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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 again, friends, we've got a show that promises to be at least mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. For our guest interview, I've got Leslie Witt at 8AM not at the time, 8AM but for the company. She's the new chief product officer over there and she's got something to say and in the counter program, GI Tsakalikis of attorney sink joins me as we discuss the classic Austin film, Dazed and Confused. Stay weird everybody. Now for the eternal question, is your collection game strong? So the traditional advice for lawyers to collect the most money has been get the biggest retainer possible because you'll never see another dime from your clients. Now that may not be true, but you could certainly act like it and I'm okay with that advice. I think that's perfectly fine. But I have a revised strategy, possibly a corollary that if you need to collect money, which at some point you may have to do, not every law firm, but the vast majority of law firms need to collect money, you should maybe have a plan for that.
(01:23):
I dunno, I'm just throwing that out there. So the question is what does that look like? And there's two species of answers, so I'm glad you asked. Option number one is to have a collection process in place of some kind. So that's really a workflow. If we're talking about a soft collection, so let's say somebody hasn't paid you, what happens in most law firms, nothing happens. They continue to not pay you as the lawyer move on to the next work and you forget entirely about it and you lose that money forever. But with a collection workflow, you'll have some kind of follow up process in place. I dunno, maybe even call them and say, Hey, yeah, could you pay me the money you owe me? Yeah, that'd be cool. You could maybe send some emails, maybe there's some other messaging that goes out. The point is you want to have a system in place of some kind and that system should escalate and that should also be consistent with whatever kind of documentation or terms you have in your engagement agreement and related documents.
(02:37):
If you have a stop work order in your engagement agreement and somebody hasn't paid you stop work. If you have interest penalties in place, deploy them or at least threaten to deploy them because you can via the contract and maybe that'll encourage someone to pay you. Do you have an clause in your fee agreement? You could utilize that. Some states have a arbitration forum through the bar associations and so you could have had your client sign off to go to arbitration before having to go to a lawsuit. So you want to have a collection structure that you deploy that should be consistent with what you place into your engagement agreement and then you need to actually deploy it. I know this sounds crazy, but I will tell you the vast majority of law firms don't do anything and that money that they're owed evaporates into the atmosphere.
(03:36):
So put together a strategy and then ideally you get somebody who reaches back out to you who hasn't paid you and either you collect that money or you're in a position where you could come to some sort of settlement agreement. But maybe the most important thing I've said is that if you're not getting paid and you don't need leave of court to do so, stop work on the project, make that an engagement agreement clause. Alright, species number two of how to tackle this. The very best thing you can do is to avoid collections all together or as much as possible. So what does that look like? Well, that probably involves an alternative fee agreement option. If you're using traditional hourly billing flat fees, you get paid on a project basis either all at once upfront or in segments and at any point, if the representation is not moving forward, client isn't getting what you need.
(04:35):
Client is a pain to work with. You can disengage from the second half of that flat fee or the third part of that flat fee. Basically you're kind of unbundling the representation in a lot of cases. Evergreen retainers are hourly billing, but an alternate version of hourly billing, and I've talked about those a bunch of times before. Basically you have a running retainer so that if the client doesn't re-up the retainer to a certain level every month you put in your stop work order and you stop working with them. A majority of firms I work with who do evergreen retainers, they never have any collections because they're not billing in arrears, aggressively or at all. In most cases subscriptions similar thing you paid on a monthly basis, the person doesn't pay you stop the subscription. So the other piece of this that I think is important is one of the problems with law firm collections is that they send out the bill, they're relying on the clients to take some manual action to pay them, and if you're a lawyer, you're in the bottom of the bill drawer.
(05:44):
If people have bill drawers anymore, you're after the mortgage, you're after the car insurance, you're after daycare, basically think of any bill your last. So if you can collect somebody's credit card information and you can have a credit card payment authorization form that you incorporate by reference to your fee agreement, then you can start taking payments on people's behalf. You have their credit card information, you go into your software, you say click, you're paying me. Now you take it out of the client's hands, completely legitimate if you papered that option for yourself. So like I said, credit card authorization form is important for that, but then you will probably also want to give your client some notice. So instead of sending a traditional invoice, you can do something like send a notice five days before about what the payment amount is going to be and then run the payment.
(06:38):
Now there are still going to be cases where somebody is maybe given your credit card that is maxed out or needs to update their credit card information. So sometimes there's going to be some manual work, but by and large you push a button and in the case of subscriptions, you may not even have to push a button that may be automated that just comes out every month or sometimes with flat fees if that's milestone based, once you hit a milestone, then the payment comes out. Lot of options here. So ideally what you do is take as much of this process out of the client's hands, and if you leave some of it in the client's hands and they're not paying you, then you fall back on your collection process which you have built out and which is codified in your fee agreement. This is great. Everybody gets paid more. Now let's figure out how you can use software to get paid more and leverage some of the new stuff that's coming out in the 8AM family of products, which is like my case, LawPay case, peer docket wise, whole bunch of others. That's why we've got Leslie Witt coming up. She just happens to be the chief product officer at 8AM. Now if your alarm is going off, that's correct. We've hit the time marker. It's 8AM and we've got Financial Software Management Solutions with Leslie Witt. Stay tuned.
(08:11):
All right everybody, welcome back. I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast. So I'm just going to start doing a 1000 piece puzzle. I'll start by separating the edge pieces from the rest of the pieces. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't take very long. Now I'm just fucking with you. That sounds terrible. Let's interview our guest instead. What do you say? So today I'm very excited. I've got Leslie Witt, who is the chief product officer at 8AM You may be asking yourself what is 8AM Is it a time? Yes, it's a time, but it's also the new brand name for ape, which is the company that has given you LawPay and now owns my case and several other products. Leslie, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.
Leslie Witt (09:03):
Thanks so much for having me. You may not know this, but I'm actually a passionate thousand piece puzzle maker.
Jared Correia (09:09):
No way. Is that true? You
Leslie Witt (09:10):
Did correctly outline the essential strategy, but yeah, it really is true.
Jared Correia (09:16):
So that seems to dovetail perfectly into your role as chief product officer. Isn't that like putting puzzles together over
Leslie Witt (09:24):
Again? Right. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. You can extend it in a certain way. I think that that ability to kind of conceive of a heuristic big idea, identify the core problems and the strategies to make it all work together.
Jared Correia (09:41):
So if we can leave puzzle making for a few moments, I wanted to ask you, okay, so you're relatively new to the 8AM family, so give me a little bit on your background. What did you do before this?
Leslie Witt (09:55):
Yeah, I've had a little bit of a circuitous career path. Started out as an architect of the Build Buildings kind and then moved into the world of a strategy and innovation consulting back in the early two thousands I'd say when everyone was waking up to the idea that a one way to approach new product innovation and commercialization was to actually spend time with your customers core. Understand what that sounds crazy what I know, radical ideas. What if we understood what you were trying to do, what your problems were, and then deployed all the tools of technology and design in order to better design services and products to do that. So I spent about a decade at ideo, fell in love with the space of money services and small business challenges segued over to something that will sound fairly analogous to 8AM which is I was the head of design research and new product development at Intuit focused on the QuickBooks small business segment, and then I had a kind of COVID wake up where I realized I really wanted to work on something a little closer to the core human condition and that was to tackle the mental health crisis.
(11:07):
And so right prior to 8AM I spent the last four and a half years as the chief private officer at Headspace, but I always kept my fingers in the small business world alive. I was on the board at FreshBooks and I was starting to think about making a change and when 8AM formerly APE came knocking the combination of what they brought to the table in terms of opportunity, new brand new platform, expanding towards other verticals and at a point in time where I could leverage my history in FinTech and small business SaaS to help the company move forward, just felt like the right match of background meets new
Jared Correia (11:52):
Opportunity. That's cool. I mean you've worked for a lot of cool companies also.
Leslie Witt (11:56):
Yeah, I have. It's been exciting and I feel really lucky.
Jared Correia (12:01):
Are you excited about the rebrand?
Leslie Witt (12:03):
I am.
Jared Correia (12:04):
You kind of have to be, right? You're compelled to be excited
Leslie Witt (12:06):
About the rebrand. Well, I have to be, but also I'm somewhat, my background makes user experience something that I deeply, deeply care about and when I looked at the quality of the products that the formerly FPE already had, but the lack of connective tissue both through the experience and especially through the brand and the messaging and the mission and purpose, it felt like the thing that needed to happen and that it can now. And so it's very exciting to be in this new world where we're kind of making new promises to our customers.
Jared Correia (12:42):
Can I tell you one thing though?
Leslie Witt (12:44):
Sure.
Jared Correia (12:44):
When I was at the conference,
Leslie Witt (12:46):
Yes,
Jared Correia (12:46):
They had all these clocks all over the place set to 8AM and I kept being like, damn, I thought it was later than, and it took me eight times before somebody was like, yeah, it's a branding thing. All the clocks are set to 8AM So I'm sorry it's
Leslie Witt (13:01):
Confusing you, but
Jared Correia (13:03):
No, that's all right.
Leslie Witt (13:04):
You can't have a name like 8AM and not take advantage of that moment.
Jared Correia (13:10):
So 8AM just had its first, I guess would you call it a user conference?
Leslie Witt (13:15):
Yeah, customer conference. Customer and partner,
Jared Correia (13:17):
Yeah. So how did that go? I heard really good things from people. What was your impression of the
Leslie Witt (13:21):
Conference? I mean it was really insightful and for me, delightful having joined the company just back in May, it was the first time I got to spend that much immersive time together with customers, getting to see a lot of the things that we'd been talking about strategically shared out in the air and getting very positive reception that we were really onto something when it came to solving customer needs and problems. That's an extremely fulfilling moment. Then as the product leader also being open to the range of like, Hey, this isn't working for me, and some of those very specific customer insights and customer needs. There's nothing like being able to have that as the one-on-one conversation.
Jared Correia (14:07):
Yes. Let's talk about what are the most interesting product upgrades, product updates you have for us coming out of the conference?
Leslie Witt (14:17):
Yeah, I mean I think that there's two big areas that we've been spending a lot of time investing new product development energy around, and one of those is really leaning into cashflow tools, making sure not only do you have the insight and the kind of rigor to operate, but that you actually have access to capital. And so we have one of those tools out in the market, it's called Smart Spend, and we're working on releasing capital lending at the start of next year and having conversations with customers across different practice areas, some of the new challenges that are popping up with changes in immigration filing, just confirmed that there's a real need in the market and a real desire for tools like Smart Spend. So I'd say that was one. And then shocker pretty much cannot have a conversation these days without bringing up the potential of ai.
(15:09):
We've been really focused on how we can unlock more efficiency, more insight, greater capability in the types of interactions that already happen on our platform. So in particular with document upload and case management to let our attorneys and their employees work that much more effectively. And so getting to launch our chat with cases 8AM IQ service and open it up as a beta to everyone attending the service, it was awesome just to see the level of interest. And we have that beta live and collecting user feedback and a lot of retentive actions, which I'd say behaviorally are always the things to me that speak more powerfully than excitement is that you actually use it and continue to use it, finding value.
Jared Correia (16:00):
So if you're listening to this and you're like, what is 8AM 8AM is a lot of things. It's my case, it's LawPay, it's all these other different products. So if I'm a user of one of those products, how do I get access to this stuff? You said the beta's out, do I have to apply
Leslie Witt (16:16):
For the beta? The is out. So right now that beta is available to my case users who are in our top tier and we are looking to make it generally available within that cohort over the course of the next about month. So if you're not yet included in the beta, you will soon be included in the general availability. We are also looking at ways to extend those core services into our other practice management platforms. So in particular docket wise has a number of AI features really right now focused on being able to take common data that's exchanged in forms and documents and make sure that that's always accurate, always pre-populated. Same thing when it comes to some of our automated workflows within our personal injury platform case peer. So right now my case is where we have the kind of utmost of our AI capabilities, but stay tuned as we continue to expand across our breadth.
Jared Correia (17:16):
Now for Smartpen, which you mentioned, if I want to look into that, I access to that, what do I do?
Leslie Witt (17:21):
Right now? Same thing. This is available to all my case customers and we are looking to expand as soon as possible in the next few months to everyone who is a LawPay customer. And what that is is it's a credit card revolving line of credit that allows you to really focus on billable expenses and map through to all your cases and invoices. So pretty exciting tool that is saving a lot of time and also just opening up some of those cashflow headaches that I'd say pretty much every small business and mid-market business base.
Jared Correia (17:58):
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Alright, so let's stitch these two topics together. So there's ai, there's consumer payments which have been happening for a lot longer than ai. What kind of changes do you see taking place in terms of AI and payments?
Leslie Witt (18:13):
Yeah, I mean some of the most basic ones are also addressing real drudgery and headache, which are around automatic reconciliation, being able to match transactions. I'd say as you expand out the aperture, a lot of the opportunity really isn't helping you get paid every dollar. And so whether that's capturing more time, capturing more expenses to bill through, and then I'd say even more importantly, ensuring on the reminders, collections, payment type that all of those actions are if not completely automated. And this is definitely at the discretion of a business owner, something that gets pushed to the foreground to action on with ease and quickness. And so a lot of it sits at that kind of basic level of business operations, but as you expand out and as we have access to more information, say let's say you're a user of our legal accounting service which has full a RP visibility and you are also someone who is really managing client communications or document management through our platform, then we're increasingly able to tether all of those things together into more directive insights. Which of my cases is the most profitable and why? How am I looking at employee productivity and utilize the data that kind of sits there latently, and for those who are great at analytics and really know how to use reports was always available but required a fair amount of work and often a decent level of expertise in order to unlock.
Jared Correia (19:48):
Yeah, I think those are two great use cases for ai. And I just talked about a little bit of the rope stuff in the monologue. If I could use an AI tool tell me to develop a collection workflow for soft collection, if I could have an AI to help me source reports and dashboards that I'm not sourcing on my own, I think that's awesome.
Leslie Witt (20:06):
Totally. And I'd say overall, obviously the whole world is collectively interested and I'd say decently fearful of what AI
Jared Correia (20:15):
Can maybe not fearful enough, but go ahead.
Leslie Witt (20:18):
The time's not fearful enough. And I'd say where we see deep receptivity and a lower risk barrier really is in helping firms operate more effectively and around providing more of the financial insights to how they work. Where the stakes are simply higher is as it starts to get more and more into the space of actually practicing law and there the stakes on accuracy on making sure that everything is well referenced, they're simply higher and it sits more in the zone of this is what I am actually an expert at and that I'm paid to do. And so there we're really looking at how do we empower information transference and more efficiency versus creeping into the space of actually practicing law.
Jared Correia (21:11):
Okay. I know you've been in the legal space for all of three weeks, so this may be an unfair question, but what have you dived into this alternative fees question yet? Lawyers are always billing on an hourly basis.
Leslie Witt (21:26):
They're looking at, I haven't spent a ton of time in legal, but I spent a ton of time with accountants,
Jared Correia (21:31):
Which is very similar.
Leslie Witt (21:32):
Yeah, there's a lot of parallels. And I would say that the accountant community, at least a decade ago, if not longer, started to shift away from hourly billing and time and materials orientation to value-based billing.
(21:49):
Because in a way, I think as someone who deeply believes in value-based billing for a lot of use cases, it allows you to have aligned incentives and it also allows you to lean into efficiency creation for all parties in a way that's transparent. So I think that with the advent of ai, it's an accelerant to that shift towards value and gets you out of some of the nickel and dimming. And then there's also hybrid use cases where it makes sense to have some level of value-based floor that then has a dimension of variability attached, which I think an hourly model can accommodate quite well.
Jared Correia (22:30):
I think a lot of attorneys I talked to don't want to move off of hourly billing because they feel like they'll be making less money in alternative billing models. And I think that's part of the hourly billing frick, is that it promotes inefficiency. So yeah, the more you work, more get paid, at least in my experience, most of the attorneys I work with, they actually made more money when
Leslie Witt (22:53):
I was going to say, I would say the opposite deal with through and the accountant space, which is
Jared Correia (22:58):
Okay, so give them the pitch, tell those reluctant
Jared Correia (23:00):
Attorneys why
Leslie Witt (23:01):
This is good. I also personally went through it myself when I was a consultant, a strategy consultant that shifting out of a direct time and materials model and really getting explicit about outcomes, deliverables that go into a value creation approach was something that got all parties aligned from the onset. And so I am quite optimistic about what this shift will mean, and I don't think it'll be wholesale, right? There's certain practice areas that make more sense to be oriented towards hourly. There's certain types of work that the structure doesn't lend itself to as well, but it's an exciting evolution I think. I
Jared Correia (23:45):
Don't know that I've ever interviewed a chief product officer before on the show. I know I joked about this a little bit before.
Leslie Witt (23:50):
Well, I hope it's a wonderful experience for you.
Jared Correia (23:53):
It's been fucking amazing. But for those interested, what does a product officer do? What is the job on a day-to-day basis?
Leslie Witt (24:02):
Yeah, I mean it is basically to have the prioritization wand on how you're spending your resources from a technology perspective, especially to both incrementally improve existing products and explore what's next around future growth. So that's both from an organic and from an inorganic perspective, but saying, I see a market, here's how we can better serve the market that we have today. Here are growth opportunities and you triage against those in terms of where you'll place your bets.
Jared Correia (24:38):
Do you get a real wand?
Leslie Witt (24:41):
I have a wand,
Jared Correia (24:42):
Yeah. Oh my god, it's amazing. My next life I'm a chief product officer. That's
Leslie Witt (24:47):
Right, that's right. Yeah. I have a wand. I can't just create new engineering teams. It's a wand that comes with a budget, but it's
Jared Correia (24:57):
The worst kind of wand.
Leslie Witt (25:01):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (25:01):
So I got to tell you,
Jared Correia (25:03):
Your background is very impressive. It looks like I would say a 19th century studio in Paris, France. So you got the piano there. I know you're a music person.
Leslie Witt (25:15):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (25:16):
So tell me, what are you listening to right now on repeat? Do you have any music recommendations? We're big music fans at the show?
Leslie Witt (25:25):
Yeah, I'm going to go a little odd.
Jared Correia (25:29):
Okay, that's great. The odd the better.
Leslie Witt (25:31):
Yeah. So I mentioned that I've played trumpet. I'm not sure if that was during our recording or before we start.
Jared Correia (25:36):
Well now everyone knows.
Leslie Witt (25:37):
Now everyone knows. And it turns out, in case everyone doesn't know this trumpet does not transition well to adulthood. You really can't play it casually. But I was really into jazz and I have a 14-year-old son who is now a jazz drummer. And so we've been earthing and I have rediscovered Maynard Ferguson who was a kind of eighties and seventies funk artist. And so really enjoying the big Bvo record. That's probably the one that I've been listening to the most. My husband's like hopped on the vinyl bandwagon. So we've been pretending to be hipsters and putting on the record and listening to some of the jazz vinyl and then also say,
Jared Correia (26:21):
Doesn't sound like you're pretending. No,
Leslie Witt (26:23):
But like Chr bin Monophonic, a lot of, I like the G Groove side of things.
Jared Correia (26:29):
Leslie, you've been a lot of fun to talk to. Thanks for hanging out today. I appreciate it.
Leslie Witt (26:33):
Thanks. This was fun.
Jared Correia (26:35):
Alright everybody, stay tuned. Next up we're talking Dazed and Confused with Gyi Tsakalakis of AttorneySync. Welcome back everybody. That's right. We're at the counter program of legal late night, but we've got an entirely new guest. We've shipped Leslie off somewhere. I'm sure she's safe. This is a podcast within a podcast, 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 and very little reason. Now, I'm very fortunate today because I've got the one and only ladies. Grab your chairs so you don't swoon. Gyi Tsakalikis of AttorneySync. We were supposed to be recording this live at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Austin, but we're at our relatively separate locations,
Gyi Tsakalakis (27:35):
So gee, welcome. How are you doing Jared? Thanks for having me. Good to see you. I love the podcast. Within the podcast it made me think of a dream within a dream for one of my favorite Christopher Nolan movies Inception. Oh man, I love
Jared Correia (27:50):
Christopher Nolan.
Gyi Tsakalakis (27:52):
I
Jared Correia (27:52):
Know we're not here to talk about Christopher Nolan, but
Gyi Tsakalakis (27:55):
We're not.
Jared Correia (27:55):
You're an interstellar.
Gyi Tsakalakis (27:56):
We're talking movies. I'm a huge guy and I wore my Warren Zevon hat for you because I know you're a fan and at least one lawyer should be listening to this. So lawyers', guns and money hopefully, although you never know. We're
Jared Correia (28:13):
Not even talking
Gyi Tsakalakis (28:14):
About the law.
Jared Correia (28:16):
I just didn't. What are we
Gyi Tsakalakis (28:17):
Talking about?
Jared Correia (28:18):
I'll get there. For those who maybe don't know who you are, which I can't imagine there's that many people these days. Totally. Can you give us the little rundown of what you
Gyi Tsakalakis (28:28):
Do? Sure. So I was a lawyer. I still am a lawyer license, not practicing. I founded AttorneySync in 2008, which is a digital marketing agency, but agency is a bad word. So we say digital marketing partners now.
Jared Correia (28:45):
Oh, that's good.
Gyi Tsakalakis (28:45):
I like that. Yeah. We helped law firms make sense of the internet and sense spelled C-E-N-T-S, not S-E-N-S-E. And yeah, we do. This is why we have you on puns. Plenty
Jared Correia (29:02):
Puns. I'm a punisher. May I just say that? Check out AttorneySync, Gyi really knows when it comes to marketing for real, real. I'm not just bullshitting here. Thank you for a long time. I know the work you do. And also I might say that when we were in Austin, I found you waxing poetic on many things from wooden doors with respect to conservation commissions to Marcus Aurelius.
Gyi Tsakalakis (29:31):
I have a lot of interests. And the other thing that I do that I'm grateful to you for because you are creator of the Lunch Hour Legal Marketing podcast that was born speaking. Yeah. Born out of the
Jared Correia (29:47):
Summer of Love as I recall, 69, I was dropping so much acid, I don't even remember doing this. Just tabs and tabs of Acid Lunch Hour League of Marketing. Yes. It's a podcast that you still do with your co-host, Conrad Saam. I pronounced that oddly. Sorry, Conrad. You. You it. Right. Would you tell people a little bit about the show and also you've got an affiliated conference now with the show.
Gyi Tsakalakis (30:18):
Yes.
Jared Correia (30:18):
Which I think it's probably going on as this episode releases.
Gyi Tsakalakis (30:22):
It will be. So we will be, I'm going to promo this at the show, so you better drop it on the 23rd or people are going to be like, it's not live yet. Yeah. Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Conrad. So Conrad Saam is the founder of Mockingbird Marketing. He's a former CMO of avo. We've all been doing this for way too long, so we're all friends. I know, it's embarrassing. Totally. And he runs as Simon Sinek would say, a worthy rival agency, not a competitor. And we do the show and we talk trash about legal marketers essentially what we do so that lawyers can be like, oh yeah, that's right. Legal marketers are full of it and lemme listen to what Conrad, you have to say,
Jared Correia (31:06):
Conferences in Vegas this year.
Gyi Tsakalakis (31:09):
Vegas, we're going to be in Vegas. We'll do it again. We're hoping to do it again. I don't know if we're going to do it biannual or annually, but we got, for whatever reason, people actually like listening to us and sending us messages about the show and we were like, you know what? Wouldn't it be fun to meet in person? But seriously, we are super proud of our lineup. We've got, we're focusing on in-house marketing, so that's an audience that tends to be underserved and we've got really just amazing speakers. I'm so grateful for the turnout and if you're listening to this, and obviously if you're walking past the Bellagio on 9 22, come on in, but if not, we'll hope to see you for the next edition of the summit
Jared Correia (31:54):
In Dearborn, Michigan.
Gyi Tsakalakis (31:56):
That's not I'm hearing. No. Is that where we're doing it? I haven't heard. It's TBD. It's between Dearborn and a couple other local spots.
Jared Correia (32:07):
Location, TBD. Let's get into it. We were supposed to be doing this in Austin and I wanted to do a movie panel, but then I'm like, fuck it. We'll just have GI because he's a panel unto himself. So I wanted to do a little Dazed and confused rewatch review. Classic. So for those who dunno, dazed and Confused is a 1993 film following different high school students on the last day of school in 1976. What a great time to be alive. I would assume I was not born at that
Gyi Tsakalakis (32:41):
Point. Just missed it
Jared Correia (32:42):
Myself. Yes, same. This is Richard Linklater's breakthrough film as a director. I think he had one movie before this, but this is the one that really hit this movie's called Classic Stack Cast of actors. Some of them would become bonafide movie stars, some would not. We'll talk about that. So as they say, all right, all right, let's get into it. Yeah. I've got different categories that I put together to guide our conversation around the movie, and we're going to hit five or six topics and we'll trade off. So you can go first on some, I'll go first on the others, but let's start with this. And I'm assuming you've seen the movie, not You. Many times people who are listening, if you haven't seen the movie, go watch the movie now. Put us on pause. Yeah, push pause. Yeah, it's worth it. Who's the MVP of Days Being confused? You can zag or you can go with the obvious choice but have at
Gyi Tsakalakis (33:41):
It. Well, so sadly, my zag and obvious choice are one and the same. Oh, okay. I'm a philosopher Jared. I was a philosophy major. You mentioned Marcus Aurelius. I'm a huge stoic and the real, to me, the philosopher in this film is David Wooderson, the incomparable David Wooderson played by Matthew McConaughey, and I think about the scene where they're sitting on the football field where he is in his monologue talking to Pink, who's the quarterback and the quarterback. He's trying to decide whether to sign the no substance contract and Wooderson, he's like, you got to live your life. Got to live your life. And I'm like, you get it, Wooderson. You get it.
Jared Correia (34:26):
I looked this up. Before we start talking, do you have a guess as to how much screen time he's got in this movie?
Gyi Tsakalakis (34:34):
Oh man, that's a great,
Jared Correia (34:37):
It's one of these Anthony Hopkins and Silence of the Lambs where he's on screen for eight minutes and it's the whole movie. I'll tell you, I was going to guess 10 minutes. I'm going to say 10 minutes. 10 minutes of screen time. 10 minutes. Which is crazy because he's got almost every iconic line in this movie. That's how MVP he is. Last time I was in Austin, I bought my daughter a Longhorn sweatshirt, the set all right, or right, right on it. And she gets so many comments at school
Gyi Tsakalakis (35:06):
About, I mean it iss the tagline of the film. Who's your MVP? Do you have an MVP? Did you answer these questions for yourself or you not?
Jared Correia (35:14):
Yeah, I did, but I mean, I don't know. I got an alternative. But how is Wooderson not the MVP?
Gyi Tsakalakis (35:23):
Well, to different strokes for different folks. Who you got?
Jared Correia (35:27):
So I went with Cynthia Dunn. You remember redhead in the movie? Not really. Okay, so this is interesting. She is Giovanni Rami's sister in real life, which I did not know until I did a little bit of research on the movie. So she is like the high school girl who's effortlessly cool. She hangs out with the boys, that kind of thing. Very chill. And I think it's interesting that the end of the movie, like Wooderson has been through the high school ringer. He's dated the cheerleaders, the popular girls, and at end he's trying to hit on the kind of nerdy girl who's got her shit together and wants to go to college.
Gyi Tsakalakis (36:14):
You're not
Jared Correia (36:14):
Into it.
Gyi Tsakalakis (36:15):
You're like, no, I am. No, I do. I love that. I love that
Jared Correia (36:21):
Line. You took Waterson. I had to have a backup.
Gyi Tsakalakis (36:23):
I took Waterson. No, it's only fair. And I like the nuanced point there though. And as a ladies man, I expect you nothing less from you. You say Ladies, man, is that when you get canceled for that?
Jared Correia (36:39):
My wife does anymore this
Gyi Tsakalakis (36:40):
Podcast. Totally.
Jared Correia (36:44):
I feel like if you haven't seen Dazed and Confused and you're still listening, you need tot press pause. Like we said, you just know the Wooderson lines when he's asking the guy if he has weed in the car and the guy's like, no. He's like, it'd be a lot cooler if you did. I'd probably say that three or four times a
Gyi Tsakalakis (37:01):
Week. That's the thing, people who haven't seen this movie, they already are using lines
Jared Correia (37:07):
Unbeknown
Jared Correia (37:07):
And they don't know it. The one that'll get you canceled though is when he's like, the thing about high school girls, I keep getting older and they say the same age. There's a lot of things that,
Gyi Tsakalakis (37:20):
Well, you can't make a movie like this anymore.
Jared Correia (37:22):
Yeah. I don't know if that makes it into the film in 2025. That's right. Something. Do you know how he came up with the all right or right or right thing? I don't, so when he got cast for this role, which was his first big movie role, he was looking into a Doris Live concert. And then in between songs, Jim Morrison says that he's like, all right, right, or, and he was like, what are the things that Wooderson is into? He's like getting high rock and roll and picking up chicks. So he's like, all right, all right. That's why I came up with it. Genius fucking McConaughey, man. Okay. Genius for people who've seen the movie. And for those who don't, I'm filling you in right now. One of the things that's really crazy is it starts out and there's the seniors and there's the freshmen and everybody is very into hazing. It's like the first maybe half of the movie, they got paddles, they're running the freshmen through all these kind of, it's crazy.
Gyi Tsakalakis (38:27):
The movie is actually about hazing, I think.
Jared Correia (38:29):
Yeah, I think so too. That's the main plot.
Jared Correia (38:33):
I remember when I watched it, I'm like, shit, this is demented.
Jared Correia (38:38):
Yeah,
Gyi Tsakalakis (38:39):
This just calls it hazing.
Jared Correia (38:41):
By the time I was in high school, we weren't doing shit like that. I wasn't, at least we didn't do it in
Gyi Tsakalakis (38:47):
High school. I was introduced into hazing until I got to college. Hooray for college, but high school, no, I was a sports ball football guy, and we didn't haze. That was a no. Yeah.
Jared Correia (39:01):
All right. So maybe because of this film, right? So I want to ask you, who is the most demented hazer in the movie, and what do you think their mental illnesses are? I actually went into the DSM and looked up some mental illnesses for people.
Gyi Tsakalakis (39:19):
Okay, well,
Jared Correia (39:20):
You can choose first. I like going
Gyi Tsakalakis (39:22):
Second. To me, this was easy for me. And maybe again, maybe I'm just not digging deep enough, so I can't wait to hear if you have another alternative, but O'Bannon is the true psycho. I mean, I knew
Jared Correia (39:35):
You were going to say that.
Gyi Tsakalakis (39:37):
I don't know what his problem is, but he has got some serious issues. It's getting way too much joy in the pain of others. So something during his, what they should have done, and in fact, Ben Affleck can still do this. They should do an O'Bannon movie about his backstory, what happened to Oon. That would just be
Jared Correia (40:01):
Depressing
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:03):
And maybe Christopher Nolan can direct it be like very dark. Oh,
Jared Correia (40:07):
That'd be great. That'd be great. All right. Yeah, I think that's, well, so I had a zag prepared and I went with Darla because the female version of O'Bannon. Yes. She's actually one of my favorite characters in the movie. She's fucking nuts. She has some crazy lines too.
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:29):
And
Jared Correia (40:29):
Is this Parker
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:30):
Osis
Jared Correia (40:30):
Character? Bitches?
Jared Correia (40:31):
Yeah.
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:32):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (40:33):
And Parker Posey is great. I love Parker Posey. She's in this movie. I think she's one of these girls. You're like, I can fix her.
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:42):
Yeah. She's the other person that was on my
Jared Correia (40:44):
Shortlist
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:46):
Because her, I don't know what problems she has as
Jared Correia (40:49):
Well. I think she's even
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:50):
Introduced first. She's
Jared Correia (40:52):
The first one in the movie.
Gyi Tsakalakis (40:55):
She's not even getting enjoyment out of it. She's just burn everything down. Abandon. He's enjoying himself. She's just mean.
Jared Correia (41:05):
Yeah. Yes. Some of the lines she comes out with are crazy. Hit the beginning of the movie. And so I was also doing some little bit of research on this, and so that girl's group in the movie with her and Joey Lauren Adams, they actually drafted their own dialogue for the movie. Oh. Which I thought was really interesting.
Gyi Tsakalakis (41:24):
Interesting.
Jared Correia (41:24):
Do you want to hear some mental health disorders that I uncovered? These are two charges I had too on my list. I thought the most interesting for O'Bannon was Intermittent Explosive disorder. Have you heard of this?
Gyi Tsakalakis (41:40):
Okay. I have not. But that's the descriptive words. Sound right on point,
Jared Correia (41:45):
Repeated sudden episodes of impulsive, aggressive or violent behavior. Yes. Gets praying. He has all this explosive rage. He's really, really into the paddling. It's visceral.
Gyi Tsakalakis (41:59):
It's way too excited. In fact, he's calling dibs on First Paddle. I
Jared Correia (42:05):
Never got the Ling thing. It's like this psychosexual craziness. So that was one I had for him. And then for Darla, I had sadistic personality disorder, which I think derives pleasure from inflicting psychological or physical pain and manipulates and humiliates others for personal satisfaction. I say that's right on point. Absolutely. I'm enjoying this. I wish I had more questions. Maybe a sociopath. Maybe. Maybe. Let's do the office of the MVP question. So how about an actor in this movie who should have had a bigger
Gyi Tsakalakis (42:50):
Career, but So you named her for me. Mine was Joey Lauren Adams.
Jared Correia (42:58):
Oh, interesting. Yeah.
Gyi Tsakalakis (43:00):
Okay. I mean, she had a decent, don't get me wrong, I should a decent career. I really liked Joey Lauren Adams. I liked her in, was she in Clerks and Chasing Amy? And then I always confuse these Kevin Smith movie, so I might be getting this wrong. Was she in Dogma? I feel like she was in Dogma
Jared Correia (43:20):
Maybe. I think she was in the Kevin Smith movies Full Stop. I think she have been in all of all movies. Yeah. I have Kevin Smith Fusion as
Gyi Tsakalakis (43:27):
Well. I loved her in those movies and I felt like, I don't know. Again, I don't want to, we're saying she should have been a bigger star. I mean, she's clearly, she's a star. Certainly more of a star than either of us will ever be. But she's thought she was going to take off.
Jared Correia (43:44):
I
Gyi Tsakalakis (43:44):
Thought she was going to skyrocket.
Jared Correia (43:46):
That's a good one. I hadn't even thought of that one. Honestly, that wasn't even on my list. Who you got? Well, can I ask you this first? What do you think of the voice? She's that she's got that kind of weird sounding little, yeah. Do you think I like her voice? You do. Okay. So I was kind of thinking a Jennifer Tilly thing where the voice is really affecting and potentially not in a good way depending on how you take it, but you're in on the voice.
Gyi Tsakalakis (44:20):
I think the voice is unique and it is signature. When you hear that voice, it's her. So maybe she's not going to be in radio or podcasting. Podcasting, but
Jared Correia (44:35):
I liked her. That's a good one. That was not even on my radar screen, I guess, because I thought she was a big enough star. Okay.
Gyi Tsakalakis (44:44):
And that's fair. That's kind of why I thought I was like, is this really? But I was like, I feel like she had just enough critical mass that she could have propelled into the stratosphere of stardom.
Jared Correia (44:55):
Yeah. Okay. That's a good one. I had some really crazy ones, but now I can go with my less crazy one. No, give me your crazy about Jason London. I'll give you, let me do Jason London first. Right? Okay. I don't like Jason London. You mentioned it before. Really great. Great role. Yeah, great role. Well, you don't like
Gyi Tsakalakis (45:13):
Him as an actor or in the movie? I don't like him as an actor.
Jared Correia (45:16):
Really? Oh shit. Yeah. All right. I don't know. I'll not talk about anyone I knew in high school, but fuck Jason London
Gyi Tsakalakis (45:23):
Forever. Sorry, Jason London. What else is Jason? I don't even know. What else was Jason London in? There's something that Jason London was in that I really didn't like him in. Yeah, I look this up now.
Jared Correia (45:35):
I'm
Gyi Tsakalakis (45:35):
Trying to look it up
Jared Correia (45:36):
As well. So while you look up, here's the thing that I thought was interesting about Jason London. He lost similar roles to other people that might've helped him to break out. So did you know that James VanDerBeek was cast over him for Dawson in Dawson's Creek?
Gyi Tsakalakis (45:59):
I did not know that. No, I did not.
Jared Correia (46:01):
In Sliding Doors moment, then maybe he becomes mocks from Friday Night Lights or no Varsity blues. So he's got a couple of these iconic quarterback roles.
Gyi Tsakalakis (46:17):
I'm trying to see none of these movies he's in ever.
Jared Correia (46:20):
He's not in any good movies. That's the thing.
Gyi Tsakalakis (46:22):
He's on something that I did not like.
Jared Correia (46:25):
And I think also if you look at McConaughey, McConaughey got cast with some roles that he might've been in as well, and he also tried, he still making movies
Gyi Tsakalakis (46:36):
Too.
Jared Correia (46:37):
Yeah, and he's got a twin brother too. Jeremy London, who also sucks. That's right. We have it out for the entire London family. Maybe
Gyi Tsakalakis (46:47):
I'm confusing Jason with Jeremy London. Let's see, Jeremy London like, oh wait, Jeremy London's. Actually, Jeremy London's a terrible one. Jeremy, actually, I don't like, let's see. No, it's Jason, I think. No,
Jared Correia (46:59):
No, I don't like him. Yeah, that's the guy I thought who would've been easy. I would've thought of him as getting a role on a popular TV show, like Dawson's Freak, but it never happened. Yeah. The kind of other one I had, the Deep Cut was they've got Mitch Kramer in this movie who's like a freshman baseball player. Yes. He's the one that gets paddled and stuff like
Gyi Tsakalakis (47:26):
That. Yes.
Jared Correia (47:27):
He's the object of Ben Affleck affection in this film, but he was in a lot of this movie and he never did fucking anything ever again.
Gyi Tsakalakis (47:42):
Wiley Wiggins.
Jared Correia (47:43):
Yeah, he did. He did this other Richard Linklater movie, kind of just weird animated movie Waking Life. But then nothing after that. He did a lot of indie movies, but I could have seen him doing, I dunno, I was thinking like maybe a Paul Dano type of route.
Gyi Tsakalakis (48:03):
Yeah,
Jared Correia (48:03):
Like totally ridler. He's in the Will Be Blood Little Sunshine. I love all day now. He's really good. I agree. Are you? There will be Blood Guy.
Gyi Tsakalakis (48:14):
Oh yeah. I mean, who can't Be a
Jared Correia (48:19):
Day Lewis?
Gyi Tsakalakis (48:20):
Daniel Day Lewis. I mean, maybe the greatest actor.
Jared Correia (48:24):
Quick spoiler alert. But at the end of that movie, every time he does the I Drink Your Milkshake thing. That just fucking cracks me up. It's so weird and awesome. So good. So uncomfortable. All right. Okay. Good one. Okay, two more. Two more questions. All right. Second to last question. What's your favorite needle drop in the movie?
Gyi Tsakalakis (48:49):
This was the hardest question for me.
Jared Correia (48:52):
Yeah,
Gyi Tsakalakis (48:52):
It's tough. I have two. I have two. Oh, good. Okay. And again, you're going to be like, gee, you're so basic. No,
Jared Correia (48:59):
I did three because I thought this might happen.
Gyi Tsakalakis (49:02):
Okay. In no particular order. Slow Ride. Oh yeah. Or Sweet Emotion.
Jared Correia (49:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Gyi Tsakalakis (49:13):
Both of those. For me, I probably, if you really twisted Arm, I'd probably go slow ride. Really? Just iconic. It just seems to me when that needle drop happens, that's what I think of days And confused,
Jared Correia (49:27):
Right? Yeah. Little fog hat for the
Gyi Tsakalakis (49:30):
People. Yes. Little fog hat. You know what, for the people also, because now people that don't know this have already chat. GPT did, but you should sell people what a needle drop is. I don't know that everybody knows what
Jared Correia (49:39):
You don't think
Gyi Tsakalakis (49:40):
So I don't know.
Jared Correia (49:42):
Interesting. I don't know if I have a great definition for it, but a Neil Drop is essentially when a scene is starting and they just hit you with this song, and it usually plays out through a significant portion of the scene. If you start to think of it that way, you can think of a lot of iconic needle drops in movies. Oh yeah. All right. I got two for you. Rubber Bandman by the, oh, that's a great one. Spinners Tremendous.
Gyi Tsakalakis (50:10):
So good.
Jared Correia (50:11):
Also, I will say also in Guardian to the Galaxy Needle drop in there as well. Just if you don't know the Spinners, that song is fucking phenomenal. I could listen. I love that song. I love that song. Great tune. And then the other one was Tuesday's Gone Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is used in a lot of movies. Well, they play that out I think at the end a little bit. So excellent. We do a lot of music talk on the podcast, so just more music talk. All
Gyi Tsakalakis (50:40):
Love
Jared Correia (50:40):
Music. Last question for you as I pull out my Fog hat 1976 Concert Tour t-shirt, which I should definitely own. Richard Linklater, director of Dazed and Confused. What's your favorite Linklater movie? Is it this one or is it another
Gyi Tsakalakis (50:59):
One? So it is this one, but I came up with a second one just because I was like, we're talking Dazed and Confused. Lemme give you another one. I figured you might. Yeah. And I added the Newton Boys. Did you ever see the Newton
Jared Correia (51:09):
Boys? Full disclosure, I have only seen three Richard Linklater movies. Alright, this one. What three Have you seen School of Rock? Yes, and Boyhood. Those are the only three
Gyi Tsakalakis (51:23):
I've ever seen. I've not seen Boyhood. I like School of Rock. School of Rock probably should watch Boyhood because Boyhood is probably one of his better films, right? More
Jared Correia (51:31):
Popular films. I will just throw it out there. That's my favorite movie of his. I feel like that. Not of all Time Academy Award. Yeah. No, not of all time. Not of all time. I'm not really, now I feel like an asshole because we did half an hour on this, but he's not my favorite director. I'm a much bigger Christopher Nolan fan. I feel like we should have you back on to do Christopher Nolan at some point.
Gyi Tsakalakis (51:54):
Oh, I would come back for that for sure, especially, but know what we'll do. We'll cover his new movie. Oh, the Odyssey. The Odyssey, yes. That's going to be fucking great. I can't wait. I think so. I hope they do it. I mean, I can't imagine they
Jared Correia (52:08):
Will. So Boyhood. I like the Conce of Boyhood is that they filmed it over 12 years and the kid actually grows up in the movie. It's very affecting in that way. It's kind of wild. That's a commitment. Yeah, that is a commitment. I just love the conceit of that movie.
Gyi Tsakalakis (52:25):
And I think it's Did they pay everybody throughout the whole time?
Jared Correia (52:29):
I think they just came back and shot at different periods of time. So it was like a regular movie in terms of how long they filmed it. But they would just do it in Spurs over the course of, but the meter wasn't running the whole time. No, unfortunately.
Gyi Tsakalakis (52:43):
Most expensive movie of all time.
Jared Correia (52:44):
Of all time. Yes. But that's my favorite. But School Rock's fucking Great.
Gyi Tsakalakis (52:50):
School Rock is good,
Jared Correia (52:51):
But tell me about The Newton Boys. I've heard of that movie, but I've never seen it before.
Gyi Tsakalakis (52:55):
Yeah. Another Matthew McConaughey movie and there's somebody else in this that Ethan Hawk, skeet Alrich. Oh yeah. I like him. And they're basically bank robbers. Oh, all right.
Jared Correia (53:12):
It's good. You should check it out. I'm interested. Is it streamable? Can I find it on Netflix? I have
Gyi Tsakalakis (53:17):
No idea.
Jared Correia (53:19):
Do I have to go scoop my local video store as if such a thing
Gyi Tsakalakis (53:23):
Exists? You can go into the dark web or whatever it is, probably in the other regions of the internet, but it's only 65% of Rotten Tomatoes, so I don't know. Maybe don't waste your time.
Jared Correia (53:34):
I don't know.
Gyi Tsakalakis (53:34):
That's not bad. I liked it. It's got Vincent.
Jared Correia (53:38):
Yeah,
Gyi Tsakalakis (53:39):
Juliana Margolis,
Jared Correia (53:42):
Dude. I mean, Billy Madison has like a 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, AINS shit. I'll watch this movie. Ling Litter. You got to give it to Ling Litter. He pulled some casts. Does he pulled a lot of great actors in. This was fun. Any last words before we leave Dazed and Confused behind and go on to college and live our lives?
Gyi Tsakalakis (54:03):
No, I am grateful to be here. Good to see you. I enjoy this conversation and I'm going to play some, I don't know what I'm, I think I'm going to play rubber bandman in the
Jared Correia (54:16):
Metro.
(54:17):
Yes. All right, everybody. Thank you. Gyi, check out LHLM, the podcast, the conference attorneys think and we will come back and do Nolan deal. Thanks for our two guests today. Sorry, two doubling up. We've got Leslie Witt of 8AM and Gyi Tsakalakis of AttorneySync. Maybe we doubled up because those interviews are now in the past. We move forward to learn more about Leslie and 8AM our gracious hosts for the Kaleidoscope Conference. Visit 8am.com. That's pretty easy to remember. The number 8 am.com. To learn more about Gyi and AttorneySync, our gracious secondary guest for this episode who I just met in Austin. It is now back in is Homeland of Michigan. Visit AttorneySync.com. AttorneySync, S-Y-N-C.com. Now, because I'll always be a nineties kid who still gets fast times and Dazed and Confused...confused, even though the former is an eighties movie, though, the Latter is a nineties movie that takes place in the seventies.
(55:44):
Now I'm confused. 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 playlist. Every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist, not even a tangent, it's directly related to what we just talked about. Needle drops in Dazed and Confused. They got some good ones because the soundtrack is dope and would probably be too expensive to accommodate today with all the rights issues in place. And it's sponsored by Terry Black's Barbecue of Austin, Texas. We got a theme. I'm just kidding. By the way, Terry Blacks hasn't sponsored shit, but I wish they would. I will be very down for some free or discounted barbecue.
Jared Correia (56:35):
Call me.
Jared Correia (56:37):
Join us next time when I'm still in Austin. No, I got back a couple weeks ago. Talk soon, everybody.