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Hosted by Jared Correia, Legal Late Night is a weekly, pop culture-infused romp through the latest & greatest business management ideas and technology tips for lawyers, featuring engaging guests, and constructed in the format of an old school television variety show.
Jared Correia (00:00):
Hello everybody. We've got a show that promises to be mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. We'll kick things off with my mom's triumphant return to the podcast. She's back. We're again revisiting my personal history and I'm not entirely sure why I continue to do this to myself. After that, we've got Colin Levy, tech Maven and Dylan Barrett, startup lawyer coming in haw to talk about leveraging LinkedIn and the impact of legal technology on their respective businesses. Finally, in the counter program we've got all manner of harlots and rakes, as well as some interesting observations about gardening tools. Tools. Alright, as I mentioned, everybody, exciting news. My mom is back. It's Joanne Correia making her first appearance on the new podcast. I'm personally very excited. Welcome.
Joanne Correia (00:57):
Well, thank you very much for having me, Jared.
Jared Correia (00:59):
I wanted to talk to you about allergies because I've had a lot of allergy conversations really lately. Yeah. Kids are both allergic in their own way and they've received some of my allergies, but not all of them. And people don't believe me, but I'm allergic to hundreds of things. So I wanted to have you on here to vouch for me.
Joanne Correia (01:21):
I will vouch for you, darling. The only thing you were not allergic to as a child were chickens, which were surprising and feathers.
Jared Correia (01:32):
I didn't even know that.
Joanne Correia (01:33):
Yeah, you were allergic to any kind of
Jared Correia (01:34):
Feathers.
Joanne Correia (01:34):
Anything else? And did you remember that when I took you to the doctor because we knew you were allergic. You could just tell you were always scratching or itching or blowing.
Jared Correia (01:46):
That's how you found out I was itchy.
Joanne Correia (01:49):
Well, you was stuffy a lot.
Jared Correia (01:52):
Okay.
Joanne Correia (01:52):
Yeah. And you used to eat only the white of the
Jared Correia (01:57):
Egg. Yeah. I thought you would. Okay. Please gone.
Joanne Correia (02:00):
You you liked hot boil eggs, so you left
Jared Correia (02:02):
As I still do. Hard boiled eggs are great.
Joanne Correia (02:04):
There you go. But do you eat the yolk now?
Jared Correia (02:07):
No.
Joanne Correia (02:08):
You didn't eat the yo as a kid either. As a baby, as a young kid, you would not eat the yolk you used. If I gave you a hard boiled egg to eat, you would eat all the white and leave the yolk in various places in the house.
Jared Correia (02:22):
So I tell this to people all the time and they don't believe me. I think they believe me, but they're a little bit incredulous. So when I was six, I think I lost my first layer of skin. Right. The entire thing. I was like a salamander. Yeah, that's like face, feet.
Joanne Correia (02:40):
Wait, no, it entered at your feet.
Jared Correia (02:42):
Did I lose my hair?
Joanne Correia (02:44):
No,
Jared Correia (02:45):
It entered at my feet.
Joanne Correia (02:46):
No, no. Ended at your feet and your palms of your hands.
Jared Correia (02:51):
So my palms in the bottom of my feet had the regular skin, but the rest of it was gone.
Joanne Correia (02:55):
The only things didn't peel. Yeah,
Jared Correia (02:57):
That's great. How did you not freak out when that happened? That's
Joanne Correia (02:59):
So crazy. Yeah, we didn't freak out about much.
Jared Correia (03:02):
No. You were like, ah, we're good.
Joanne Correia (03:03):
Whatcha going to do? I took you to the doctor. The doctor said these.
Jared Correia (03:08):
The doctor was like, ah, that's cool.
Joanne Correia (03:09):
Just name your
Jared Correia (03:10):
Skin next.
Joanne Correia (03:12):
We were going to take you up to Children's Hospital at the time and
Jared Correia (03:18):
Didn't quite get to that level.
Joanne Correia (03:19):
No, because
Jared Correia (03:20):
What would've gotten to that level? Like a second layer skin falling off my body. Just trying to figure out
Joanne Correia (03:25):
A
Jared Correia (03:25):
Leg. No leg falls off.
Joanne Correia (03:28):
No, your skin kind of cleared up after that. You didn't have the eczemas and the
Jared Correia (03:32):
By which you mean it reappeared.
Joanne Correia (03:34):
No, it really, it didn't bother you as much anymore.
Jared Correia (03:42):
I was like a snake
Joanne Correia (03:42):
Before that.
Jared Correia (03:43):
I shed my first
Joanne Correia (03:44):
Layer skin sleeping in Vaseline and cream. And we had to wrap you with Sara.
Jared Correia (03:53):
Yes. So how long did that take place
Joanne Correia (03:56):
For a long time. Probably from the time you were about two until you were like five
Jared Correia (04:02):
Head to toe cream.
Joanne Correia (04:03):
Vaseline. Not head to toe. No, not head. Head to toe. It was more like
Jared Correia (04:07):
Stop at the neck,
Joanne Correia (04:08):
The things that were really bothering you.
Jared Correia (04:11):
Okay. And
Joanne Correia (04:11):
You take And then I was wrapped in,
Jared Correia (04:14):
Basically wrapped in cellophane.
Joanne Correia (04:16):
And you took Benadryl so that crush Benadryl could scrape and not scratch. And remember when you got fake glasses so you wouldn't touch your eyes.
Jared Correia (04:27):
Oh really? That sounds like a pretty hipster thing to do.
Joanne Correia (04:31):
Well, you were a little kid. Your eyes itched. You would do it nest. So we'd get your fake glasses. So the glasses would stop your hand from going to your eyes. Really? This there wasn't much they could have done for you except put you in a bubble. You wouldn't have been happy
Jared Correia (04:47):
Bubble. Yeah. My dad used to call me the bubble
Joanne Correia (04:49):
Boy.
Jared Correia (04:50):
You can.
Joanne Correia (04:50):
And your uncle Richard used to tell me that you thought that the humidifier was your sibling because classic as you went from room to room,
Jared Correia (05:01):
I would have to add the humidifier. He
Joanne Correia (05:04):
Would take the humidifier behind you.
Jared Correia (05:08):
I called him Ben. So I used to also bathe in salt water.
Joanne Correia (05:14):
Yes, you did. We were lucky. We lived by the beach. And you would go
Jared Correia (05:17):
Down. So you would go
Joanne Correia (05:19):
And bring home buckets of ocean water so it would dry you out because in the summer you weren't nearly as bad. You'd go to the beach. So you weren't nearly as bad in the summer skin wise as you were in the winter. The winter.
Jared Correia (05:34):
I still like when I go to the beach, I'm in the water all the time. Yeah, it's really good. Saltwater is really good for your
Joanne Correia (05:39):
Skin in general. It's
Jared Correia (05:40):
Pro tip.
Joanne Correia (05:41):
There you go.
Jared Correia (05:42):
And so what I like to tell people is that I'm currently 47 years old, but my skin is 41.
Joanne Correia (05:50):
There you go.
Jared Correia (05:51):
Pretty young. Now the other thing is interesting enough, didn't have any really, well, I have food allergies, but it wasn't like a big deal until I was 21.
Joanne Correia (06:03):
Yeah, you had food allergies.
Jared Correia (06:05):
Do you remember me having food allergies when I was a kid? I don't.
Joanne Correia (06:08):
Yes, because you didn't eat things. You always tested things. You risk my kid, Jared, you always tested things. You were always putting things like to your lip to see whether it was going to bother you or not. And if you
Jared Correia (06:20):
Eat. See, I didn't realize I had food allergies when I was a kid. I thought that was a later thing.
Joanne Correia (06:24):
No, you had food allergies. That's why the doctor said you were eating only the white of the egg and leave the yolk behind. We learned to trust you if you didn't want it and you weren't eating it. That's all there was to it.
Jared Correia (06:39):
And now I got nuts, shellfish and soy allergies.
Joanne Correia (06:44):
Oh, soy was the worst that we found out afterwards.
Jared Correia (06:46):
Soy is bad.
Joanne Correia (06:48):
Yeah, soy is really bad.
Jared Correia (06:51):
So you weren't there. But we were in Vatican City a couple years ago and we found this candy bar that wanted to eat and it was maybe had nuts in it. Maybe I couldn't read Italian, but I was like, you know what, I'm going to eat this ice cream bar. And everybody was like, no, you shouldn't eat it. But I was like, if I die eating this delicious ice cream bar, what better place to be than Vatican City? I lived. Spoiler alert. I'm doing this right now. Yeah. So everybody who's out there thinking like I'm lying when I say I have all these crazy allergies. I just wanted to go to the source.
Joanne Correia (07:36):
Do you remember
Jared Correia (07:37):
Being
Joanne Correia (07:37):
When you ate the
Jared Correia (07:38):
Soy bomb unknown animal? Yes. Yes.
Joanne Correia (07:42):
How many millions of Benadryl did you take so you wouldn't have to go to the hospital?
Jared Correia (07:47):
I don't want to get picked up by the authorities, but I will happily pop 12 Benadryl if I have, rather than using an EpiPen. Just give me the whole bottle. It does work. No, it doesn't listen to me. It doesn't work.
Joanne Correia (08:04):
Yeah. People that are out there
Jared Correia (08:08):
Don't use the bottle of be No,
Joanne Correia (08:10):
Do not, don't do this at all.
Jared Correia (08:12):
Although highly effective. Yeah, the soy stuff was pretty bad for sure. Thanks for coming on the show.
Joanne Correia (08:20):
Okay.
Jared Correia (08:20):
To talk about my weighter allergy stuff. We'll talk soon. I'll call you after this.
Joanne Correia (08:24):
Sounds good.
Jared Correia (08:26):
Next up is Dylan Barrett of embedded counsel and Colin Levy of Malbeck. They're here to talk about legal technology, including artificial intelligence as well as social media marketing. Stay tuned. Welcome back. Unfortunately, I've run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast. So I'm just going to eat an entire can of Pringles while everyone watches me do it. That shit's definitely going to go viral now. I'm just fucking with you. That sounds awful. Let's interview our guests instead. We've actually got two guests for your listening pleasure today. The first is Colin Levy, the general counsel at Malbec, and also a legal tech person. More in that in a moment. But we've also got Dylan Barrett, a managing partner at Embedded Council, PLLC. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Colin, let's start with you and then Dylan, we'll move over to you. You work at Malbec, which I believe is a type of wine. Is that correct?
Colin Levy (09:35):
Malbec is a type of wine. I don't actually like Malbec wine. Well, I also don't really drink a whole lot of wine to begin with, but yes, we are named after wine for better or for worse, but
Jared Correia (09:48):
Oh, is that true? Okay.
Colin Levy (09:49):
That is true. The story apparently goes there surely must be more to it than what I've been told, but since I'm the lawyer, I'm sure they're leaving something out. But generally the story goes that the three co-founders were drinking Malbec Wine decided that they would name their company after it. But that sounds a little too straightforward to me, so I feel like there's more to it, but I haven't tried that hard yet. So we shall see. I found out more. I expect to be invited back and I'll share more.
Jared Correia (10:21):
Please come back. Report on that. Always best I find to name your company while drinking. What's going on over at Malbec? You're not actually producing wine. I made that part of it up.
Colin Levy (10:34):
Yes. No, no, we don't produce wine. I know very little about the wine producing process, aside from what I've seen on a few tours. So Malbec seriousness, we are in the contract management space. So we sell software to help companies manage their contracts from start to finish. So basically that means writing them, drafting them, negotiating them, tracking them, managing them, amending them, anything and everything you can associate with the contract we kind of handle. And I basically do a variety of things from Malbec. I manage the legal function, but I also kind of just talk people's ears off on podcasts and webinars about contracts and just legal tech in general. And anyone will tell you that 90 plus percent of my time is spent in the legal tech space to some degree. So I suppose to some that may mean I need a life, but I do have a life. I just choose to spend it as I spend. It
Jared Correia (11:38):
Sounds like a good gig actually.
Colin Levy (11:41):
It's
Jared Correia (11:41):
Great. I feel like a lot of people would be envious and would want to do that,
Colin Levy (11:46):
Frankly. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I have a lot of autonomy. So aside from being tasked with various scenes that are in my job description, I kind of can do whatever I want, which is great.
Jared Correia (11:56):
Beautiful. Dylan, let's move over to you. You can really do whatever you want. You own your own company. So you founded a law firm, you've got another partner that you brought on. So talk to me a little bit about that. I don't want to talk about my other partner.
Dylan Barrett (12:11):
I'm here to talk about me.
Jared Correia (12:12):
Let's talk about Dylan. Let's talk about Dylan. Yeah, talk.
Dylan Barrett (12:16):
Yeah. So embedded counsel, the model is largely to serve companies that either have times of year where they have legal overflow or they don't yet have general counsel or in-house counsel any size. But our niche is on the small to medium business size, particularly software. But we take all comers. John and I both come from working as in-house counsel before we moved to starting this fern. So we've been on the receiving end of outside legal help. And there are parts of that process that we think former in-house counsel can deliver legal services a little differently than a traditional law firm. And that's not a slight untraditional law firms or the professionals that work at 'em. But our model is largely flat fee based, either flat fee per project if it's a transaction, or you can pay a monthly fee to have a certain number of hour hours available to you.
(13:13):
So this model works really well. A lot of times we've actually found at companies that do have one internal legal person who if to all the in-house lawyers out there listening. When I was in-house, there was never a day where there wasn't a lot of stuff left on my list that I thought was going to get done. I didn't. And also a lot of my time was spent putting out fires and handling transactions and things while all the big projects were kind of always on hold and it was getting bumped to next quarter and all that. So sometimes when we come in, we're just giving counsel at the company. It's a breathing room where we take over contracts, things like that, negotiations, jumping on calls, and we're not afraid to do that. And you don't have to be checking your watch for the hourly bill each time. So that's our model. We're still gaining traction, we're still learning, making mistakes, all that fun stuff.
Jared Correia (14:01):
Yeah. What's it like, aside from the model, which I think is really interesting and pretty unique, what's it been like launching a firm? Has it been as expected or is it just crazy shit every day and it's like, oh, crazy shit. Every day I thought this would be a zag, but now we're zigging.
Dylan Barrett (14:17):
No, it is definitely crazy shit every day. And I think the one thing I weigh underestimated was the amount of back office work you have to do from chasing invoices to just getting shit to work. Sometimes just a random software system breaks or something. And now I'm going to spend two hours troubleshooting Microsoft teams instead of doing my job. No one else to do it. So
(14:40):
I think that's probably been the hardest part, honestly is right. We want to be a tech forward firm, but implementing tech solutions is a time investment that takes away from the immediate revenue producing. So you got to find that balance, right? You can also sort of overcommit the tech you don't need, which any in-house counsel seen. Oh sure. Software bloat at a company. I mean it can happen to anyone because you're frustrated by something you say, let me, you Google how to fix it. And some software solution comes up and you think, oh, well I could use that. And then next thing you know, you're spending like six hours with customer success trying to roll out software that doesn't work very well,
Jared Correia (15:17):
Or fucking teams, something like that. Microsoft
Dylan Barrett (15:19):
Teams. Yeah. Teams is a persistent challenge for some reason. I don't know why
Jared Correia (15:25):
I hate teams. They're never sponsoring the shit anyway. So I fucking hate Microsoft
Dylan Barrett (15:30):
Teams. Yeah, I don't think Microsoft is paying attention to what we're
Jared Correia (15:31):
Doing. They may be everybody put a pin in there for the future. I don't
Dylan Barrett (15:37):
Know. When are they buying Palantir, Microsoft.
Jared Correia (15:39):
Then they'll be paying attention. Yes. We'll see what that happens. The tech stuff though, this is a perfect segue back to our friend Colin. So Colin, you got the malbeck thing going on, but then you are also a self-described legal tech maven. So I looked up Maven online and it means an export or connoisseur. So are we talking equal parts expert in connoisseur? How does this break down for you?
Colin Levy (16:07):
So yeah, I mean I think it's probably a bit of both. I tend to lean towards more of the connoisseur descriptor, more atypical. And frankly, it's just a fun word to say. But yeah, it just comes from me kind of viewing myself as in some ways wanting to lift all boats and support everyone within the legal tech space even though it is competitive. And even though I'm the GC of a company that's in a very competitive space within legal tech, really kind of see myself as here to just help people find their way, help people better understand the space and help people in some ways transition. I do get a number of people reaching out who want to transition from sort of a more typical lawyer roles or even just a legal role that's not in a lawyer position to be in legal tech and something, it's a little difficult because it's a little bit of a difficult space to crack into because it wall, it's outsized in terms of it being ly everywhere.
(17:15):
Thanks to AI now being everywhere, it's relatively small in terms of numbers of people in companies. So it can be hard to break into. And so I try to help people do that. And the way I do that is really by having people think more about themselves and the values and goals that they're after and how that then fits into the larger picture of, well what does that look like in a job that actually will pay you money. So yeah, that's where I come from. And I just want to go back to something that my friend Dylan was mentioning, which is that
(17:50):
Administrative stuff and implementation of tech stuff that is the bane of many of professionals' existence. And I think that too many people too often are alert by technology and think that they can just flip on a switch and it's just all going to just work. And that is hardly ever the case. Even the most seamless technology still requires some degree of setup, which is why I really hone in on people understanding why they want something and if they can figure out the why first, that will help 'em tremendously down the line in terms of figuring out how to set it up so it works for them. And the same can be said about AI too, but I'll leave that for another discussion. AI on ai.
Jared Correia (18:36):
Ah, fuck it. I guess we'll talk about ai. What's ai? My God. Every fucking podcast we go talk about
Colin Levy (18:42):
Ai. I know.
Jared Correia (18:42):
Alright, Colin, you've got, we'll get to ai. We will, I promise. Colin, you've got a website too where you publish. I do a significant amount of information that people can access. A lot of this stuff is, none of it's behind the paywall, I don't think.
Colin Levy (18:55):
No, no, no. Nothing's behind the paywall or anything. I don't really like paywalls. It is call s levy.com s is my middle initial. Most of the content on there. Feature is kind of long form storytelling about people navigating legal tech, creating legal tech or learning about legal tech. One of my goals was to humanize the tech ness of legal tech in some ways. And I also discussed the book I wrote a couple years ago, legal Tech Ecosystem, which I'm excited to have done and I'm happy to share that I'm working on another book currently. We're breaking news and we will see when that comes out. Hopefully sometime over the next year, maybe a little plus we will see. But I'm excited about that one. But stay tuned for more on that.
Jared Correia (19:46):
Dylan, you've been getting more active on LinkedIn. You ended up working with Colin a little bit on that. I
Dylan Barrett (19:55):
Did. Colin was by my LinkedIn guru, Maven. Maven. Are
Jared Correia (20:01):
We sticking with
Dylan Barrett (20:01):
Guess Mavens? Not, it's not like an instructional role.
Jared Correia (20:05):
Yeah, guru works. I
Dylan Barrett (20:06):
Think I was trying to pivot. Can we say Guru anymore or is that a, I think we can, is that off the table? I think we can say Guru. Colin, can you check on that?
Colin Levy (20:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm good with it.
Jared Correia (20:17):
Okay. We've confirmed. So how did you find Colin? Why'd you decide to work with him? What's that process? I think a lot of people look for guidance on how to do the LinkedIn thing.
Dylan Barrett (20:29):
I met Colin actually when I was a law student and I was taking a legal technology class at Suffolk Law. Oh, cool. And Colin came in to speak to the class and he spoke in a very sincere frank way about his experience in the profession. And I was coming into the profession at the time from having worked in the software space sales and just a lot of the things Colin had to say resonated with me because moving from an office where other than a notebook or a ePad that someone brought to a meeting from time to time, there was no paper. It wasn't a, there's no faxing, there was no putting stuff in the certified mail. There was none of that. It wasn't part of my world. So when I came to the legal profession, there was this huge culture shock. I remember when I was a law clerk and someone asked me to send a fax, I chuckled. I was like, aha, fax and good one, you have to send a fax. And I was like, why would I send a fax? What are we doing?
Jared Correia (21:30):
Good question.
Dylan Barrett (21:32):
And then it was super common and I wanted to put stuff in. The mail was still going on in this profession. And that was an adjustment. Your first instinct is to push back against it when you see it like this is an absurd use of my time, putting things in an envelope, walking to the post that it's
Jared Correia (21:51):
Crazy.
Dylan Barrett (21:52):
Yeah, right. I mean, yeah, I've still gone into law offices that have typewriters. They have an electronic typewriter and I don't know where they're getting ink reels for it, but cartridges. But you still see it. And I've still received civil action cover sheets that are typewritten and a civil action cover sheet today doesn't look that different than a civil action cover sheet from 1965. I don't think they had the cover sheets then, but you get the idea. Other than the huge leap forward in the electronic typewriter, which prevents the hammers from getting tangled up. This is
Jared Correia (22:31):
What the people pine for electronic typewriter
Dylan Barrett (22:34):
Break. Yeah, I remember that was my biggest complaint when I entered the professional world in 2009. I said, man, all these typewriters are really slowing me down. So yeah, I'm way off of how I met Colin. We, no typewriters were involved. He came in, he spoke to a class. I really liked what he had to say. It's okay. So I approached him. Yeah, I approached him after the class and I said, Hey, I really liked it. He had to say, my name's Dylan. I'm pretty sure I said Dylan and he gave me his card or his email or something. I
Colin Levy (23:03):
Did not give you a card. I don't believe in card.
Dylan Barrett (23:06):
Don, come on
Jared Correia (23:07):
Colin. You're ruining his story.
Dylan Barrett (23:10):
None of this happened. We've actually never met,
Jared Correia (23:13):
Who is this guy?
Dylan Barrett (23:14):
Yeah. So he gave me a Polaroid. I think we met for coffee a little while after. And now I would say we're friends. We'll see if Colin,
Jared Correia (23:27):
He's not, he's nodding
Dylan Barrett (23:28):
Vigorously. He's nodding. Okay, we're friends. We're friends. We're friends
Jared Correia (23:30):
Listening, obviously
Dylan Barrett (23:31):
Write down figures. Write down, write down the timestamp.
Jared Correia (23:35):
This
Colin Levy (23:35):
Important stuff. I nod it not
Jared Correia (23:36):
Vigorously. Yeah, not vigorously. Not vigorously.
Dylan Barrett (23:39):
No. I think maybe not close friends, but the rules of evidence, if it's something a reasonable person would object to and you didn't object, I think we could treat it as true. So
Colin Levy (23:51):
Wow,
Dylan Barrett (23:52):
Blah blah. Yeah. And now I'm allegedly a lawyer and
Jared Correia (23:59):
I think that's real.
Dylan Barrett (24:00):
Yeah, that's how, so Colin and I met,
Jared Correia (24:04):
So let's talk a little bit about LinkedIn. Colin, I'm going to come back to you and then we'll go back to Dylan. So when you talk to people about how to use LinkedIn, most people don't post on LinkedIn. But when they do start, what do you think people are overlooking in terms of strategy? What are the most common mistakes you see?
Colin Levy (24:25):
One of the most common mistakes I see is not a matter of doing it or not doing it, but a matter of thinking that by doing it once somehow is going to dramatically improve your results on LinkedIn in terms of viewership, engagement, what have you.
Jared Correia (24:43):
Yeah, making one post you're talking about and just leaving it at that.
Colin Levy (24:47):
Yeah, leaving one post or one comment is great. You love the comment you'll have to post,
Jared Correia (24:53):
Right? Congrats.
Colin Levy (24:53):
But LinkedIn is a long-term platform, meaning that the more consistently you use it, the more focused you are using it, the more it's going to pay off for you. But it's going to pay off for you over the medium and long term. So after a month, maybe you'll get a few results, but after a year of consist posting or commenting, that's when it really starts to pay off for you. So that's I think the number one mistake. The second one I think is thinking that they have to post and only post. I started off simply by just commenting on other people's posts and that got me going. I think that perhaps the little tweak that I did though with commenting was, and this is a little bit of a technical point, is I tagged the poster in my comment. So they got notified that I commented.
Jared Correia (25:45):
It's crazy that people don't do simple stuff like that,
Colin Levy (25:48):
But doing that actually does two things for you. Number one provides notification to the user, to the poster. And two, LinkedIn. I don't have a boatload of metrics to support this other than my own experience, but it does seem to reward in some ways that idea because what's really what they're trying to
Jared Correia (26:07):
Do. I think that's the same bet
Colin Levy (26:08):
With posts is encourage use of it and encourage discussion on posts. So that to them seems like you're trying to do that, which is a good thing. But yeah, those are probably the top two things. The last thing I'll say is that, well, I post every day. You don't have to, it's not as though that is an outright requirement, I just do it. It's just part of my routine now. But you don't have to do that by any means.
Jared Correia (26:42):
Okay. That's good stuff. And I think at a baseline level, most people aren't even considering those things. So Dylan, you're a lawyer in the wild, you've worked with Colin, you're posting on LinkedIn. What kind of stuff do you see that works for you? It
Dylan Barrett (26:59):
Works,
Jared Correia (27:00):
Yeah. Or
Dylan Barrett (27:00):
Doesn't work? Yeah. I don't know. Take it whichever direction you want. Okay. Yeah, I don't know yet. I'm not sure. I think your instinct right now is to go to things that are hot topics, but I don't know if I do I want be another lawyer posting about AI right now. I don't know. I mean, everyone following about ai,
Jared Correia (27:22):
Oh my god.
Dylan Barrett (27:23):
Maybe I'll post about, we can throw back. I'll post about the metaverse or something. Oh,
Jared Correia (27:29):
I like
Dylan Barrett (27:29):
That. It's weird. And I think for the listeners here, I'm still relatively new to participating on LinkedIn. So if put yourself in, I'm in your shoes still. And LinkedIn, at first I was kind of intimidated by it, like though I want to put something out there and if I blunder it's out there permanently or whatever. And when I'm applying for jobs, people are going to look at it and all that. So I kept my LinkedIn pretty tame and it was just, here I am. And I had a job, which is kind of what it was when it started too. I was like, I exist, I have a job, here's my job. And then I think Microsoft bought it and just tried to turn it into another social network and they've succeeded in that. And I was wary of LinkedIn. My interaction was very surface level, to be honest.
(28:14):
Didn't still don't like the cadence and syntax of a LinkedIn post. I don't understand why LinkedIn favors these weird short sentences. It all feels super unnatural to me. And most of the content that LinkedIn was filtering to me was the really generic stuff. If you said LinkedIn to me two years ago, I think like that CEO that posted himself crying, he had to lay people off or just some guy I kind of know letting us know he bought a fully loaded Mercedes or something and somehow trying to turn it into a post about hard work. Oh my God. I would rather that person just post check out my cool Mercedes. Then I would say, that is cool Mercedes. It's engage with that. That is really cool. That's awesome you have it. But instead this, my Mercedes taught me that RPMs are slight KPIs and it's like, shut, fuck you, shut up.
Jared Correia (29:14):
Nobody cares. Just post your car bro and be done with it.
Dylan Barrett (29:17):
Yeah, just show us your car. So that was my impression of LinkedIn. And what I found is when I started following some MCC Collins advice, they started pushing contact to me that was more interesting and less annoying. And hopefully, I'm not trying to insult what Colin does. I'm sure Colin would probably agree that if you just do nothing on LinkedIn and let LinkedIn present its generic content to you, A lot of that material just kind of sucks. Or it's just like people you haven't talked to in 10 years who just got a new job that's always better than your job and that sucks. Or just you get to see how what percentage of your high school graduating class works in HR now. It's just not, I didn't get it. I didn't get what it was for. I didn't know people got business off of it. I didn't really understand it. And then my first foray into it was using it when I was in law school to reach out to Blair at firms that I wanted to talk to and stuff. That makes sense. I found, yeah, I found you got a better response a lot of time. You could also see a little bit about them, what school they went to, all that kind of good stuff that makes it easier to start a conversation. I think you've got something to start
Jared Correia (30:27):
With. Let me throw a thesis at you guys and feel free to jump in. A lot of the social media, LinkedIn suffers from a little bit of the generic social media thing, which is, my life is amazing, I've got a million filters, I'm untouchable. But then there's also somebody like Colin, you post every day. But I think a lot of people post every day and they're like, I got to figure out something to write about today. So I stubbed my toe this morning, let me write about that and figure out how this is like, let me tie this to business in some way, but that's fucking annoying.
Colin Levy (30:58):
Oh, it's incredibly annoying. Sorry to jump in here, but I'm not going to name names per se, but I have seen a few, Steve,
Jared Correia (31:08):
He
Colin Levy (31:08):
Sucks. I have seen a few people post really ridiculous analogies about
(31:16):
Different topics and it's like we're really pushing it here a little. I think. And also, and people may disagree with me, but I think that there is a line in terms of types of content that is good for LinkedIn. And yes, you can share stuff about your personal life. That's fine. I welcome that. I mean, I post about my anxiety and depression openly, but kind of more personal things I feel like you probably shouldn't be posting, not because it's necessarily inappropriate, that's sort of more a subjective thing, but it's more a matter of just, I'm not sure you really want people to hear that. In addition to that, yes, if you don't have anything to post about on a given day, don't feel obligated to just write something. You have to, I
Dylan Barrett (32:13):
Think you can really feel when someone is writing something because writing something, you can feel it right away.
Jared Correia (32:19):
Yeah, right. And
Dylan Barrett (32:20):
Then it's cool
Jared Correia (32:21):
Not to post stuff on social media. It's perfect. Let's normalize that,
Colin Levy (32:24):
Right? I would much rather actually have you post on a consistent basis, but with actionable substantive content then post every day about, well, I'm just posting today and then tomorrow, oh, I'm posting today. I feel like I should. And oh, by the way, it's almost Friday even though it's Monday. That just doesn't really work for me very well. And the other thing too is over the top writing or using AI to write, but not using it in a way that is effective, meaning it comes off as though you literally just asked AI to write something and you didn't bother editing it at
Jared Correia (33:06):
All. And LinkedIn's pushing that. They're like
Colin Levy (33:10):
Perfectly fine. Just don't use it and feel like it. That first draft it gives you is good to go.
Jared Correia (33:18):
And LinkedIn's always like, oh, do you want to write this post using ai? And I'm like, no, I fucking don't. Don't write it with my human mind.
Colin Levy (33:24):
Don. Don't use LinkedIn's AI currently. Beautiful. It'll get better.
Dylan Barrett (33:29):
Dylan AI thought one of this classic, oh, clearly have thought. Oh, LinkedIn is, I also feel like it changes a lot. They push new stuff all the time. And if you're not using it that often, it can be confusing. Right? And you don't know the social conventions are, I remember the first time I'm looking at all these different options of reacting to something. Are some of these considered mean? Is there one of these that's kind of saying, I don't like this. That's what the mutual understanding is. And I don't know thinking I'm thinking about it, it's like, well, alright, am I, no I'm not. I clicked on that and then I was on the toilet. I saw it and I kept going and I'm not what I'm thinking about. But LinkedIn, I think to Colin's point about AI and yours, Jared, it really does feel like they just crammed in there. And I think, oh yeah, it's like in 2009, every company had an app they wanted you to use and it was like, do I really need a Footlocker app? No, I don't fucking speak for yourself. Like, oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. To all the shoe head. The sneaker heads. Is that what they Sneaker heads? Sneaker
Jared Correia (34:46):
Sneaker heads. The called all
Dylan Barrett (34:47):
The sneaker heads out
Jared Correia (34:49):
There.
Dylan Barrett (34:50):
I feel like I'm actually not sorry I judge you. But
Colin Levy (34:55):
Now I will say though that I know we're kind of criticizing with you a little bit, I am one of LinkedIn's most ardent defenders at every stage. So there are some folks I know who have criticized LinkedIn and really it's taken every ounce of effort to not respond in a really mean negative way. Because usually the platform they're suggesting is better is to me is like, are you really high? Are you,
Jared Correia (35:27):
Yeah. What's better for business network? Wait, hold on con, are you talking to me? No, Dylan, do you have some thoughts on better
Colin Levy (35:35):
Platform? Just passive aggressive? Never. Never. I guess better for what, here, I'll give an example. Some have suggested that Twitter slash X is better for Leo for political, political, gas apple's content
Dylan Barrett (35:54):
Specific. Oh, interesting. Okay.
Colin Levy (35:56):
I think they're, they're out of their mind because the snippets of content you get on there are so hard to find, number one and number two, it's a mess. It's always been a mess.
Jared Correia (36:06):
Oh my god, that's crazy. This, I
Dylan Barrett (36:08):
Was on Twitter for six weeks and then just, this was in 2014 and I said this just the only emotion I ever felt on Twitter was stress or rage. Those were the two emotions. Twitter deliver,
Jared Correia (36:21):
Right?
Colin Levy (36:22):
I think those are the emotions that Twitter deliver is incredible
Dylan Barrett (36:25):
About. And they know that that emotion sucks you in. I don't feel like LinkedIn is trying to make me angry.
Colin Levy (36:31):
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I don't think, although some of the posts, I definitely have encountered
Dylan Barrett (36:37):
How I've run into a lot of political posts lately, which is a huge surprise to me that someone would, particularly, a lot of business owners are throwing their politics out there and I don't get it. It's a weird move.
Jared Correia (36:50):
Well, let's talk about that for a second. Obviously it's like a church bullet. Yeah. Let's
Dylan Barrett (36:54):
Double down on politics.
Jared Correia (36:56):
I dunno, the president's an asshole. It should be obvious to everybody. But Colin, is there a place for people to post about politics on a platform like LinkedIn? If you own a business, obviously I don't care, but should people do that in general?
Colin Levy (37:15):
I think, look, as far as I'm concerned, if you're going to post some political LinkedIn, that's your prerogative, go right ahead. That's what you want to do. I don't personally just because I just don't feel like getting into a debate with people. I just don't do that. And also the second part of it is it just isn't part of my just thing in terms of the content that I put out there.
Jared Correia (37:42):
You got a brand that you've developed,
Colin Levy (37:43):
Right? But I also will say anything that I write and post on LinkedIn or anywhere else would be something I would have no issue saying to you even if I had never met you before. So there's a degree in which I sort of have some comfort with which I post knowing that whatever is out there is out there and it's never going to go away. So that would be my biggest concern with the political posting is that that's fine if you want to do it, but just recognize that it's always going to be there in some form or fashion.
Jared Correia (38:16):
Right. Dylan, any final thoughts on LinkedIn? And then I want to do a quick lightning round with you guys.
Dylan Barrett (38:21):
Yeah. I forget who passed this bit of wisdom onto me so I can't take credit for it, but I always read your LinkedIn post back to yourself and say, would my hearts start beating a little faster if someone put this in front of me in a deposition? Or sometimes it's hard to, particularly as lawyers, it's hard to walk that edge of politics. If I'm making a post about employment law, there's some elements of employment law that are inherently political about the balance between the employer's rights, the employee's rights or data privacy gets, which is a practice area of mine I love. But that just gets inherently political. People have really strong opinions about that. So you also, when you post some stuff, you should expect that if it's a sort of bit of a political potato, even if you're not inserting an overt political opinion, like saying I think Congress should pass this bill because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're going to attract political takes if people make comments just because it's inherently political and a lot of the practice of, I mean the law itself is inherently political, so it's sometimes unavoidable, but if you just need really nice LinkedIn comments, you just, I could send them off way Dylan's comment
Jared Correia (39:39):
On your post.
Dylan Barrett (39:40):
Yeah. But I think Collin's observation that it would be comfortable, would you be comfortable saying it to other people in a different
Jared Correia (39:49):
Off
Dylan Barrett (39:49):
In person context off? Obviously you're not just sitting there blurting out statements on the orange line or something. That's not where if I was having dinner with someone or hanging out with them, would it be a topic that I would address the same way and talk about the same way? And if not, then you're probably not being genuine. I think people are, most people are intuitive enough to detect that
Colin Levy (40:15):
Difference. Yeah, no, I think most people are intru enough to detect a lack of authenticity. And also I bullshit. I think that there are folks who, it's pretty clear they post on LinkedIn thinking that by posting something outrageous or whatever is going to somehow attract a lot of views and it may very well attract a lot of views that one day, but the net, they're not going to stick with you. Not at all. They're just doing that because they've just seen it and feel like they need to respond. Sometimes you just feel the need to respond to something, but to really attract long-term viewers slash commenters on your posts, they have to feel like they're getting something out of it more than just having a visual visceral reaction to whatever it is you're saying or writing.
Jared Correia (41:07):
Alright, lightning round. We're a little bit long on the interviews, so 30 seconds each. Colin, I'm going to start with you. What is the most interesting thing happening in legal tech right now and why? Dylan, you got some time to preface Colin's legal tech maven, so I am hitting them with this directly.
Colin Levy (41:24):
I would say that it's re-imagining value of data largely driven by the two letters. Ai.
Jared Correia (41:35):
Ai. All right, Dylan, Colin, that was impressive. That was like 15 seconds. Colin, what do you got?
Dylan Barrett (41:41):
Yeah, Colins was so good that I actually stopped thinking about what I was going to say.
Jared Correia (41:45):
Would you like to
Dylan Barrett (41:46):
Take a pass or would you like to continue? I've never taken a pass before. I'm not going to start now. I think one of the most interesting things happening in legal, and it's AI adjacent, but just watching the same debate that we've seen over and over. Every time a new tech shows up in legal, they're like, oh, where's it going and who has it? And is this a breach of client confidentiality? And then you see this huge gulf in legal knowledge, tech knowledge from lawyers. If you send anything on Microsoft 365, if that's what your firm uses, or Gmail, that's all going in a cloud that's not sitting on your computer, that's being hosted by a service provider. And so is AI A in short, using the free chat GPT for private material is a risk and you shouldn't do it. But if you can purchase a version of chat GPT that is tenanted and isolated and isn't moving or using client information any differently than any other data storage or hosted solution you're using.
(42:51):
So if you look at the architecture and infrastructure of this stuff, it's not that different than anything else out there. It's just the output's different and I think a lot of the hand wring over privacy and all these other things is really just the lawyers who want to rally the wagons. They see it as a threat at, and I'll probably get some heat for that, but I've seen some hot takes from some pretty big firms that my reaction is, oh my god, sorry, my reaction is good luck if your take's going to be, we're not going to use this because it's bad for our clients. And they always dress it up that way as it's, it's bad for our clients and it's like, shut up. You're not thinking about your clients, you're thinking about your billable hour and that's
Jared Correia (43:32):
Okay. That was like three minutes, but I'll forgive you.
Dylan Barrett (43:35):
I don't count. I'm a lawyer.
Jared Correia (43:38):
Would you guys hang around for one final segment? I've got some cracker jacks. We'll look for the prize inside and we'll be back in a second. Welcome back everybody. It's time for the Counter program. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme in very little reason. Dylan calling. I've created a new game just for the two of you.
(44:15):
Oh, I'm calling it, I'm calling it Famous Hose. Are you ready to hear how it works? I don't know a lot about gardening. Colin's eyebrows to the moon. Alright, famous hose. Famous hose. Here's how it works. I will name a real individual from history or the present day and you simply have to tell me whether this person invented a gardening tool or liked to get around in some capacity. Alright, here we go. Are you ready? Number one. I'll start with some easy ones. Number one is Oscar Wild. Oscar Wild. Was he a the inventor of the disc Wieder, which is National Gardening Tool, or B, was he an Irish playwright who was married with two children but also gutted on the regular with a number of lovers, including at least three men named Alfred, which was Oscar Wild. Was he a famous
Dylan Barrett (45:16):
Though? I know. Do we buzz in? How does this work?
Jared Correia (45:20):
Whoever wants to say it can go first. Dylan
Dylan Barrett (45:24):
Oscar Wild was a, I think famously promiscuous.
Jared Correia (45:29):
Yes, yes.
Dylan Barrett (45:31):
From what I understand
Jared Correia (45:32):
As it happened, Oscar Wild did not invent any gardening tools, at least as I'm aware, unless there is some other information out there Famously, lots of trials around Oscar Wilde's love life largely unfairly. Alright, so we're one for one. Are you ready for number two? Let's go. Number two is, okay, so this is a little interesting. I think this is another easy one, soft landing, but you've got two out of three here. Two out of three answers are correct. The name is Jetro did Jetro Perfect, the horse drawn seed drill in 1701. Did Jetro produce a song Thick as a brick and was Jethro tell the inventor of flavored lube which two of the three is correct?
Dylan Barrett (46:36):
Flavored lube. Really? So how would you know what? I'm turning the question back on you. How would that be used in gardening? Unable to speak. Go ahead. How would you use flavored lube and gardening? I'm going to turn
Colin Levy (46:50):
Actually elaborate. I was going to answer. You were going for flavored lube before I had the other two choices. No, I was going to go for that. And the brick thick as a brick.
Jared Correia (47:03):
Yes. Dylan, do you have a choice?
Dylan Barrett (47:08):
Choice
Jared Correia (47:08):
Says remember the two of three are correct? Two of
Dylan Barrett (47:11):
Three. I know he also did aqua lung and that gives me flavored lewd vibes. Interesting. I'm going to take a gamble and say he also invented flavor.
Jared Correia (47:27):
That's great but it's not true. Jetro rock band as Colin correctly identified, I think it's a brick jetro song. Also Aqua as Dylan identified. And then he was also the inventor. He was the inventor of the seed driller. So interesting fact Jethro Tell was the name of the band, but that
Dylan Barrett (47:50):
Was, oh, it's not a guy.
Jared Correia (47:52):
Well it is also a guy. It's both. So the band was named after the guy and the way they were named that is because they used to have their promoters pick a random band name every time they played a new place. And the guy who chose the name Jet Rattel was like this history buff and that was the name that was picked when they had their most successful gig. So that's what they named the band.
Dylan Barrett (48:17):
Pretty cool.
Jared Correia (48:18):
Yeah. Ian Anderson, who's the lea singer of Jet Rattel was basically like, I wish I could have picked the name myself. All right, I got a few more for you guys. Next up we've got Benjamin Holt. These are going to get harder. Benjamin Holt. Did Benjamin Holt found Chippendales or did he invent the track type tractor? Benjamin Holt, founder of Chippendales or inventor of the track type of tractor.
Colin Levy (48:49):
I'm just going to say Chippendales.
Jared Correia (48:51):
Okay. Okay. I like it. All right, Dylan, please weigh in. He's thinking about, I love it. This is why I love doing a podcast with lawyers because I ask these name questions, they start to analyze it. Go ahead, Dylan. Hold on.
Dylan Barrett (49:05):
Issue, rule analysis, conclusion. I dunno. I mean, I'll do the counter of whatever Colin guess so I'll say, ah, good. Okay.
Jared Correia (49:17):
Good choice.
Dylan Barrett (49:18):
You are correct
Jared Correia (49:21):
All. I have no idea who the founder of Chip and Dale's is, but it's not this guy. He was the inventor of the seed driller. Got it. Do you
Dylan Barrett (49:28):
Know, you know Dylan who? Chippendales?
Jared Correia (49:31):
Yeah.
Dylan Barrett (49:33):
I don't know. Maybe a guy nicknamed Chip? Possibly,
Jared Correia (49:36):
Yes. Who happened? Dale
Dylan Barrett (49:38):
Had a buddy named Dale
Jared Correia (49:42):
That might Bedale that be a different show. That might be the Disney, the Chipmunks Chippendale, but perhaps
Dylan Barrett (49:49):
Not. Yeah, probably not a lot. Probably not a lot. Lot of overlap.
Jared Correia (49:52):
Not a lot of overlap. All right, next one. Nell, Gwen, Nell Gwen. Was she the inventor of the circle jerk crop puller or was she the mistress of Charles II gardening tool?
Dylan Barrett (50:11):
I dunno. She sounds like she could have pulled off both.
Jared Correia (50:13):
Yeah. Oh, that's excellent. But I didn't do any that had light. Both choices were correct. She was actually famous for being the mistress of Charles ii King of England for quite a while. That's not actually a gardening tool. I invented that on my own. I'm pretty proud of myself for
Dylan Barrett (50:31):
That. I was so ready to believe that was like some Victorian era gardening
Jared Correia (50:34):
Tool. You're like Googling. I got to get one of those on Amazon. I'm like, oh man. All right. Let's do a couple more. Sheila Vogel coop is my next real person. Sheila Vogel Coop. Was she the oldest prostitute ever escorting until she was 81 years old or was she inventor of the crow foot cultivator? Sherry Sheila. Sorry. Sheila. Sheila Vogel. Coop world's oldest prostitute or inventor of the Crowfoot cultivator? Not both. Just
Dylan Barrett (51:16):
We know where I'm going. She
Jared Correia (51:18):
And Dylan's got it. Dylan. Dylan. You're on fire
Dylan Barrett (51:21):
Here. Sheila, by just guessing the opposite of what Colin?
Jared Correia (51:25):
Yes. World's oldest escort. She didn't start escorting until she's 81. Wikipedia. Who's tracking this? Wikipedia? I guess the
Dylan Barrett (51:33):
Question is, can we, I want to go to the source and meet the person who this is what they're doing in life is Sheila. She's the oldest.
Jared Correia (51:40):
Yeah. Unfortunately, Sheila has passed away. She French. She got a good four years in of escorting. The interesting part of this is she started escorting when she was 81 years old, which to me that's a really interesting life choice.
Dylan Barrett (51:51):
Maybe she just wanted to set the record. She looked it up, saw I was 80, said, this is how I'm going now. I
Colin Levy (51:56):
Figured it can't be that harsh ette can find someone.
Jared Correia (52:00):
Yeah, right. This is my Guinness record that I'm leaning into. I'm magnum opus. All right. Last one, Daniel Delmas. Daniel, did he invent electric pruning shears or was he the inventor of birth control pills? Daniel del Mars pruning shears, birth control pills. Dylan, I feel like you should go first this time because you've been drafting off of Colin. Well, hold on. Suggest you
Dylan Barrett (52:32):
Suggest a guy that invented birth control pills was really promiscuous. Maybe he really needed, was he trying to troubleshoot? Yeah. He's like, man, this is
Jared Correia (52:41):
Literally, he was trying to troubleshoot.
Dylan Barrett (52:43):
Yeah. This is getting out of hand. This is going to be huge for me. Yeah. Risk mitigation.
Jared Correia (52:51):
Yes. Yes.
Dylan Barrett (52:53):
You know what? I feel like I actually saw somewhere recently the inventor of birth control two. Ah, interesting. I'll guess that
Jared Correia (53:00):
One. The plot thickens. Colin, you going in the opposite direction?
Colin Levy (53:03):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (53:04):
Okay. He was the inventor of electric pruning shearers, electric pruning shears. Did you guys know that electric pruning shears were invented in 1827? Which seems crazy to me because I don't feel like the electricity was widely available even at that point.
Colin Levy (53:24):
I can only imagine how they must have worked back then. Probably 30 s would be my guess.
Jared Correia (53:30):
Yeah. I'm thinking there were a lot of injuries and lawsuits around the first electric pingers. Pretty good job, guys. I'm impressed you muddled through it and did a pretty decent job. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for playing our silly games. Thank you for talking about LinkedIn. We'll have to do this again sometime. Thanks for our guests, Colin Levy of Malbeck and Dylan Barrett of embedded counsel. To learn more about Dylan and embedded counsel, visit embedded counsel.com. That's embedded counsel.com. To learn more about Colin and Malbec, visit malbec.io. That's M-A-L-B-E C dot io. malbec.io, and for more on calls, work in the legal text space. Checkout colin s levy.com. That's colin s levy.com. This is the east coast colon, not the west coast colon now, because I'll always be a nineties kid rollerblading up and down the street with wild abandoned without knee pads or elbow pads, or even a helmet because it was just the late eighties whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlists for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is for those about to get down and is sponsored by Trojan Condoms. I'm just kidding. By the way, Trojan Condoms hasn't sponsored shit, but I wish they would hit me up. I want the show to be more ribbed for your pleasure, for your listening pleasure. Maybe join us next time when we rush the field and tear down the goalposts.