What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Bronx Attorney broadcast. In this episode,
I speak with Josh Gittleman. Josh was actually in my study group at St. John's, so we've
known each other for quite some time now. Josh is a partner at DeToffel and Gittleman.
He practices personal injury law, but also has a substantial employment law practice.
In this episode, we talk about what it's like to change systems and processes and make partner
at a small law firm. Enjoy.
What's up Josh? Thanks for taking some time out of your day to talk to me.
Hey Will, thanks for having me on the pod. I love your setup. You got the mic going and
everything.
Yeah, thank you. Just by means of introduction, why don't you tell us a little bit about your
background? Where'd you come from? Where'd you go to school? Whatever you think is relevant.
Absolutely. So I'll start a little bit at the top first. As you probably guessed, I'm
an attorney at St. John's here with Will, but if we're going to rewind just a bit more
than that. I'm a Long Island guy. I'm sure plenty of people listening are sick of us
as it is. There's plenty of us running around here. So nothing too crazy about that. Suffolk
County guy. There is some differences between the city and out there. It's not necessarily
the sticks, but it was some childhood. It sounds just a suffix not that long ago. And
I guess I didn't know one of, you know, there's a thousand differences between the Suffolk
County courts and the city courts, like little things like that. Right. And so one of the
attorneys there, I guess I didn't know one of their really local rules. He called me
a two one two attorney. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but he, he threw
that out as it. It's all right away. So Long Island from the top, you know, and then after
Long Island, I went to Buffalo, uh, so stayed New York the whole time, uh, you know, finance
and marketing background in Buffalo and eventually transferred to, uh, or changed to, you know,
a law career with St. John, uh, you know, all three years there. Not too much to play
in. You know, you'd say there's pretty good guys out there from St. John's, right?
Yeah, I would say so.
And non-biased reaction for sure.
So this, this guy that called you a two one two attorney, was he trying to like insult
you as being too city?
Yeah, that's what I think it was. So, you know, out there, they picked their jury a
slightly different way. Uh, the cars at every stick like that. And so I was doing it the
way that, you know, you do it in Kingsmore. And so he was like, he was a nice guy, but
he was teasing me about it. Cause I was like, all right, let's go, you know, talk to the
judge. And he was like, no, we just don't do it here that way. And he was right, you
know, but I just, you know, the little rules there. So he threw me a, he called me a two
one two guy.
That's pretty funny. So what, uh, what brought you to St. John's Law School and how, what
was your experience like there?
Uh, St. John's was great. I mean, you know, the same kind of stuff that is, uh, not so
great about any law school, not so great about St. John's, you know, doing the work.
Right.
But overall, high quality people, I would say, and, uh, I think you'd probably agree
that Queens has a little bit about it where it tends to be down to earth people, uh,
uh, compared to maybe some other schools. So, you know, I was up in Buffalo, which probably
was pretty down to earth for undergrad, but, uh, St. John's just has the, the right file.
At least I felt that way.
Yeah. It wasn't as cutthroat as they, uh, some people say law school is. So that was
a,
Yeah.
Who, who will remain, remain unnamed. Yeah. That were a little tough, right? Yeah. A
little bit of a PTSD from that, but we're really going to go to that.
So did you, did you have any experience in law prior to St. John's or is that, was that
your first like legal experience?
So I did, uh, and almost doing somewhat similar stuff. So when I was in undergrad, uh, I kind
of worked as a legal secretary or paralegal at a defense firm for, you know, personal
injuries, slip and falls. One of their larger clients was, uh, it was either stop and shop
or shop, right? Uh, you know, those big supermarkets on Long Island. So, uh, a flavor of what I
do now, you know, it was the fence side, uh, which is very different, uh, in many ways.
Uh, and, and I think that, you know, similar for you.
Uh, I got the feeling for a lot of defense stuff and I wouldn't say it pushed me to the
place of stuff, but it definitely, you know, got me thinking about what the other side is
like. Yeah. I mean, it definitely pushed me. I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this.
Right. Yeah. There's plenty of stuff that I was like, uh, just really the structure
that I want to be a part of this. And people have different opinions, but I feel like there's
a lot more freedom on our side and you could build a little more.
Yeah. It helps to work for the good guys too. Right?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Being a stormtrooper in Darth Vader's army.
I like to think, I haven't thought about it that way, but I do like to think of it that
way. That's good. Right. Right on my alley.
And then so why don't you tell us a little bit about, um, what you're doing now?
Sure. Sure. So like I said, it was, especially in the first games of the field, um, all tend
to be like personal injury or medical malpractice. And after moving to the, my current firm, I've
been here for three or four years now, at least half the practice, probably more is employment
discrimination.
And what's your role there?
So I'm a partner there. Didn't start out that way, but I'm a partner there. Uh, and a lot
of these cases, there's a wide range of them, you know, they, they're, um, wage an hour cases
with people who are underpaid, whether it be overtime, not getting paid at all, some
labor law violations. And then I mean, the flip side of that, there's a lot of employment
discrimination cases, which can be a bit of a, uh, uh, uh, hot topic as, as I think you're
aware as well.
Right. So did you, did you always know that you wanted to have an ownership interest in
a law firm or was that something that came about later on?
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I think it's a combination of things. So when I first
got to the firm and currently I was just top of all Gettelman and Josh Gettelman. So, um,
I was still new to the field and the way the firm was set up, it was on the, the smaller
side, uh, you know, another two attorneys, the head guy and me. And now it's, it's just
me and another attorney and we're probably hiring another guy soon. And we have a paralegal
and maybe another paralegal who's in and out. When it comes to the small firm, everything
you do matters more. So I kind of got the feel, which I didn't have an infant size for
and I didn't have in a larger firm that the more I do, the more I get good at what I'm
doing and the more I can spend my time well in the firm, the more of a difference I made.
And so, you know, I became a key piece in that, in that firm. And so I'm thinking to
myself, how can I get more of a feeling like that, you know, making a difference? And,
you know, yes, it's making a difference in my clients lives, but it's also making a
difference in what the firm looks like and the outcome. It's hard in a bigger firm to
see what your ripples are, you know, your ways, who knows. And so I guess that's kind
of how it's developed. I was like, okay, so what would be the next step? If I'm pushing
cases, if I'm settling cases, I'm learning, I'm allowing the firm to grow, how can I get
more of that feeling? I think that's kind of where it came from.
And do you feel like that's in developing systems and processes or from having, you
know, your hand in a little bit more of every different aspect of the firm?
I think it's in both. And you'll have to tell me if you get the same vibe, because when
I see something that doesn't work the way it should, whether it's just like an outdated
process, doesn't take advantage of the technology we have. It doesn't streamline things. I just,
I like, I can't help it, but not try to fix it. You get that same kind of, yeah, so that's
what it comes down to. I want to fix things, because one, it makes my life easier. Two,
it makes everyone else's firm easier. And when I can see that actually playing out,
that's a big thing. Just to think of an example, when we do client intakes, right, and we might
touch on this before for the employment cases. And I don't know if I want to get too much
into it now, but a big issue is that there's a huge discrepancy in what the law is and what
the general public thinks the law is, what the protections are and what the general public
thinks the protection are when it comes to employment and working. And sometimes that's
because of the way that certain attorneys advertise, certain words that are both legal
terms, but then also widely used in the non-legal way. And so an example of a streamlined process
is having a document ready that in this plain of thing that you could possibly think of
explains the law. So you have someone calling, they want to be signed up, and you don't want
to give a lecture every time someone calls. You don't want to explain the very broad concepts
because unless they have a decent understanding of law, it's really hard to shift through
the facts to see if they have a case or not. They have to be doing some of the heavy lifting.
You can't ask them everything about their life and then they get it. They got to know
what you're looking for. And so creating a document that explains in plainest of English
what you're looking for is kind of one of those processes where I just couldn't help
but help myself and help the person.
Yeah, and I know that we've discussed a lot about how the average person doesn't really
understand what discrimination is and a lot of times confuses people who are just mean
to them for discrimination. And something funny that I saw recently was somebody explained
it for, as in, can my boss fire me for having mustard on my shirt? And it's like, yeah,
does that really upset your boss? They can fire you for that.
Right. It's one of a million different things they can fire you for. And there's like a
category of 25 things they can't.
Right. And so do you feel like developing this step in the process has helped make your
life easier?
It's made my life easier. It's made their attorney's life easier. And I think sometimes
it brings in business because you help out someone even if they don't get signed up for
a client, signed up as a client. You help out someone by explaining to them the law.
And most of them, they come to their own conclusion about whether or not they have a case and
they're happy that they helped it all. You helped it all. And then they go to their friend
and now they have an understanding of what their friends don't have. And people love
to share things that they know because people like to pass along the knowledge. And all
of a sudden they say, okay, I don't have a case. But my friend here is in the exact situation
that was explained in your memo and you went over with me. And so all of a sudden you're
hearing from two degrees of different people, you're hearing from someone who has a case.
So it works on a bunch of different levels there. You almost give, you don't know if
you're going to get back, sometimes you do.
And so you mentioned bringing in business. How have you gone about trying to bring in
business and have you seen any success so far?
Yeah. So I think it's a lot of momentum and a lot of building relationships. So I've
tried a couple of the advertising routes. As far as if you have the capacity to take
a lot of calls and listen to a lot of people and there's a stage in a firm where you can
do that, then a lot of what does work is, and it tends to be hiring an outside firm,
just optimizing the search engine results for your law firm website. That helps. It helps
the law firm as a whole. So, and when I tell you that we went through at the law firm,
two or three different marketing firms before we found one that was actually willing to
put in the time, we did. We went to three or four. The first two or three, and this
is the search engine optimization. They say they're going to do it. And then you look
at the website, you look at like the metadata behind the website. They didn't change anything
about it. So when you finally find someone who's willing to do it and optimize it, you
can look at their Google searches. And if you search Google local, my firm's now like
three or four down the list instead of the fourth page. So it's like the 54th firm there.
And a lot of calls actually get generated that way. So those come straight into the firm.
That's kind of one section.
And that's tough because you're competing with some heavy hitters out there that are
spending maybe $10,000 a month on the SEO stuff.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Lots of big money there. I think that does help though, to be
on the Google local end of it, because if you search near me, it'll bring up the map
as opposed to just trying to get your website to the top of someone searching employment
attorney. But still, yeah, a huge heavy hitter. You got to find some marketing firm was probably
willing to put in more time than they should.
And so, you know, before you were at your current firm, you did, you were at some other
places beforehand was, was being able to go into more of the business side of law. And
did that play into your decision to move at all? Or was it something else?
No, it really, it really didn't. Part of how the business end thing became more of a focus
point for me is that there was more, I think, and again, only love for the firm I was at
prior. There was a little more room for me to grow because the firm was at its earlier
stage, the firm that now. Because I came into the firm, it was already a somewhat established
firm, but not to the extent where my first job at a law school where I spent a couple
of years, that was a very established firm. So there were different times in their life
cycle, different times in their life cycle.
So do you enjoy practicing law more or do you enjoy the business of law more?
I think it's got to be a mix because too much of either you start pounding your head against
the wall. You know, I think of anything, it's better to kind of, you know, move from one
to the other back and forth, back and forth. And I'm not talking about every five minutes,
but either every day or every couple hours, that's the way you keep it fresh because if
I'm just working on briefs, I'm just working on pushing cases, just doing conferences
and arguments and preparing for trials, that's great. But the variety and I guess can give
me a larger perspective of what the goal is, is the business end thing. It allows me to,
okay, why am I pushing so these cases so hard? Where does that get me? It gives me the mile
high view that, you know, really helped.
This episode of the Bronx Attorney Broadcast was brought to you by me, Will Ferreiro. I'm
an attorney of prior law right here in the Bronx, and we primarily practice in personal
injury. However, we do also do a variety of areas of practice. So I can help you with
just about any sort of legal issue that you might have. I'm admitted to practice both in
New York and New Jersey. And if it's not something that I can personally help you with, I can
connect you with someone in my network of attorneys who is best equipped to help you
with your legal issue. You can find me on Instagram and on Twitter at Bronx Attorney.
You can send me an email for a prior law or call me at the office 718-829-0222. And now
back to the show.
So has there been any unexpected challenges in transitioning from being just a lawyer
to now, you know, thinking about the business side of things as well?
There's absolutely been new frustrations that weren't there. So like anything, there's
a learning curve to it. Part of it is the time management thing, because at least I
think that the small, you know, boots on the ground kind of stuff of making sure that
a case moves, whether it's doing things like pushing discovery, whether I'm doing discovery
myself or someone else is in the office drafting it, whether it's poking the other side, phone
call after phone call instead of depositions, because as you know, they're not calling us
into court all the time now. You got to like, you got to like almost bug people into it's
and moving forward as the case, the court's not holding our hand. So it's about how I
spend my time, because I can spend a lot of time trying to pick up new cases, a lot of
energy trying to pick up new cases and build the relationships with new clients. But if
I'm not moving my other cases, then it's not going to work out. And there's a huge lag,
a huge lag between the work you put into your cases. And most of the time, and when they
actually turn into some sort of monetary value for you. So, you know, if you take if you
take a two, three, four week break from pushing the cases on the ground level, then you're
delaying, you know, a reward of money verdicts for four or five weeks, it's one in one. And
so it's about how I'm going to spend my time. And I think that's one of the newest frustrations
I've seen.
And so do you have any, you know, specific goals outlined for yourself or for your business,
that are shorter long term?
Yeah, so it tends to be in the way we've been thinking about it in my office. And it might
not be the most productive way to do it. But we think about it as a, we set a monetary
goal. I'm not going to exactly put what that number is. But we want to move from a gross
settlement of X amount to a gross settlement of Y amount.
Per quarter or year or something.
Yeah, per quarter. We think out of per quarter. And again, you know, we have an idea what
that end of year number is, but per quarter kind of keeps us down to earth because that
keeps us focusing on cases that we think we can settle to. So the last thing we want is
a case sitting at the finish line. And all we got to do is make a couple calls and it
eventually settle, or we got to get them to one IME and it'll settle. And so if we're
thinking about a short term goal of a certain amount of money, we're looking at our cases
and we're thinking, where can we make that much? And we'll open up a case, we'll tear
it apart and we'll figure out, okay, well, you know, this, this case is great liability.
Our clients, uh, those have a lot of emotional damages, but she needs some professional look
at her and substantiate those. And if we push that, then in five or six weeks, we'll
have a report from a, from a, from a treating psychologist or psychiatrist. And then it
looks like a totally new case for an insurance company and then they'll be willing to settle.
And it doesn't take a crazy amount of my time, but it does take actions. I have to call after.
So those smaller goals in a lot of way keep me focused on moving cases.
And so are you, do you want to be more of a trial attorney or do you want to be more
of a office manager attorney? Do you have a preference?
I want to be able to do both very well. Now, is it going to come a certain point where
I'm going to have to pick one or the other? I think most of the time that's true. I mean,
I've seen it at other firms where someone is basically the office manager, a very experienced
attorney. And if they see a case that they really want to be engrossed in and they really
think that this is the case where they could be helping, then they cherry pick the cases
they want to work at. And I think that's a reasonable goal as the firm continues to grow.
I think that, you know, eventually I might move into a more managerial position and I'm
doing the mile high management of each case. And then if there's a case that needs kind
of direct focus, that's when I would put on a different hat and move into that, that sector,
there'd be trial, whether it be mediation or just settlement discussions, you know, sort
of laser focusing on where my skillset might be needed.
Is there anything in particular that you've been doing to try to become more knowledgeable
about the business of law or managing a law firm or you just go and trial by fire?
It's a combination. So, you know, first off, the internet is the most amazing thing ever
and it's full of BS but also full of a lot of great management and even legal guidance
because, you know, we're not exactly the first people to do this. And so everyone, and at
one point, you know, they were all doing trial by trial by combat for this kind of stuff.
But I try to take everything, see what works. There's a lot of nonsense you got to just
start off the top and there's no way. I've seen some people talk about how they've just
hired a whole bunch of completely remote legal assistants who I couldn't even tell you exactly
what they do. And I don't know if I'd be comfortable with that. You know, I like to understand exactly
what's going on. I don't need a micromanage but to outsource everything besides just the
core, core legal stuff and not even know people that seems like advice I couldn't follow. But
at the same time, I think that, you know, making everything digital to the highest point possible,
you know, streamlining every process I could think of using the best, you know, organized
organization technology. That's something that they and it was just over and over and over
again and that's something to kind of pick up on.
And how do you deal with being a young attorney? Because in this field, we're very much still
in our infancy. Sometimes clients can get hesitant when they when they see that their
attorney is only, you know, 29, 30 years old.
Yeah, yeah, that's a real thing. What I will say, and maybe you feel differently, it's
very rarely the client who has any doubts about the age situation. It tends to be the
attorneys who have been practicing for 40 years and they see a new attorney and, you
know, most of it, nine and a 10 are very nice, but it's that it's that last one who doesn't
want to hear anything. When I'm talking about the client, most of them have never been in
this situation or any situation at all. And so they want someone who first is willing
to listen. And that's, you know, huge points for anyone who's willing to listen because
I'm sure that plenty of other older trainees who have been in this in this field for a
long time and it's probably not their fault. They've probably just, you know, after a while
this field will you've heard it all. And so you may not give everything as much time as
really needed. But most of the time, the clients are kind of, you know, glued to me or you
know, because we're a gold mine information. They've never been through this process anymore
and they're feel out of their element that you could be whatever age you want. But if
you're feeling out of your element, you're, you're, you're, this is something new. It's
going to be scary. But they'll, they'll respect what you have to say. So I think that the
clients, yeah, they'll see someone younger and especially when I first came out of law
school, it would feel like, oh, you know, they, I'd have to tell them otherwise they
wouldn't know. Now they, now they assume. So it's gotten easier in that sense for sure.
But they tend to respect the fact that you're listening and you have the information that
can really help them.
Right. Right. Yeah. I had a couple clients a few years ago that they were like, you're
a lawyer? Are you sure? You're pretty young. And I'm like, no, I'm sure. And then after
the intake, they were like, okay, you know what you're talking about. I feel better now.
Right. That's, that's, that's 80, 90% of the battle that, you know, they got to just
feel confident in you. Yeah. And that gets you there.
So then how do you deal with the, the opposing council that may have been practicing in that
jurisdiction for 40 years and tries to, to be a little bit of a bully with you?
Oh boy, I don't know if 100% there's an answer to that. 60 or guns for sure. You know, most
of the time, they're pretty much every time it's not personal and they take jabs at everyone
and it's their attitudes towards the whole thing. And so if you show them most of the
time that you just roll in with the punches and you're not pretending, you know, people
can tell when you're pretending to know things. So that, that's never really worked for me.
Just if you don't know something, do your best at it. People tend to respect that. But
yeah, there's plenty of people out there and they're in a vast, vast minority, but you
know, they've been doing this forever. And even when the things change around them, they'll
still insist that it's done a certain way. Right.
And I guess, I guess a lot's changing now with, with the virtual court, you kind of
evening the playing field with those, with those older attorneys.
More than evening the playing field, because not only did we end up in the virtual court
wherever they, it's different, but they changed a lot of the local rules to adjust for them
and the way the conference is working, the way the jury selection works. And so it's
all, a lot of it's new. And so it really evens it, you know, they don't know, we don't know,
but we know how to use a lot of the zoom functions a lot better.
Is there anything that sticks out from your legal career as, as, you know, some of your
best successes so far?
What really sticks to me and like I said, I do a lot of the employment discrimination
cases. And with those cases, you can really build a case that's normally a five or six
in value. And if you really put in the time, you can make it like a nine or a 10. And with
those cases, things tend to be extra personal. Someone lost their job because of discrimination
or sexual harassment or, you know, they were, they were unlawfully, wrongfully terminated.
And so, you know, just like when people have physical injuries, their world collapses and
they're left kind of emotionally scarred. And so you tend to, when you're helping a
client and you're really putting the time, really get to know them. And so if when you,
whatever it's working with them or it's me or whatever it is, really pushes their case
to the next tier where it should be. And a lot of firms won't put in the time to push
it to the next tier. And, you know, the client doesn't always know that another attorney
wouldn't push it to the next tier. But when you do, you know, you can see in the client
the difference it makes in their lives. Because if you get them an extra $70,000, because
you spent a whole bunch of extra hours on the case, it makes a huge difference. That's
really what's fixed. Because the stories in these cases are, you know, with a negative
connotation riveting in the sense that, you know, it's, it's the kind of behavior and
dramatic that you hope only exists on TV, but, you know, these people have been through
a lot. So those are the kind of things that stick with you. And oftentimes those aren't
the cases that you are, you're on appeal and win. Those aren't the cases that you bring
to trial. A lot of times those are the cases that you make very strong in the beginning.
And get all the groundwork done and they settle. And so there's no long story with it, you
know, where we worked for four years and then prevailed. It's that we worked for eight months
and prevailed early. So we didn't have to drag it out for the next three years. So that's
kind of really what's fixed.
Is there anything in particular that you do to increase it from that, you know, B level
case to an A level case for you?
Sure. So in those employment discrimination cases specifically, there's those two types
of damages, right? There's, or broadly there's two types of damages. There's other damages
that the court really awards, but they tend to be lost wages and emotional distress. Now
emotional distress is where you really have a lot of room to make a case stronger. A lot
of times when these people are wrongfully terminated or sexually harassed at work or based on race
harassed at work, there's a lot of emotional damage there. But the only way that a judge
or a jury or opposing counsel or insurance companies making these evaluations really take
it seriously is if there's some sort of treatment with a mental health professional, so there's
documentation and then there's often needed a report and analysis with diagnosis and shows
causation. So the emotional distress that person is suffering. We have a professional that's
able to analyze and say, yeah, the emotional stress came from the employment issue and
not from just the other stressors of life.
And so that's kind of the fungible, the part that you can really make a difference is if
you put the time, you can make a case from a class B to a class A. And it's often a tough
subject to talk about with the clients because, you know, eight out of 10 clients have never
sought any sort of mental health counseling in their entire life, which is why often,
you know, you get to know these people a little more because they'll open up to you and you
are suggesting it and so that's a big part of increasing the value of your employment
discrimination case.
What would you say the most rewarding aspect of your job is?
If I could think of a specific thing, what comes to mind? Yeah, generally, but what comes
to mind is the look of relief when someone in the employment realm of relief when a case
settles. So, and the only time I'm normally there for it, because a lot of times it happens
by phone, but in these mediation, all right, so we're sitting around a conference room
and back and forth all day with numbers and the client sitting there and, you know, it
could be a seven hour process and they've been thinking about this law student's been
looming a little bit. And so when we kindly come to a number, a great number that they're
happy with and we tell them, all right, we're done, congratulations. They just not, they're
not expecting that kind of relief when they hear that. And so you could like visibly see
that kind of relief that now they can give themselves more of a permission not to think
about the toll incident. Right, right.
That's a big thing. And so you almost see, and you know, it's not a cure, money never
is, but you could see the stress kind of just leak out of them when you hear that. So that's
a nice little, you know, cherry on top.
And so what kind of advice would you have to a young attorney who might be, you know,
in a position where they're, you know, they're working out a firm, they're kind of a cog
in the machine and they want to make a transition to either opening their own law firm or going
to one where, you know, they might have some more say and they might have to, you know,
they get some sort of ownership interest in return, you know, and they're thinking about
making that leap. What would you say to somebody in that position?
Of course. So first thing that comes to mind is that not every job on every firm is going
to have that opportunity. And someone could drive themselves crazy, you know, in a larger
firm trying to make that opportunity exist. So if you're in a firm with 200 attorneys
and you're trying to make it so that you're a partner in that firm, I don't know how far
you're going to get. You might have to work your entire life to do that. And if you want
it to happen sooner or as a later, you might have to go to a smaller firm because in a
smaller firm, sort of what I was getting that earlier, you can make that big difference
based on how you spend your time in the office. And so you get a little taste of it by working
hard, doing the right things, pushing cases. And then, you know, if the time is right and
you feel like you created that leverage by, you know, being a huge part of that firm,
you can approach, you know, whoever your supervisor is, your bosses and kind of feel the water
for that kind of thing. I mean, especially in smaller firms, there's no parting fast
rules. There's a lot less norms. So if you're in a huge, you know, white shoe firm, you're
not exactly going to walk up to a partner as a junior associate and be like, Hey, I
think I'm ready to be a partner. It's not going to be like, All right, what's going
on here?
You know, that or like, Hey, I'm thinking about shaking some stuff up. What do you think?
Yeah, it's not going to get you anywhere. So if you're at a smaller firm where things
are even more flexible, and no one's going to, no one's going to probably, you know,
give you too much shit for trying to make things better most of the time. If you're
at a healthy environment, you know, if you're in a healthy environment, people want things
to get better, people want to make more money. And so at the right place, at a smaller firm,
you know, if you're trying to do it from the inside, and that's the way that I did it,
you know, I didn't start off with something brand new, which I'm sure is very, very tough,
but I'm sure very doable. You got to just kind of take the leap and speak about it,
which is the hard thing to do, but probably worth it.
And so when you were still an associate, did you approach the owner of the law firm and
you know, say, you know, I'm thinking about changing up some processes or trying some
new advertising schemes? Like, did you approach them with things like that?
Yeah, bit by bit. So luckily, you know, the attorneys that I was working with were sort
of drawing it out of me in many ways. And so once they started doing a little bit, that's
when I took the steering wheel and I was like, Hey, we need to try to change this and this.
And you know, not everything sucks. There were certain things that just didn't work
because we didn't have the energy to put them in at that time or we're extra busy at the
time. It's something that we should try when we're less busy, if that ever happens. Or
on the flip side, there were certain things that people just weren't ready to try. And
it would have taken a lot more effort for them to learn the process than me because
one, I probably created it. And two, you know, people come from different backgrounds and
it's not how people work. And you know, so there's no harm. There shouldn't be harm in
a healthy environment, a healthy law firm in bringing up what you think are positive changes
and ban them around. It's kind of worth that risk and looking for that environment.
Is there anything else that you'd like to share that we didn't touch on already?
Not a huge amount. One last thing that I want to just, you know, clear up. And you know,
when it comes to the employment stuff, and we get these calls all the time. And this
is like, this is like a main sticking thing. And this will help any attorney who's doing
an employment, you know, have that memo that you can explain the law to because the call
we get over and over again is that the caller was wrongfully terminated. And that term wrongfully
terminated is kind of a loaded term because wrong, right and wrong, you know, they're
quote please, they're not, they're not a legal term. And it's not the same thing as unlawfully
terminated. Okay. So become good at explaining that to clients and create shortcuts, create
shortcuts because unless it's discrimination for a certain category of mutual trade like
race or a whistleblower, like you said, it might be wrong for them to fire an employee
because they got mustard on their shirt and that that boss just hates mustard. You know,
this crazy guy who hates mustard, but it's not, it's not illegal. It's wrong. It's not
illegal. Unfair is not illegal. Wrong is not illegal. And so, and that's kind of where
I ended, you know, just make sure keep the mustard off the shirt.
Yeah. And I think that's good for any attorney to know so that, you know, they can, you know,
if they're a real estate firm and one of their clients mentioned something that happened,
it's good to be able to sniff out a good case, right?
Absolutely.
That way they can send them over to you.
Right. We'll take care of them. We'll explain the laws to them and, you know, we'll take
good care of everyone.
And so, you know, if somebody is discriminated against or, you know, if they're in an accident
and for whatever reason they don't want to call me, where can they find you?
Oh, they can find me at topflangittleman.com or they can email me directly at Joshua at
ddtlaw.com. It's delta, delta tangolaw.com.
All right, Josh, thanks a lot. Nice talking to you.
Yeah. Thanks. Have a good one. Have a good one.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bronx Attorney Broadcast. Please like,
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