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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. For today's monologue, I'm going to tell you how to get more efficient without even using ai. Yes, it's actually possible. Then we keep the conversation rolling with Jess Birkin, a Minnesota attorney and friend of the pod who has even more efficiency tips for your Earballs in a counter program. We're talking Minnesota, literally it's Minnesota themed trivia, and the Lucy is juicy. Throw another shrimp on the Barbie. It's time for legal late night. I do a lot of presentations for lawyers. I have a lot of conversations with lawyers and everybody's trying ai, but they're not trying it at a really deep level yet. Most of the people I talk to, especially sole and small firm attorneys, they're messing around with Chad, GBT or other generative AI tools, and they may not even be using that for legal specific purposes.
(01:11):
If they're doing case related work, it's probably in a software they've been using for a while that has had AI embedded like Lexus or West or some of these eDiscovery softwares out there. So I'm sick and tired of talking about ai, though I know I'm going to do it again until I die. Probably as we talked about last week, maybe AI will be the thing that kills me eventually, maybe literally as well as figuratively. But what I want to talk about today is five non-AI efficiency upgrades for your law practice, because as I just alluded to, it is possible to become more efficient without the aid of ai. Humans have been doing it for millennia. So I want to talk about five options, as I said. So let's start with analog things that you can do. Then let's move into hardware, then let's move into software.
(02:11):
Yes, you can become more efficient without even the use of software. So one of the big things I talk with lawyers about all the time is that they have a hard time getting work done because they can never concentrate, especially if you run a firm. People are always asking you questions. Clients are always pestering you. It's hard to sit down for five minutes and do anything, and then we get home. Your kids are asking you for stuff. Your spouse may want you to do something. So finding time to focus on anything is hard. So one of the best tips I have for lawyers is to time blocking as a strategy. Set aside a couple hours, maybe a few hours, eliminate all distractions and just work on one thing at a time. How many opportunities do you have to enact that luxury? It hardly ever happens, but can happen if you make it happen.
(03:12):
So the trick is setting aside the time to do it. If you can get that done, you'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish and the more often you can do it, the more work you'll get through. Some people have called these power hours, but basically that's what you're doing. You're sitting down for a set period of time. Longer the better. You're limiting distractions, so you're focusing on one thing. Personally, I do this in the morning. I often wake up before everybody in my house and I try to get like two, three hours in where I'm just doing focused work. I know that as soon as other people in my house wake up, it's all over. I'm done. So time blocking Now, I said this was completely analog, but you can use a little bit of technology to help you along. You can use your calendar just to block down.
(03:58):
You literally go into your calendar and set aside some time for yourself. Yes, that's possible. You can do that, and there are smart calendaring tools out there that you could potentially use as well, like Time Hero or SC Pal, and then you've also got some of these AI based smart calendars also. Wait, I promised I wasn't going to talk about that. Number two, the more monitors the better. If you don't have a second monitor, you're wasting time. Why? Because you're opening closing windows constantly. This has been a go to consulting tip for me since oh nine oldie, but a goodie, but it still works, and it underscores this notion of efficiency that I try to talk about with law firms on a regular basis, which is that you don't necessarily need to make life altering changes to your practice to get any kind of advantage.
(04:53):
You can do small things too, incremental things that build up. Actually, that's kind of like my old consulting thesis, but in terms of monitor usage, yeah, the less you open and close windows, the more time you'll save. Even if it's that eight seconds every time you do it, that adds up over the course of years, over the course of decades. So you want to be like Kylo Ren in the Last Jedi. When you're thinking about monitors, the answer is always more monitors. Your office should look like nasa. All right, number three, I love workflows. I've always loved workflows, but what about case closing workflows? Those are highly valuable for a law firm. So what do you do when the case is over? Probably nothing, right? Maybe you put your paper file away as I throw up in my mouth saying those words, or maybe you just archive a case on your software that you're using, like your case management software, your document filing system, but then nothing ever happens in any law firm because you don't have a system to make it happen.
(05:57):
So build out a case closing workflow. What do you do when the case closes? And it's not a scramble, right? It's not somebody remembering, oh, you know what? We had that great experience with that client, but we didn't do anything about it. So schedule a request for a review. Set up a time to do an exit interview. Make sure you get that person locked into your marketing automation program so you can send them updates or newsletters from time to time so they remember what you did for them. It's a whole host of things you should be doing post close so that you don't lose new work from a satisfied client. This is something that lawyers overlook all the time, and if you can set it up so that it happens the same way every time with a workflow, that's far more efficient than just figuring out what you need to do on the fly.
(06:53):
Always add processes. The two more for you. Number four, document automation. Yes, it's true. Document automation does not need AI to work either. So document assembly, document automation, and document generation. Creating finalized documents from templates is probably one of the most underutilized features in a law firm. Lawyers tend not to use software for this because they think it's a too expensive spoiler alert. It's not with the value you get out of it, or B, they don't want to go through the effort of tailoring their documents so that they can be utilized in a document assembly program. Because the way these systems work is really at a baseline twofold. They're replacing fields. So you need to figure out what the fields are and what fields come in, like name, contact information, date of birth, that kind of thing, and you need to figure out what the clause logic looks like.
(07:51):
So what happens if someone makes this choice about their legal representation? Am I losing clauses in a document? Am I adding clauses in a document? Am I editing clauses? Lawyers don't want to get into any of that stuff, but this is where you can achieve probably the most efficiency upgrades, probably more than with an AI tool, frankly, right off the rip. Because if you do this right, think of how much time you spend in building documents as a lawyer. Lawyers spend tons of time building documents, they traffic in documents. So if you can reduce the time it takes you to produce a document by 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, you're increasing your work volume and you get more work done. So take the time, make the effort to build out your documents so that they can be utilized in a document assembly program if you're not using one of 'em that already has templates in place and go out there and kick some ass from me.
(08:50):
Number five, this is maybe my biggest law firm, pet peeve payment automation, bros and bros. It's time to stop requesting payments. This is why law firms have shitty collection rates. This is why attorneys don't get paid because they say the work is done, please pay us. And even if you're not saying the work is done, please pay us. Maybe you're using flat fees or maybe you have a subscription model. If you're clicking a button to ask people to pay you, you are giving away time and there is a time value to money. You want cashflow, you won no accounts receivable. Yes, I said, no accounts receivable, zero. You need to start automating payments, make payments happen automatically, or take a payment out of someone's account by clicking a button, but do not request payments from your clients because it's going to take a while for them to make those payments.
(09:51):
So what do you need to get this done? Well, you need an e-payment software. Good news, case management softwares, which most attorneys are using now, have e-payment software built in for the most part. So there are a lot of CRMs, so do scheduling tools by the way as well. Then on the backside, you get a credit card authorization form. I've got one message me, I'll send it to you. And then you need to tweak your fee agreement to reflect the fact that you're automating payments on behalf of your clients. No fuss, no musts, so stop requesting payments. Start taking payments. Carpe diem everybody. Five ways you can get more efficient without using ai, believe it or not, is true. And that's the shortlist. There's more, but we got to get to our next segment. Next up, if you can't get enough of all this productivity talk, the rampage continues Next. Just Birkin enters the fray. Oh, it is so on. Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is the podcast. So I'm just going to stare out the window blankly and contemplate what I've done in my life. Now I'm just fucking around. That sounds awful. Let's interview our guest instead. Our guest today is a real tree coming back to podcast with me. Once again, she's not sick of me yet. That is Jess Birkin, who's the owner of Birkin Law Office in Minnesota. Jess, how you doing?
Jess Birkin (11:31):
I'm good, I'm good. I was just internally debating if I should do a heavy Minnesota accent for the entirety of this podcast. Maybe not
Jared Correia (11:39):
For the entirety,
Jess Birkin (11:41):
Maybe not.
Jared Correia (11:42):
What's going on at Birkin Law office these days?
Jess Birkin (11:47):
What's going on? Well, lots of change. I can't seem to stop improving my law firm. It's like an addiction.
Jared Correia (11:55):
It's a hard life, just fucking killing it every day.
Jess Birkin (11:59):
Yeah. In February, my right hand, my wing woman, Megan and I, in February, we do something called F off February in Minnesota, we have a long hard winter, and February is around the time where it's like minus 30 with the wind and you're just wishing you were somewhere else for a week.
Jared Correia (12:20):
Yes.
Jess Birkin (12:21):
Yeah. So we usually go somewhere warm near water with palm trees for a week and do work on the business real high level. So we did that and we decided that this year we were going to not completely change the business model, but really a hard tweak on our business model to sort of move up market a little bit and do things in a more efficient way, in a way that makes more money. I got to buy groceries still.
Jared Correia (12:53):
Hell yeah. We all now, you just had a retreat and you were like, we're turning this around, turn the ship, which I think is hard to do. I think a lot of people hear that, and they're probably starting to break out in hives. I could never do that with my business. It takes a lot of balls to do that. Really?
Jess Birkin (13:10):
Yeah. Well, to be super transparent, the math wasn't math
(13:14):
On the business. It was like, why are we not making more money and I can't give Megan a raise and I am not making a reasonable amount of money, and it's like, what do we need to do? So the first thing we did was we actually sat down and said, okay, let's do some unit price analysis and be like, if, because I do everything on a flat fee, I don't do any hourly billing, we sort of figured out, alright, here's the top 10 things we do for our clients, that we've got great systems around this. We know exactly what we're doing. We do it over and over and over again, and we're like, if we were billing this by the hour, what would we bill for the time? How long does it take and what should we be charging? Great. And then we had to kind of stare into the mirror and be like, oh God, okay.
Jared Correia (14:00):
I feel like a lot of people when they do the flat fees, they're like, ah, fucking, I dunno, 600 bucks. And they're not grounding that in anything at
Jess Birkin (14:09):
All. Yeah.
Jared Correia (14:11):
Now you've also got this website called Hack your practice, so can you talk to folks about that? What is that?
Jess Birkin (14:17):
Sure.
Jared Correia (14:18):
That's separate and independent from the law firm, right?
Jess Birkin (14:20):
So a lot of people think like, oh, she's a consultant or whatever, and it's like, no, no, it's just a passion project and I just have basically an email list where I am pen pals with people, so I just send an email once a month. Yes.
Jared Correia (14:35):
So if I go to hack your practice, I can subscribe and I can receive your wisdom, your pearls of wisdom on a monthly basis. Is that right?
Jess Birkin (14:45):
Yeah. Yep. We can be pen pals. I'm a little disappointed you're not already Jared.
Jared Correia (14:50):
Spoiler alert. I am a subscriber. I was looking at it the other day. It's interesting. You don't always talk about the same stuff that your average business consultant would talk about.
Jess Birkin (15:03):
Yeah, because not selling anything. That's what I mean. It's not trying to tee up my course for 10 easy steps to transform me or whatever. I'm just like, Hey, I'm out here in the trenches with y'all.
Jared Correia (15:16):
It's three steps to quadruple your revenue. Okay.
Jess Birkin (15:19):
Right, exactly.
Jared Correia (15:21):
Jess, I would call you a productivity maven. Would that be fair to say? I feel like it would be.
Jess Birkin (15:26):
Sure.
Jared Correia (15:26):
Okay. What are your top productivity hacks right now and non-AI edition, because we'll come back to ai.
Jess Birkin (15:36):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I say this all the time, but using Zapier to create little automations to get rid of the minutiae, right? Yes. Those little tasks that just suck all of your life force and your time. That's a big one. And then really, those are sort of micro granular, but I'm really into making the big productivity hack, which is the sort of Newport Grand gesture on
Jared Correia (16:05):
Friday. I don't know what that is. Tell me what that is.
Jess Birkin (16:07):
Okay, so Cal Newport is an author who wrote a book called something. It's
Jared Correia (16:15):
Called something. Google it everyone. Yeah,
Jess Birkin (16:17):
Google it. Cal Newport. It's called Deep Work.
Jared Correia (16:20):
Oh, deep Work. Yes, I've heard of that. Okay.
Jess Birkin (16:22):
Deep work. Yeah. So one of the things that he talks about in that book, which probably could have been a blog post, but if we're being honest, it's one of those business books, I feel like
Jared Correia (16:30):
That's every business book. Now, no
Jess Birkin (16:31):
Offense everyone a hundred percent, you can pick it up and skim through it and get the 10 ideas, but one of the ideas he has is talking about the grand gesture. And so that's like Michael Pollan. He has a little cabin in his backyard where he goes and does his writing, and he is not in the house and he is not anywhere. So it's like putting yourself in an isolation chamber where you can't be interrupted by that client who has an emergency and that your staff is asking you something and whatever. So I'm a big fan of that. That's why we do the F off February because
Jared Correia (17:07):
Limiting
Jess Birkin (17:07):
Distractions, that kind thing we've done in that week. So that's a big one, and because we're making changes this year, and it is terrifying and aggravating and tiring to make changes like that, so it's actually better to step away and really dedicate some time to get it done. Otherwise you're just constantly, I'm in the process of fixing things and it's painful and we're in the messy middle and it's horrible. So Friday, Megan and I are going to an Airbnb for four days and we're going to get stuff done. So that's a huge productivity hack that we use all the time.
Jared Correia (17:45):
And so I guess I feel like a lot of firm and small firms or solo attorneys would be like, it's kind of weird to take a retreat from myself, and so they don't do stuff like this. I do know attorneys who do this are in small firms. I know a lot who don't. So you're saying no matter the size of the firm, this is helpful.
Jess Birkin (18:08):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so here's the thing, right? It feels like, oh, couldn't possibly, it's kind of the same thing with, oh, I couldn't possibly take a real vacation where I wasn't checking my email,
Jared Correia (18:18):
Right?
Jess Birkin (18:19):
It's that same sort of psychological trap that I have to constantly be on because my work is eating me alive, and if I'm not on it all the time, then I'll get behind. But the reality is if you actually take a vacation and rest, you'll come back recharged. If you actually take the time to go do the thing, you'll get the thing done and you won't be drinking out of the end of the fire hose later. That's the goal anyway.
Jared Correia (18:45):
No, I mean, absolutely. People don't take time to recharge, and if you do, even if, I dunno a little personal story. I had a stomach flu this weekend, so I slept for 19 hours on Saturday. I woke up and I'm like, I feel fucking amazing.
Jess Birkin (19:01):
Right? Yeah. You let your immune system do what it needed to do.
Jared Correia (19:06):
Yeah, you just do the work. I'll rest. Alright. You mentioned Zapier, which is kind of a bridging software that connects two different softwares that don't have an API connection. What other apps are you into right now?
Jess Birkin (19:21):
I'm super into right now, Airtable. Oh
Jared Correia (19:25):
Wow.
Jess Birkin (19:25):
We basically run the entire firm. My whole firm runs using Airtable. We use Airtable for everything and it's amazing.
Jared Correia (19:35):
Do you want to tell people what Airtable is? I'm not sure if anybody knows what that is.
Jess Birkin (19:38):
What is Airtable? So Airtable is like if you think of Excel or a database that's in the cloud, so it's on the internet,
(19:51):
But then you can show the data in ways that are super useful. So you can set it to show you as a Kanban board. You can set it to show you a calendar. So if you have a bunch of deadlines or trial things or whatever coming up, you can express all of your records as show me the dates. You can do it as show me a Kanban board, which means you can have a sales pipeline, so we can use it as CRM, what is your Outlook contacts except for a database of all of the people and each record for contact has name, address, notes. It's the same principle, but it's all in one piece of software. Instead of syncing everywhere, we have everything in Airtable. So it becomes the one source of truth, which is really, really important because if you're like me and you like to try new things and add software, sometimes it can get very like, well, this lives over here and that lives over there, and if you're not keeping everything updated and synced and whatever. So it's kind of like we built our own practice management software. I was
Jared Correia (21:11):
Going to, so you use this in lieu of case management software and A CRM and tools that people might buy off the shelf rather than using a fraud as a kind of builder itself. Okay, that's a good one. I was surprised by that one. I wasn't expecting you to say Airtable. All right, got another one for us.
Jess Birkin (21:30):
I'm a huge fan of Slack. I hate email and I have a small team of people, internal people who work with me that I pay as you're with me 40 hours a week. But then I also have people like my web guy and the woman who figures out when a zap is broken and somebody who builds document automation.
Jared Correia (21:52):
Oh, I have Zap Lady. That's great.
Jess Birkin (21:54):
Yeah, we do have Zap Lady. Absolutely. It's like, Hey, acuity is broken. Can you go look at that? What's happening here?
Jared Correia (22:02):
And everybody's in Slack.
Jess Birkin (22:04):
Everybody's in Slack
Jared Correia (22:05):
Communicating. So people, I'm just really surprised at how many law firms don't use something like Slack, which is sort of, it's kind of like a third party communication app you've got
Jess Birkin (22:18):
And you probably already have it.
Jared Correia (22:19):
Yeah.
Jess Birkin (22:20):
If you have Microsoft 365, you have their version of that, which I think is like Teams. Teams has a chat
Jared Correia (22:26):
Teams chat. Oh my God.
Jess Birkin (22:28):
Yeah. It's horrible.
Jared Correia (22:28):
Think I just threw up my mouth a little bit.
Jess Birkin (22:30):
Yeah. I hate all Microsoft products are such crap except for the Office Suite.
Jared Correia (22:34):
Fucking awful.
Jess Birkin (22:35):
Well think the Office suite all day long, but all their other stuff is usually, I can't stand it, but you probably already pay for something that's better than email use
Jared Correia (22:46):
That you could all chat on. Don't use. Sorry. I guess we lost that. Microsoft sponsorship. Oh, well we had a nice run. Oh, darn it. Okay, so let me ask you the big question. Question ai, how fucked are we or is it good? I don't
Jess Birkin (23:05):
Know. I don't know. I feel like every time I ask my I'm, you just ask your Amazon device for just something normal and she can't do it and then feel reassured that our robot overlords don't know what the hell they're doing.
Jared Correia (23:21):
That is a good point. Yes.
Jess Birkin (23:24):
Not that my Amazon device is ai, but I feel like chat GPT came out and it was so exciting and it was miraculous, and then over the course of two years, I've just watched it get more stupid. The more people feed their stupidity into the machine, I feel like it's gotten dumber. That sounds so callous and rude, but I do feel like it hasn't
Jared Correia (23:49):
Count on the stupidity of humans. Did you? Ai?
Jess Birkin (23:51):
Yeah. Well, but then at the same time, it's incredibly powerful and I do think we have still, it's like the internet. We still have no idea how this is going to change everything. So I think we are a little bit fucked, but
Jared Correia (24:07):
A little bit,
Jess Birkin (24:08):
It's not quite, if you can't make a human being without six fingers just yet, we're on the road there.
Jared Correia (24:15):
Got a little bit of time left. Maybe we should just keep feeding a human data. That's how to do it. We'll get it off the rails. So I know you do public speaking and you're asked to talk about AI on a regular basis as am I, and I'm in the same boat as people are like, Hey, you want to do an AI presentation? And I'm like, do I have to? Are you using AI tools that are ones that you like or have you kind of shied away? Yeah. Yeah. So what are you using?
Jess Birkin (24:45):
No, I am, I have a talk that's like four tools I like and three I don't or whatever.
Jared Correia (24:52):
Okay. Give me the short version of that.
Jess Birkin (24:56):
Yeah. Yeah. So my number one tool that I'm really loving is Fast Case merged with vle and now they have this AI tool called Vincent ai. And so Fast Case is like a Westlaw competitor. It's like legal research, and you can now go into their Vincent AI and just in natural language ask a legal question and it will actually pull up all the sources and give you a plain English answer along with primary and secondary sources and it can't hallucinate, so it actually has the legal research
Jared Correia (25:36):
Chops,
Jess Birkin (25:36):
Whereas some of the tools that are for lawyers, you're like, what is this built on? You're telling me this contract term should change based on what? Exactly.
Jared Correia (25:49):
Not very careful Google search,
Jess Birkin (25:52):
Even if that, right. Some of the companies are very, they don't really tell you and then you're like, oh, I think this is just chat GPT looking at my contract.
Jared Correia (26:05):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Fastcase has been around for a long time. They got a big database. They merged with V Lex out of Germany and
Jess Birkin (26:12):
They've been working for so long. Ed Walters and all them have been working forever to get those up to the minute case updates and linking into Pacer, and so you don't have to ize the cases that you get out of your AI search because if it was decided yesterday, they have it.
Jared Correia (26:31):
That's a good one. I haven't seen people talk about So Fast Case slash vle is free to Bar Association.
Jess Birkin (26:40):
It is, but the AI's not.
Jared Correia (26:41):
That's what I thought. Okay. That's the next thing I was going to ask you. Okay. That's a good one. What else you got in the holster?
Jess Birkin (26:46):
But it's worth it as far as that's my legal tool. Some of the other ones that I really like, there's, if you do anything around social media content marketing, I actually really like this tool called Pod Squeeze because if you give a talk or you record a podcast, you can upload the audio and it will give you a transcript, a blog post, it'll write some tweets and you can tune it to be like, oh, if it's for me, it's more friendly, more emojis, more excited to capture my sort of vibe in putting out the content
Jared Correia (27:23):
Around Mochis to the moon. Yes.
Jess Birkin (27:25):
Yeah, exactly.
Jared Correia (27:27):
Exactly. That's
Jess Birkin (27:28):
Cool. So I like that one. Yeah, it is just like if you've been around for a while doing content marketing, churning out all that copy and sending your audio into Rev to have somebody transcribe it. This was such a time intensive process previously and now it's like three minutes and we have a first draft.
Jared Correia (27:50):
I know. And then you avoid the whole, I got a post today what I learned about business marketing from brushing my teeth this morning. Right. Which is like every third post on LinkedIn. All right, you got one more for me? I'll only ask you for
Jess Birkin (28:05):
One more. Yeah, so then the other AI tool that I actually really like is just a chatbot. It's just Claude.
Jared Correia (28:12):
Oh, yeah.
Jess Birkin (28:13):
Which is, oh yeah. Lawyers Chatbot. And I like that one because my ethics attorney likes that one. He likes their
Jared Correia (28:22):
Great good choice.
Jess Birkin (28:23):
He likes their terms of service, like how they store your data, that they don't train on your data and they take reasonable precautions to protect your data. It just meets my ethics attorney's guidelines for what he feels comfortable with, which means I feel a lot more comfortable putting my work stuff in there. I don't use Chachi PT for work stuff. I'll use it to stare into the pantry after work and be like, okay, so I have a can of beans and mushroom soup. What can I do with this? But I don't put work stuff in there.
Jared Correia (28:59):
It's just warming a can of beans under the hot water and the faucet again for dinner. You
Jess Birkin (29:04):
Want to do that though? You're just looking around your kitchen. When I was in 1930s, what can I make? You got beans?
Jared Correia (29:14):
Oh yeah. So we talked about the tech tools, we talked about how you manage the staff. So I think this is a new world for delegation for lawyers. You can delegate to people, you can delegate to software automations in some cases, but you can also delegate now to this new world. It's ai, which is kind of staff kind of software. So how should small firm attorneys be thinking about delegation now in Brave New World?
Jess Birkin (29:43):
Okay, so you're asking, this just reminds me of this woman I met who's a lawyer, and we were in the same class with John Grant who does agile coaching, and we were chatting afterwards and she was like, oh, can I see how you do this and how you do that with your team? And the thing that I was taking away was she was very new to delegating, and I don't think AI or any of these software tools are going to solve your problem in the beginning. In the beginning, you just literally need to learn how to delegate. And the biggest roadblock that I see my colleagues run into is that they all have an idea of what is the perfect way of doing it is stuck in their head and they don't articulate that to anyone. So the software doesn't do it the exact way they want it. It's trash. That software didn't work for me. The new staff person doesn't do exactly what I think is the right thing, even though I didn't tell them what the right thing was. This staff person's trash, it didn't work for me. And so literally learning about delegating and how to delegate effectively, I feel like that's step one. And a lot of lawyers skip that step and go straight to like, Ooh, the shiny new an AI agent
Jared Correia (31:05):
Is
Jess Birkin (31:06):
Going to solve my problems,
Jared Correia (31:07):
Solve everything AI agents, it's on. This was a lot of fun. Do you mind sticking around for a little bit? I have some Bach v it if you're interested.
Jess Birkin (31:20):
I'm definitely interested in baklava. Are you going to ship it to me now? I'm hungry.
Jared Correia (31:25):
Yeah, I'll ship it to you. We'll be back in a second. Welcome to the Counter program. Welcome back. 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 and very little reason. Jess, welcome back.
Jess Birkin (31:52):
Hey, thanks for keeping me here. I'm excited.
Jared Correia (31:56):
Last time we were on the show together, I had you do some Minnesota related dialogue.
Jess Birkin (32:04):
Oh yeah. I remember
Jared Correia (32:05):
This time I want to shift things around a little bit. I put together a little game and it's called Shit Minnesotans say 2.0. This is pretty easy. I'll read you a quote. I'm going to give you two real Minnesotans and you just have to tell me which one said the quote.
Jess Birkin (32:27):
Okay.
Jared Correia (32:28):
Are you ready?
Jess Birkin (32:29):
I'm going to fill this game, but let's go.
Jared Correia (32:30):
I don't know. Let's do it. I dunno. Okay. Quote number one, as governor of Minnesota, I can't believe Warren Zevon was non inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'll give you two choices. Was it Tim Walls or Jesse the Body Ventura.
Jess Birkin (32:54):
I was like, as soon as you said that, I was like, it has to be Jesse Ventura.
Jared Correia (32:58):
It's Tim Wal.
Jess Birkin (32:59):
Dang. Dang it. Okay.
Jared Correia (33:02):
Apparently he's a big Zon fan.
Jess Birkin (33:04):
Well, there you go.
Jared Correia (33:06):
But yeah, I thought had I not heard that, had I not had the privilege of knowing the answer in advance,
Jess Birkin (33:11):
It sounds like something Jesse would've said.
Jared Correia (33:13):
Yeah. Although he probably would've said brother at the end of it or something like that. Like the rest
Jess Birkin (33:17):
Of us do. Yeah. Truth, truth.
Jared Correia (33:18):
Alright, so we've got five left, so you have a lot of time to redeem yourself here. Next one, Minnesota has its own Mason Dixon line. I come from the north and that's different from Southern Minnesota. If you're there, you could be in Iowa or Georgia. First of all, before we get to that, is that true? It seems kind of weird.
Jess Birkin (33:43):
No, I don't know what this is very,
Jared Correia (33:47):
It's full of shit
Jess Birkin (33:50):
And when you said Iowa, I was thinking, yeah, we have up north northern Minnesota. Where does that line start? I thought that's where this was going, but who even thinks about Iowa?
Jared Correia (34:02):
Let's find out. Is it Bob Dylan or Prince who said this crazy shit?
Jess Birkin (34:10):
I'm going to say that's some stupid shit that Bob Dylan would
Jared Correia (34:13):
Say. Yes. Ding, ding, ding. All right.
Jess Birkin (34:17):
I'm like, I guarantee Prince was not thinking about Iowa.
Jared Correia (34:21):
Yeah, prince is like a real Minnesota dude. Okay, next quote, you steaming pile of Buffalo Pucky, you're still ugly. Okay, now we are in the Tall Tales section of the quotes. Who said this? Was it the when Togo, a Minnesota Crypted or Paul bunion, the Minnesota lumberjack? Who is this quote
Jess Birkin (34:51):
Attributed to? I'm not that a, when Togo can speak, so I'm going with Paul Bunion. He probably said it to Babe when the Blue Ox was misbehaving.
Jared Correia (35:00):
Good call. That is correct. This is Paul Bunion doesn't have a lot of dialogue because he's not a real person, but this was dialogue attributed to Paul Bunion in a movie called Tall Tail. Said it
Jess Birkin (35:14):
To,
Jared Correia (35:14):
Oh my Pecos Bill, another tall tail, another American Tall Tail, two for three, killing it here. Next quote is, all they're going to find in these veins is ice cream bro said by a Minnesota twins player after taking a drug test. Was it Royce Lewis or Byron Buxton?
Jess Birkin (35:39):
You're
Jared Correia (35:39):
Like, I dunno
Jess Birkin (35:40):
What you need these people. Objection. Baseball.
Jared Correia (35:42):
You got a 50% chance Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, 50% chance is pretty good.
Jess Birkin (35:52):
I'm going to go with Royce
Jared Correia (35:54):
And you would be correct.
Jess Birkin (35:56):
Yeah,
Jared Correia (35:56):
You smoking here,
Jess Birkin (35:58):
Royce just sounds like a guy that would talk about ice cream in his veins. That's my
Jared Correia (36:02):
Logic. He's enough ice cream to feel like it runs through his veins. I'm jealous, actually.
Jess Birkin (36:06):
That's right. That's right.
Jared Correia (36:08):
All right, number five, which Minnesota actor said this line in a movie, well Polish my nuts and serve me a milkshake. Is it Sean Williams Scott or Brecken Meyer?
Jess Birkin (36:27):
Who are these people?
Jared Correia (36:28):
I said this just yesterday.
Jess Birkin (36:34):
Oh my gosh.
Jared Correia (36:35):
Do we even Sean, the
Jess Birkin (36:37):
Movie, do we know
Jared Correia (36:38):
What movie it is? Yeah, I can give you, because
Jess Birkin (36:41):
Neither of those actors I'm like,
Jared Correia (36:43):
Who? Nineties actors. Nineties actors.
Jess Birkin (36:45):
Nineties
Jared Correia (36:45):
Actors. Sean William Scott, also known as Stiffler from the American Pie Movies if you Partake.
Jess Birkin (36:53):
Okay.
Jared Correia (36:53):
And then these guys were actually in the same movie together in I think 2000 Road Trip, which is a excellent R-rated comedy with Tom Green. Check it out kids
Jess Birkin (37:07):
Just based on the character Stiffler. I'm going with that
Jared Correia (37:13):
Guy. Yeah,
Jess Birkin (37:13):
Whatever his name
Jared Correia (37:14):
Was. That's it?
Jess Birkin (37:15):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (37:16):
Stiffer from American Pie.
Jess Birkin (37:18):
Okay.
Jared Correia (37:19):
That was American Wedding. There's not really a bad American Pie movie.
Jess Birkin (37:24):
Wait, did I get that right?
Jared Correia (37:25):
Yeah, yeah. Yes,
Jess Birkin (37:27):
Yes.
Jared Correia (37:28):
Four or five, 80%. I think this last one, I think I was teeing you up just in case this got a little rough. This is an easy one. I think it's easy. We'll see. Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. Was that the Pillsbury Doughboy? Also known as Pop Fresh, which is what my kids call me. Pretty
Jess Birkin (37:51):
Sure. It sounds like Bullwinkle
Jared Correia (37:53):
Bullwinkle Bullwinkle. Jay Moose from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota,
Jess Birkin (38:00):
Bullwinkle, Rocky and Bullwinkle. Come on. That's the easy one right
Jared Correia (38:05):
There. Yeah, that's why. Okay, good. I'm glad you know Rocky and Bullwinkle because sometimes it's face are
Jess Birkin (38:09):
Just barely, what is this? So Saturday mornings? Absolutely.
Jared Correia (38:13):
Okay. I got to say you smoked that pole Trivia six. I didn't
Jess Birkin (38:19):
A hundred percent six. Which makes me sad as a type A overachiever lawyer person, but it's okay.
Jared Correia (38:25):
We'll have you back on.
Jess Birkin (38:28):
Can redeem myself.
Jared Correia (38:29):
You can redeem
Jess Birkin (38:30):
Yourself. Get a perfect score.
Jared Correia (38:31):
Just keep coming back on until we
Jess Birkin (38:32):
Get 'em. All right. Did I pass the chorea bar exam? That's what I feel like I just ran the gauntlet on.
Jared Correia (38:37):
Yeah, you did. Now your assignment from here is just to watch the whole series of American Pie movies and we'll talk again.
Jess Birkin (38:44):
Okay, very good.
Jared Correia (38:46):
Thanks for coming on. Be Back.
Jess Birkin (38:48):
Thanks for having me. Super fun.
Jared Correia (38:50):
Thank you. Thanks for our latest guest, Jess Birkin, a Birkin Law office. To learn more about Birkin Law Office, visit birkin law.com, B-I-R-K-E-N law.com. Birkin law.com. Now, because I'll always be a nineties kid trying to chat you up on a OL instant messenger in the dark of night 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 for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is all Minnesota. Nice. I've got songs featuring only artists from Minnesota, of which there are a lot actually, and it's sponsored by Land O'Lakes Butter. Oh yeah. Just rub that shit in. I'm just kidding. By the way, land O'Lakes butter hasn't sponsored shit, but I wish they would hit me up. I'm sure they can get past that sensual ad Reath. Join us next time when I'll jump 53 cars on a moped. Actually, that's unlikely to happen. Okay, 52 then.