back to our regular content at the end of the week.    The AI Breakdown helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI.    Subscribe to The AI Breakdown newsletter: https://theaibreakdown.beehiiv.com/subscribe   Subscribe to The AI Breakdown on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIBreakdown   Join the community: bit.ly/aibreakdown   Learn more: http://breakdown.network/

When is an emoji not just an emoji? When it is cited in a legal case alleging an organization breached U.S. securities laws. Emojis are now legal communication. That's the big headline in this podcast with Susannah Hammond of Theta Lake. Hammond, who has extensive experience as a senior regulatory intelligence expert with Thompson Reuters, and who has been a compliance officer with a major financial organization. Hammond connects the dots between the way organizations are increasingly using emojis in their text communications with customers, how such communications now have the legal weight of words, and how all that means that AI powered systems are needed record such traffic. Emojis are an inherent part of modern communications, but they must, in a business context, be treated with the same care as every other form of communication or messaging. Theta Lake empowers organizations to expand their use of unified communications platforms (such as Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Zoom and WebEx by Cisco) while reducing the risk of potential compliance gaps. Critically Theta Lake enables the full context capture, preservation and retrieval of voice, video and chat - including specifically emojis! Theta Lake's regulatory and data science teams are happy to discuss any issues in greater detail. You can find regulatory perspectives from Theta Lake here or you can join a weekly 30-minute demo webinar here.  

Accounting High (aka Sons of CPAs Podcast) Season 3 Episode 10 | Recorded March 14, 2022 (π day) Guest: Lindsay Stevenson, CPA, CGMA Hosts: Jason Ackerman and Scott Scarano Join Jason and Scott in getting to know more about Lindsay, BPM LLP's Chief Transformation Officer. What does that role do? We weren't too sure ourselves until Lindsay gave us a glimpse of what she does. Listen to how she started out as a staff accountant until becoming an integral part of a large firm and how she was able to go through a midlife crisis in identifying what she really wanted to do with her career. Lindsay also shares her experience on how these big innovative changes happen at a large firm and how being a CPA makes you a “hot thang” that most businesses all over the country would want to work with. 0 Accounting can be sexy to young people 3 Chief Transformation Officer - the strategy behind being innovative, forward-thinking, and actually moving the needle so that we can get traction on all the cool ideas that our team has 4 Lindsays journey from a public accountant to Chief Transformation Officer Shoutout to Sarah Elliot, CPA, PCC, Brian Kush, PCC, CPA 8 What would a job look like for you?... And he said, let's do it! Let's do it at BPM Shoutout to Dan Griffiths 10 I was overwhelmed to think that there was just sort of this written rule about CPAs. You come into the profession, you put your head down, and you do your work. Then you keep doing that until you make partner. It just felt I wasn't that 14 If your foundation is built on time and that billing structure, you can't just build something else on top of that. It's a shaky foundation 16 The real magic in my role is it's really fun to think about the big things Shoutout to Apple 19 What you should care about the most is every client interaction and how to make that better 23 Lindsay's and Jason's POV on how small and large firms adapt and innovate their processes Shoutout to Thompson Reuters, CCH, Workday 27 When you become the big fish in the pond, there is less motivation to innovate 30 Is this due to the general mindset shift of the digital age or people being more open to sharing? Shoutout to Squadcast 34 Niche Accounting, the next big shift for the accounting space. Or have we already shifted into it? Shoutout to Tate Henshaw, CFP 39 What are some of the things that Lindsay's looking forward to changing with her new role? 40 Accounting can be sexy 42 If you were to sell the CPA firm or the CPA profession to your kids, how would you do it? Shoutout to Dave Emmerman 43 You come out of school and you say, I'm a CPA. Near every business in this country would be like, come work for me because I need somebody that understands finances 47 Be brave and be bold. There are ways to take risks and be bold and be brave in very small ways that carry very little risk --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sonsofcpas/message

Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.“The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is really a bill which is using the financial structure of the country to stimulate business. This is a very different kind of solution than one might have conjured up some years ago. Back in 2010, Congress tried to do something on climate change and the main solution under consideration was a carbon tax. So that was also an effort to use the financial system, but this is a very different approach.This is putting out stimulus so that the business community can do what's necessary to build a clean energy economy. And so consumers can help support the growth of that clean energy economy by purchasing all those products that will allow individual people, families, and communities to be part of the solution by owning electric cars, by putting solar panels on their homes, by buying heat pumps to put in their homes, by improving the insulation in their private homes or buildings and thereby cutting their heating and cooling costs.”https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is really a bill which is using the financial structure of the country to stimulate business. This is a very different kind of solution than one might have conjured up some years ago. Back in 2010, Congress tried to do something on climate change and the main solution under consideration was a carbon tax. So that was also an effort to use the financial system, but this is a very different approach.This is putting out stimulus so that the business community can do what's necessary to build a clean energy economy. And so consumers can help support the growth of that clean energy economy by purchasing all those products that will allow individual people, families, and communities to be part of the solution by owning electric cars, by putting solar panels on their homes, by buying heat pumps to put in their homes, by improving the insulation in their private homes or buildings and thereby cutting their heating and cooling costs.”Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.“The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is really a bill which is using the financial structure of the country to stimulate business. This is a very different kind of solution than one might have conjured up some years ago. Back in 2010, Congress tried to do something on climate change and the main solution under consideration was a carbon tax. So that was also an effort to use the financial system, but this is a very different approach.This is putting out stimulus so that the business community can do what's necessary to build a clean energy economy. And so consumers can help support the growth of that clean energy economy by purchasing all those products that will allow individual people, families, and communities to be part of the solution by owning electric cars, by putting solar panels on their homes, by buying heat pumps to put in their homes, by improving the insulation in their private homes or buildings and thereby cutting their heating and cooling costs.”https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is really a bill which is using the financial structure of the country to stimulate business. This is a very different kind of solution than one might have conjured up some years ago. Back in 2010, Congress tried to do something on climate change and the main solution under consideration was a carbon tax. So that was also an effort to use the financial system, but this is a very different approach.This is putting out stimulus so that the business community can do what's necessary to build a clean energy economy. And so consumers can help support the growth of that clean energy economy by purchasing all those products that will allow individual people, families, and communities to be part of the solution by owning electric cars, by putting solar panels on their homes, by buying heat pumps to put in their homes, by improving the insulation in their private homes or buildings and thereby cutting their heating and cooling costs.”Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.“Humanity needs to do three things if it wants to continue to flourish, and it will. The three things that humanity needs to do are decarbonize the global economy, drawdown, capture, harvest much of that heat-trapping pollution that we've already pumped into the atmosphere over the past hundred years because as long as it's up in our atmosphere, we're going to have continued warming. And the third thing that humanity needs to do is become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, which unfortunately will continue for the next several generations at least, even as we succeed in decarbonizing the global economy and harvesting that heat-trapping pollution from the atmosphere.So these are the three things that have to happen. These three things will happen. The open question is how rapidly will they happen? Any business that can play a vital role in making any one or two or all three of those things happen, those are businesses that are going to flourish going forward. And any business that's sitting on the side and not contributing to one of those three areas, I really think they will become increasingly irrelevant, if not completely antiquated and increasingly understood to be harmful.”https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“Humanity needs to do three things if it wants to continue to flourish, and it will. The three things that humanity needs to do are decarbonize the global economy, drawdown, capture, harvest much of that heat-trapping pollution that we've already pumped into the atmosphere over the past hundred years because as long as it's up in our atmosphere, we're going to have continued warming. And the third thing that humanity needs to do is become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, which unfortunately will continue for the next several generations at least, even as we succeed in decarbonizing the global economy and harvesting that heat-trapping pollution from the atmosphere.So these are the three things that have to happen. These three things will happen. The open question is how rapidly will they happen? Any business that can play a vital role in making any one or two or all three of those things happen, those are businesses that are going to flourish going forward. And any business that's sitting on the side and not contributing to one of those three areas, I really think they will become increasingly irrelevant, if not completely antiquated and increasingly understood to be harmful.”Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is really a bill which is using the financial structure of the country to stimulate business. This is a very different kind of solution than one might have conjured up some years ago. Back in 2010, Congress tried to do something on climate change and the main solution under consideration was a carbon tax. So that was also an effort to use the financial system, but this is a very different approach.This is putting out stimulus so that the business community can do what's necessary to build a clean energy economy. And so consumers can help support the growth of that clean energy economy by purchasing all those products that will allow individual people, families, and communities to be part of the solution by owning electric cars, by putting solar panels on their homes, by buying heat pumps to put in their homes, by improving the insulation in their private homes or buildings and thereby cutting their heating and cooling costs.”Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Consortium in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“Humanity needs to do three things if it wants to continue to flourish, and it will. The three things that humanity needs to do are decarbonize the global economy, drawdown, capture, harvest much of that heat-trapping pollution that we've already pumped into the atmosphere over the past hundred years because as long as it's up in our atmosphere, we're going to have continued warming. And the third thing that humanity needs to do is become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, which unfortunately will continue for the next several generations at least, even as we succeed in decarbonizing the global economy and harvesting that heat-trapping pollution from the atmosphere.So these are the three things that have to happen. These three things will happen. The open question is how rapidly will they happen? Any business that can play a vital role in making any one or two or all three of those things happen, those are businesses that are going to flourish going forward. And any business that's sitting on the side and not contributing to one of those three areas, I really think they will become increasingly irrelevant, if not completely antiquated and increasingly understood to be harmful.”Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Dr. Mona Sarfaty is the Executive Director and Founder of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, comprised of societies representing 70% of all U.S. physicians. She founded the Communication in 2016 in conjunction with the George Mason University Center for Climate Change. Under her leadership, the Consortium has grown into a nationwide coalition of societies, organizations, and advocates mobilizing support for equitable policies that address the health impacts of climate change.Edward Maibach is Director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, a distinguished University Professor and communication scientist who is expert in the uses of strategic communication and social marketing to address climate change and related public health challenges. His research – funded by NSF, NASA, and private foundations – focuses on public understanding of climate change and clean energy; and the psychology underlying public engagement. In 2021, Ed was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world's 10 most influential scientists working on climate change.“Humanity needs to do three things if it wants to continue to flourish, and it will. The three things that humanity needs to do are decarbonize the global economy, drawdown, capture, harvest much of that heat-trapping pollution that we've already pumped into the atmosphere over the past hundred years because as long as it's up in our atmosphere, we're going to have continued warming. And the third thing that humanity needs to do is become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, which unfortunately will continue for the next several generations at least, even as we succeed in decarbonizing the global economy and harvesting that heat-trapping pollution from the atmosphere.So these are the three things that have to happen. These three things will happen. The open question is how rapidly will they happen? Any business that can play a vital role in making any one or two or all three of those things happen, those are businesses that are going to flourish going forward. And any business that's sitting on the side and not contributing to one of those three areas, I really think they will become increasingly irrelevant, if not completely antiquated and increasingly understood to be harmful.”https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.orghttps://twitter.com/docsforclimatewww.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-american-mind-april-2022/www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/politics-global-warming-april-2022/www.oneplanetpodcast.org

In this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I am joined by Susannah Hammond, Senior Regulatory Intelligence Expert at Thompson Reuters on the firm's 2022 Cost of Compliance Report. Some of the highlights include: The genesis of this report. Why can this Report be seen as cathartic. What was the genesis of this report?  What areas have the greatest need for compliance functionality? What are the top 3 challenges for compliance functions and compliance professionals over the next 12 months? Why is culture still such a challenge? Where does the Report see compliance down the road Why will changes in regulations continue to be a key challenge? How concerned are compliance professionals about CCO and compliance personnel liability? Resources Susannah Hammond on LinkedIn 2022 Cost of Compliance Report, here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rafi Arbel, President, Market JD (Chicago, IL)   Rafi Arbel is President at Market JD, an internet-based advertising that focuses its work on “increasing visibility” for small law firms specializing in personal injury and workers' compensation cases. With the kind of clientele the agency serves, the written content has to be extremely precise and accurate. That's why the firm currently employs 3 attorneys. Rafi is one of them.  The agency provides websites, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, reputation management, and content production. The work split is about 65% to 70% personal injury and 55% (overlapping) worker's compensation legal firms. Rafi says, “Everybody can build a website and everybody can claim they do SEO or pay-per-click well.” Because this work is so labor-intensive and the details are numerous and critical, Rafi believes that those “who do it well” are not only those with knowledge, but those who have built a process to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes. People have to know what they are doing, set an end objective, figure out the tasks to get it done, assess and respond to feedback, and do it “consistently over and over again.  Because Rafi practiced law for 6 years, he has represented people. Following a passion for selling and “engaging people,” he worked for Thompson Reuters and spent a number of years selling for Findlaw and Westlaw. Then, he went back for his MBA and again, and decided to change course, this time to become an entrepreneur. With this varied background and because he has been promoting small law firms for over 20 years, he understands what lawyers do, “how they do it, and how to position them.”  In this interview, Rafi notes how SEO has changed over the years, that searching for broadhead terms, “Chicago injury lawyer” or “Nevada workers' compensation lawyer” renders a lot of paid ads at the top of the page so that even if a firm organically appears below that in the map section or even below that, the likelihood that SEO will produce much traffic is negligible. Or the firm's won't show well because Google's Local Service ads take up the top of the page, followed by Google Ads below that. A big portion of the top of the screen gets taken up by all those paid ads . . . especially on mobile. So, broadhead SEO is not of great benefit to lawyers. What does work are longtail searches. Rafi says the great race now is to “capture the longtail searches' to find “the corners that the big guys don't see.”  As an example, Rafi talks about a Nevada client . . . a personal injury lawyer who, unlike his big competitors, does not have$40,000 or $50,000 a month to spend on SEO. What the attorney does have is a lot of experience representing people who have suffered sepsis and whose doctors failed to treat it correctly. Medical malpractice? Not many Nevada lawyers work in that area. By building comprehensive content to cover sepsis and medical malpractice, Market JD is carving out a unique niche for the lawyer's business and building a moat around the lawyer's business as well. Few competitors in that specific area will be willing to invest the resources to match this project. Rafi says the best way to contact him is to call him at: 312.970.9353 or email him at rafi@marketjd.com. (Market JD like Juris Doctor) ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Rafi Arbel, President at Market JD based in Chicago, Illinois. Welcome to the podcast, Rafi. RAFI: Thank you, Rob. Nice to be here. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about Market JD, and what is the company's superpower? What is your specialty? RAFI: Market JD is an internet-based advertising firm. We only work for small law firms. People think that we work for lawyers; it's much narrower than that. We really don't work for the big firms. They have their own marketing needs that are very different. We really focus on small law firms. We do everything that they need online to increase their visibility, which means we do websites, we do search engine optimization, pay-per-click, some reputation management, and of course, the content production. Your question was what is our superpower. What I have learned over the years is that everybody can build a website and everybody can claim they do SEO or pay-per-click well. What differentiates those who do it well from those who don't is not just knowledge, but process. Because each of these things is so labor-intensive, and because there are so many details that have to get done right, you have to build a process behind every one of them. The process should really dictate the outcome. If you are making sure all of your t's are crossed and i's are dotted, then you should get a consistent, high-quality product every time, assuming you know what you're doing. Over the years we've gotten feedback, like everybody else, of what works and what doesn't work, and where Google has rewarded us and where Google hasn't rewarded us. We've taken those lessons, and those have affected what we want in the sites and what we don't want, and how our sites need to be built and the content that we need to create. Then we convert those objectives into tangible tasks that can be assigned to every person in the process. So, our superpower is our ability to take an end objective, figure out how to get it done, and then do it consistently over and over again. ROB: Got it. You mentioned smaller law firms. Are there any particular practice areas or geographies that you focus on? Are there any that you do not do from a practice area or geographic area? RAFI: Historically, we've focused primarily on workers' compensation and personal injury law firms. I'd say 65% to 70% is personal injury, and probably overlapping, I'd say 55% workers' comp, because some firms do both. But we have criminal law firms, divorce law firms, business law firms. Really, generally speaking, it's a business-to-consumer law firm – those people who don't just have a few big business clients that they get all their recurring work from. These are people that help the individual consumer, that constantly need a new flow of cases coming in. Those are the people that need us most. It's not that we can't help those that just need a law firm brochure, but what we're really good at is improving somebody's visibility, not just creating a brochure. We might be overkill if all you want is something that validates your existence. ROB: As a consumer, when you mention some of those practice areas, it certainly rings to me – my perception would be that that's largely a reflection of the marketing budget of the different types of law firms. In other words, I certainly see a lot more personal injury and workers' comp advertising than I see let's say business law. Is that some of the alignment between your focus and the market? RAFI: Absolutely. Although I do find it a little – I don't understand why some of the other practice areas don't spend more. Yes, it is true that the potential payout for a personal injury lawyer is much greater. But what I will say is that I think the estate planners and a lot of the transactional attorneys that have the potential – or even maybe especially the civil litigation lawyers, they have potential to make a huge amount of money from a civil litigation case. If they're representing the manufacturer that bet the business on litigation, the attorney's fees can easily be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So why those attorneys don't want to spend a few grand a month to promote themselves is beyond me. But that's beyond probably the scope of this conversation. At the end of the day, it's really the personal injury lawyers who are spending and who are programmed and understand the need to spend to bring in a constant flow of high value cases. ROB: As someone representing smaller firms in this space, how do you think about tactically going to war and finding the client for some of these firms? I don't even know, and you might know, what the national advertising budget is for some of the national firms, but it's got to be quite something to go up against. How do you think about giving your client the edge and the best bang for their buck on somebody who can spend almost unlimited amounts of money on out-of-home advertising, on SEO, on pay-per-click, on all of your keywords? RAFI: That's a really good question. We get this from time to time from personal injury or workers' compensation lawyers who say just that. They say, “Look, in my marketplace there are four big competitors and they're spending enormous money. They've got a 10-year lead on me. There's no way I can compete, is there?” The truth is, they can compete. But we have to be careful in what we promote. Oftentimes when you start to dig a little deeper into their practice areas, you find that not all personal injury lawyers and not all workers' compensation lawyers focus on the same things. For example, I have a client in Reno who has never really done any significant online advertising. He doesn't have much of a presence now, and he doesn't have an enormous budget to compete against the huge Nevada advertisers. And there are certainly people paying $40,000 or $50,000 a month on SEO. So, he asked me what we can do, and we had a conversation about the nature of his practice. It turns out that in Nevada, not many lawyers want medical malpractice cases. It turns out also that this particular lawyer had a lot of experience representing people who came down with sepsis where the doctors didn't treat it correctly. That's a very niche field. This is something he was very good at, had a lot of experience in, and very few people did, and cases that he wanted to attract. So, we decided to build out, and we're in the process of finishing, a lot of content around sepsis and medical malpractice. And even if others come in to compete, they're certainly not going to invest the same resources into that field as he will. We've already started to see some success with that, and leads are starting to come in the door. It's that sort of focus on the client, the real micro focus on what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. You have to understand their practice. I'm also a licensed lawyer in the state of Illinois, so I understand their practice in ways that somebody who's not a lawyer may not understand. ROB: That experience you have as a lawyer, your licensing as a lawyer, is that what has kept your focus on law? Have you ever been tempted to – there's other local advertisers, whether it's air conditioning, basements, plumbers, etc., who have I think similar battles. What has kept you in the legal lane? RAFI: That's a really good question. The truth is that I don't bring a distinct competitive advantage outside of the law. If I were to go sell to a plastic surgeon – and they certainly have a lot of money to spend on their advertising – or sell to HVAC guys or plumbers or any of them, I don't bring with me any inherent competitive advantages that my clients don't have. Obviously, I know the technical end of it, and we have the coders and the designers and everything else, but so does everybody else. Only in the law do I really bring something that few other people, few other agencies have, and that's an intimate knowledge of what they do, because I've been doing it for 20+ years. Because I'm a lawyer and I've represented people, I really understand what they do, how they do it, and how to position them. So yes, while it is tempting, and maybe I could make more money if I did websites for people other than lawyers, it's just not my comfort zone. I really understand the law so well that it doesn't make sense to do much else. ROB: Rafi, to understand a little bit – it's not entirely a typical path. Most people don't go to law school to start a digital agency. What is the origin story of Market JD? What took you out of the day to day practice of law? What made you want to learn and build a team around you that understands things like SEO and SEM and everything else you have to do to make things work? RAFI: That's a really interesting question. I didn't go directly from the practice of law into running an agency. I practiced law for about six years, and then I had a real desire to sell. I've always loved working with people, and I just love the selling process and I love engaging people. So, I took a job with Thompson Reuters and I sold for FindLaw and Westlaw for a number of years. Then I decided to go back and get my MBA, and then when I got my MBA, I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it was at that time that I started Market JD. We do largely the same things that my former employer does, FindLaw. We do the same sort of things that they do; we just like to think we do it better. ROB: Got it. So somewhere along the way, between some growing coincidence, between having practiced yourself, between competing in the market, you saw a set of ingredients, you made a little bit of a bet on yourself – and then who were your next coupe of hires? Who are the first couple of people that an attorney goes out and hires to build a firm like this? RAFI: I think if I could do it over again, the one thing that I would do differently is I would've hired more people quicker. I was a little too conservative in who I hired in the initial years, and potentially didn't grow as fast as I could've if I had hired more staff. I think I wasn't as confident as I am now in my ability to succeed. I was always worried that I would run out of money, and it never happened. I had more clients than I had necessarily people to do the work. So, I certainly would've hired people quicker. I think what happened was it was a lot of on-the-job training. I hired people as I saw the need. I knew I couldn't design, and I knew nothing about design, and I knew nothing about coding. So I surrounded myself with the best people I can and the people I need to get the job done. It was need-based hiring.  ROB: Got it. That certainly becomes an interesting path. In terms of running out of money, I have done that; I don't recommend it. It's not the most fun. We did make all the money back and then some, so it's okay. When you look at yourself now – you said you've learned a little bit about hiring more. Obviously, you can't hire unlimited, so how do you think about, now, with experience in mind, when is the right time to hire? RAFI: I think that story has changed as the labor market has changed. At this point, where I find great talent in an area that I know I'm going to need, I hire for that even if I don't necessarily have enough work to fill that person's plate. It just so happens that when you hire great people, you find work to give them, and it's often profitable work because when they're good, it enhances your service and you tend to sell more of the things that you can do better. I think the question you asked me was, how do I know who to hire. I'm always looking. We recently hired a Head of SEO. I wasn't initially planning on hiring her, but I did find an article that she had written, and I thought it was so well done and it was so technically complete that I reached out to her and I asked her if she'd be willing to do some consulting. One thing led to another, and she's now our Head of SEO. So, it's more about availability than it is about necessarily our needs. It's becoming very hard to find the right people, and I know I'm not the only employer to say that. ROB: For sure. It's hard to find the right people. It's hard to find sometimes the sorts of versatile people who can and will wear multiple hats. I think that's interesting; you've probably had some choices as you've grown. SEO probably has not been a choice. You've probably had to do that for a very long time. How have you considered, though, which service areas you should engage in? Are there some that you haven't? Are you in television? Are you in out-of-home? How deep do you go in social? How do you think about those kinds of decisions? RAFI: The traditional media is not something I had experience in or knowledge in. I've thought many times about doing it, because oftentimes the people who sell traditional media add digital services to their menu of choices. So I've often thought of adding traditional media to my set of choices, but I haven't, largely because it's out of my comfort zone. I would have to bring in people, and I would be doing it just for the sake of growing. I have enough troubles in my life without taking on something that I don't know particularly well, so I've chosen just to be a digital agency and do that better than my competitors. And I think it's that laser focus and doing one thing well that's been a great recipe for us. It's worked for us. ROB: Sure. There's a certain discipline to knowing what segment you play in. I'm sure many firms have started in the legal world, and many of them really have that appetite to go as far upmarket as they can, as fast as possible. They want to buy the side of every bus, the front of every billboard, all of those things. How do you think about what firm size is too big for Market JD right now? How do you think about that decision? RAFI: When it comes to digital advertising, I don't think there is a firm that's too big for us in our space. It's when they have needs beyond that. Now, certainly we have partners we can bring in, but I don't pretend to claim that they're part of the Market JD business. They're just our partners if they need them. But when it comes to digital advertising, this is what we do best. If the largest PI firm in America came to us, I don't see any reason why we couldn't help them with their needs. We represent people, or we do the digital advertising for solo practitioners, and we do it for 75-people personal injury firms, and everything in between. ROB: That's certainly a range. Once you have 75 attorneys, I don't want to pay those bills, I know that. That's a sizable firm there. You mentioned a little bit about perhaps a desire to have hired a little quicker. As you think about other lessons you may have learned while building the firm, what might something else be that you wish you'd done differently if you could rewind the clock a little bit? RAFI: Yeah, definitely hiring quicker. Most certainly it would be also doing more internet marketing for Market JD. It was always ironic, I thought, that I'm selling lawyers internet marketing, but I'm not promoting my own wares on the internet. We ignored it because I had such a nice base of connections from my years working as a lawyer and my years selling as a salesman at Thompson Reuters. I had such a great base of people to call on that I really didn't need to do a lot of internet advertising. In hindsight, I think that was a mistake. I probably would've more aggressively done it, and that's what we're just beginning to do now. But you know what? In some regards, I always thought it was better to have fewer clients and do a better job for fewer clients than it is to grow as fast as I can and see the quality diminish. I've seen too many of my competitors with fantastic salesforces, far better than anything I have, that win the business but don't have the resources to put into each client, and the mistakes that they made were just embarrassing. I never wanted to be that guy, so I never wanted to grow any faster than I had the capacity to do a great job for them. ROB: Your team is so focused. When you're out there marketing for these firms, you know who their ideal customer is; you're thinking about how to reach them, and to a certain extent, it sounds like you're intuitively selling to people you know, to people you know that you know, some referrals. What did it look like? Did you all actually sit down and formulate a picture of your customer and their journey separate from their customers and their journey? Or how did you get clarity on the target you are marketing to as a firm, how you reach them, and how you separate that from the everyday of working with all these other firms, knowing you're trying to reach an individual consumer? RAFI: I think for every small business, to a large extent the direction of the business is set by the needs of the clients. So, if you listen to what the clients say and you really don't just hear the words, but take it to heart, then their needs will dictate the services that you provide. We don't just sell technical expertise or a set of tools or any particular solution. What we're really trying to communicate to the lawyers we sell to is, tell us what your issues are, tell us what your end objectives are, and then let us work backwards and figure out the best way to address those and achieve those ends. I think if you listen to the client, they'll help you. They'll direct the solution because your solution will be based on their needs and their objectives. ROB: Rafi, now that you're at the level you're at, now that you're looking ahead a little bit, what's coming up for Market JD and the type of work that you do that's exciting? What's the next frontier, maybe the next place you think you might hire for that you don't know yet you're going to hire for? RAFI: I think we're just in the initial stages of really expanding and taking what we do best, but doing it in a bigger way, hiring many more SEO content writers who can really focus in on longtail search. What's happening in SEO is that when you run a search for the broadhead terms – “Chicago injury lawyer” or “Nevada workers' compensation lawyer” – the search results are so dominated by paid ads at the top that even if you appear organically in the map section or beneath that, the probability of you getting much traffic or cases from appearing well there isn't too great because you've got Google Local Service ads at the top and then you have Google Ads below it. It really takes up a significant portion of the top of the screen, especially on mobile. The SEO isn't going to be of great benefit to the lawyers. But those same ads don't always appear on the longtail searches, and there are so many of those longtail searches. So the great race right now – it's no secret, but the great race is to capture the longtail searches, and the better we are at that, the better off our clients are going to be in the end, the more benefit we're going to bring them. That's the race these days, the longtail searches. ROB: That would seem to also align with maybe the capacity of the big firms that target those searches as well. There's some stuff that's longtail, they're not going to have keywords targeted against it, they're not going to be SEOing for it either. But you mentioned some of those niches that are special to the firm, that is an individual strength, particular types of cases, that then become the opportunity. RAFI: That's exactly right. The corners that the big guys don't see. ROB: Are you the only attorney in the firm at this point? RAFI: No. Actually, there are – let me see, three of us that I can think of right away. I've got to think through it, but we have at least three attorneys here, and two of them are editors. We're very careful about what we write about on the law. We don't ever want to misrepresent or get something wrong on the law, so I thought it would be a great idea to hire lawyers as editors. So two of my editors are in fact lawyers. ROB: Certainly, you get into some of these compliance areas, it certainly makes sense to have some expertise there. I think we've heard this a few times on the podcast – when it comes around the medical space, there's a similar level of depth, attention, compliance, and danger that leads to specialization and helps keep any little upstart two-person shop in town from coming after you too hard. RAFI: That's right. Really, for me, if I was just a general web shop, I could practice law and do better financially than I could if I were just selling to the local businesses. But it's really the deep specialty that we have that allows us to serve the personal injury and workers' comp lawyers in ways others can't. ROB: Very interesting. We've been hiring in a bunch of states; I've learned a lot about workers' comp that I didn't want to know, but you might know better than that. [laughs] We use a PEO; we had the privilege of buying our own policy from the state of Ohio because they don't like the PEO's policy. Something new in every state. That's you and your clients to figure out for the most part, I think. Unless there's any other states you know we should really put our heads on the swivel for, because I'd be curious. RAFI: This is for your own company? ROB: Yeah. Are there any other states with really weird workers' comp regimes? Because Ohio seems unique in its specialness. RAFI: [laughs] Most states have their own peculiarities, and it's often changing, so I can't claim I know every state's. But yes, it's definitely an area where there are differences between the states. ROB: Fascinating. A very interesting area, and it keeps some lawyers employed, for sure. Rafi, when people want to find you and find out more about Market JD, where should they go to find and connect with you? RAFI: The easiest way is pick up the phone and call me, (312) 970-9353, or they can email me at rafi@marketjd.com. That's Market JD like Juris Doctor. ROB: Excellent. Good to have that. I encourage folks to find and connect with Rafi if you need some of their help. Other than that, Rafi, thank you so much for joining the podcast, for sharing your journey. We're very grateful. Thank you. RAFI: Rob, thanks for having me. I appreciate being on. ROB: Excellent. Be well. RAFI: You too. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Chuck Brooks is a world-renowned cybersecurity expert and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University where he teaches courses on risk management, homeland security, and cybersecurity. Chuck is also a two-time Presidential appointee and Forbes contributor. LinkedIn named him one of “The Top 5 Tech People to Follow on LinkedIn”. He was named by Thompson Reuters as a “Top 50 Global Influencer in Risk, Compliance,” and by IFSEC as the “#2 Global Cybersecurity Influencer” in 2018. He has served as Senior Legislative Staff (Defense, Security) to Senator Arlen Specter, U.S. Senate, and was also the former Technology Partner Advisor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition, Chuck runs 15 other businesses and is co-leader of the top two Homeland Security groups on LinkedIn. Tune in to this episode of Ask A CISO to hear:

An 18-year-old White supremacist open fires in a Buffalo supermarket, killing 10. The left blames Fox News and Republicans for the shooting. Biden plans to put ground troops in Somalia. The White House says they've been working on the baby formula issue “for months”. A Wisconsin middle school charges 3 boys with sexual harassment for using the wrong pronouns. A former Thompson-Reuters employee was fired for not buying the BLM narrative. Pete Buttigieg wants to spend $5 Billion on bike paths. Rep. Liz Cheyney trashes her own party again after the Buffalo shooting.Please visit our great sponsors:Black Rifle Coffeehttps://blackriflecoffee.com/DANARight now save 20% off your purchase. Fast Growing Treeshttps://fastgrowingtrees.com/danaBuild the yard of your dreams and save 15% off your entire order. Good Rancherhttps://goodranchers.com/danaGet a taste of the best! Sign up today and get 2 pounds of American Wagyu FREE.Kel-Techttps://KelTecWeapons.comKelTec: Creating Innovative, Quality Firearms to help secure your world.Legacy Precious Metalshttps://legacypminvestments.comFight inflation and protect your family wealth with Legacy Precious Metals. Visit online or call 866-580-2088.Patriot Mobile https://PatriotMobile.com/DanaFree Activation with promo code DANA. Patriotmobile.com/dana or call 972-PATRIOT.Superbeetshttps://DanasBeets.comGet up to 45% off PLUS free shipping at DANASBEETS.COM.

Pete Buttigieg wants to spend $5 Billion on bike paths, meanwhile a Wisconsin middle school charges 3 boys with sexual harassment for using the wrong pronouns. A former Thompson-Reuters employee was fired for not buying the BLM narrative.Please visit our great sponsors:Black Rifle Coffeehttps://blackriflecoffee.com/DANARight now save 20% off your purchase. Fast Growing Treeshttps://fastgrowingtrees.com/danaBuild the yard of your dreams and save 15% off your entire order. Good Rancherhttps://goodranchers.com/danaGet a taste of the best! Sign up today and get 2 pounds of American Wagyu FREE.Kel-Techttps://KelTecWeapons.comKelTec: Creating Innovative, Quality Firearms to help secure your world.Legacy Precious Metalshttps://legacypminvestments.comFight inflation and protect your family wealth with Legacy Precious Metals. Visit online or call 866-580-2088.Patriot Mobile https://PatriotMobile.com/DanaFree Activation with promo code DANA. Patriotmobile.com/dana or call 972-PATRIOT.Superbeetshttps://DanasBeets.comGet up to 45% off PLUS free shipping at DANASBEETS.COM.

Episode 170: Alec Farwell, CEO of History Token [HSTK] and Gerry Campbell, former President of Thompson Reuters join the podcast to discuss Elon's takeover of Twitter among other related topics.  Social MediaGerry CampbellLinkedin: Gerry CampbellWebsite: kryptonomic.ioHistory TokenTwitter: history_tokenTikTok: history_tokenTruth Social: history_token

Many times we discount the wisdom our youth holds. Prepare to change your mind in this episode with Anjalee Narenthiren who started her first successful business at age 15! Sometimes getting a fresh perspective from a youngpreneur is exactly what we need to catch a spark of inspiration. In this Women Developing Brilliance® - The Spirit of Business episode, you will learn: