00:00 Jack Zinda Foreign. Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I'll be your host. Hey, everybody. Jack Zenda here. And today I've got Max Massey with me. Not Max Macy or Max Macy. And Max is one of our hot shot, newly travelers, just coming across his first trial. What was the result in Your first trial? 00:37 Max Massey $15.4 million. 00:39 Jack Zinda That's a pretty great way to start the career. 00:41 Max Massey I. I would say so. It sets the bar high. There's a. There's an old Steve Harvey quote that it's. You should always do first class at least one time. 00:48 Jack Zinda Yeah. 00:49 Max Massey Just to see what that life is like so that there's always motivation when you have to walk by it. And so getting to deal with one of the partners, Neil Solomon, and one of the amazing associates, Ben Avos. 01:01 Jack Zinda I like how you're doing the end. 01:02 Max Massey Of the credit because I mean, it. It truly was inspiring just to see how diligent, how meticulous, and just how incredible they were throughout the whole process. It was inspiring and frankly, it just raised the bar for everyone else here. 01:16 Jack Zinda Yeah, I mean, it was a great result. And we're going to do a whole episode on that. Max came in at the perfect time. The first case he tries with our firm is a home run out of the park. And he put in a ton of time to that case. So that was pretty awesome. That's great. And Max has a little bit of background in reporting, so he's going to join us on the podcast today to help interview me and maybe answer some questions himself. And we got these from a collection of different places. Some were listener questions that were emailed in. Some were from social media, some came from attorneys in the firm at all hands. And so hopefully some of these will be helpful. 01:49 Jack Zinda I have not looked at these ahead of time, and Max is kind of picking at random which ones we're going to go through. So, Max, what are we going to do first? 01:56 Max Massey I'm going to actually jump right off the diving board with the $15.4 million verdict. 02:01 Jack Zinda All right, let's do it. 02:02 Max Massey It's something you kind of talked about in the all hands. That really resonated with me was this wasn't just a week of hard work. This was more than three years of doing all of the little things. 02:12 Jack Zinda Right? Yeah. 02:13 Max Massey So for other attorneys out there, what are some of the important little things that have stuck out to you throughout the course of this? 02:19 Jack Zinda Yeah, that's a great question. So the first is for every case we have a monthly review of that case. In that case, in that month review, we're creating a game plan that leads to the next month set of actions. And we make sure we record those well, we make sure that we put those into the system so we can execute them on the next time. And we're always keeping an eye on trial. So the other thing that we do that's a small thing that really is important is we will first make a list of everybody who could be a person of interest in the case. So what are all the details? Who are the witnesses, who are, what are the non economic damages, what are the pain and suffering people we should talk to? 02:53 Jack Zinda And if you took our trial system, our case system, and you kind of laid it across the table, you'd see five or six different series of checklists and plans that help you stay on track. And there's one for the initial part of the case that's owned by the lead trial lawyer and the pre litigation legal assistant. Then you have the litigation game plan that's owned by the lead trawler, the associate and the paralegal which lists witnesses to call depots to take. And then within the litigation plan you have a trial checklist, 120 days out, 90, 60. And then you have an expert designation plan and a discovery plan. And each one of those is its own discrete plan. And we really focus on keeping the pace going and keeping the defense on the defensive. 03:35 Jack Zinda But to do that at each stage you really have to break down who's going to do what and make sure each person is accountable for that. And I look at each part of that is really adding a lot of value to the case. Because if you take just liability and you don't maximize it there, you're going to miss out. Or if you just maximize liability, you're going to miss out on damages. If you don't know what witnesses to call, you're not going to be prepared for trial. So each stage it's really important and that's why we don't put a lot of cases on each team and we have four people on each team. And honestly I could go into this for know, three or four hours and so thank you for that question. 04:12 Jack Zinda But it really is a team effort in its details and just an example of like where maximizing details matter. So for example, if I'm talking about non economic damages, one way to do it would be just to send the client an email, say hey, please tell me people that can testify. An approach we like to take is we'll interview the client and we'll say, okay, let's go through the before and after. You're like, before and after this happens, and we don't start it when the incident occurred, we'll start, you know, maybe the month has occurred. Walk through what was a typical day, what was a typical week? Like, what did they like to do when they got up in the morning, what did they like to do? Fun. Who did they see? 04:48 Jack Zinda And as we're talking about that, we're making a list of witnesses and people that saw them before this incident occurred. Co workers. And because a lot of times clients won't have people off the top of the head, they could be non economic damages witnesses. So we're making that list. We've lived their life, we know what makes them happy, what they enjoy doing. Then we go to the incident itself and we do a thing called scene setting where we're talking to the client, we're saying, okay, you're at the scene, what do you see, what do you hear, what do you smell, what do you feel? Those types of emotions, those types of feelings are what brings out the story for the jury because you're really making a movie and telling a story. So that's the scene setting part. 05:26 Jack Zinda Now we're in the aftermath and I really try to take the incident itself and make it a very long story. You know, you don't want to minimize what your client's been through. So, you know, may go the scariness of the airbag going off, was there glass on them? What did they hear? What did they feel? Were they trapped? What did they feel in the ambulance when they were strapped down, when they went to the emergency room, they had to call their spouse when their spouse showed up panicking, all those different things and emotions they're going through. And then we go to the after. And it's the same type of thing where we tell a narrative story from when they left the hospital to where they're at now. But again, we're talking about what can't they do? 06:04 Jack Zinda What, what's their life now, the before and after. And this takes a day, sometimes two days, three days. But it's worth it because you really have a great story of her case. You have your witnesses, you have her evidence, and that's something that if you've done this a long time, you just might have memorized. But we have that down in a checklist and that lets us make sure we don't miss. Anything. So that's just some of it. Right. And you saw hands on how much work goes into a trauma. You and Ben probably were put in, you know, 18 hour days that week of. 06:34 Max Massey I want to highlight the non economics, not only the, you know, how your life has changed, but the witnesses and just how an important part that they played. 06:44 Jack Zinda Yeah. 06:44 Max Massey Because honestly from my perspective, hearing from a co worker of Chris. Chris and also hearing from his mom, that resonated the most with the jury. So how do you know if a non economic witness is going to be good or not? 07:00 Jack Zinda That's a great question. I first start with the credibility test. So I kind of think of what's their bio. Right. I always think, you know, in generic terms, I want a boss, you know, I want a best friend, I want a priest. So. And you want to stack credibility. So the least credible. The least credible people in the case are the clients and family members of the client. And why do you think that is? 07:24 Max Massey They're biased. 07:25 Jack Zinda Right. 07:26 Max Massey They're gonna say that you were the best person in the world and that you were the most injured. 07:30 Jack Zinda Yeah. And you have to realize jurors are very distrusting of the plaintiffs in most cases because they've been trained by insurance companies that it's a lottery ticket and people are faking this stuff to get rich. So the family members have a financial incentive in the juror's mind to lie. So you want to use them last typically. So I kind of think, okay, their employer is probably going to be very credible. Right. They have no reason to lie. And if their employer can come say one of the hardest workers I ever had. And I kind of think each witness you want to tell a story about the client. Now when it comes to credible, they don't have to be great public speakers, but you want to make sure that one will they appear, you know, reasonably well. 08:14 Jack Zinda You don't get to pick all of the witnesses you get in the case. We want to make sure they appear reasonably well and that they don't have a terrible criminal history and that they can tell at least one compelling story of either before or after. And a lot of times it doesn't have to be the after. They can just talk about what was like before. You know, for example, a really good friend who happens to be a school teacher and they went hunting all the time. That's a great before story. There's no reason for this person to lie. And then as you stack the credibility up, you go from most credible to least credible. So you know, you might go boss, you know, friend, then maybe the surgeon, then their spouse. 08:54 Jack Zinda And then by the time you get to the client, they can actually be not a great testifier, but they're going to believe everything that this person says. So maybe the best friend said they never complain, man. He, I saw him go through a heck of a lot with a knee injury and he had four surgeries and the guy barely said anything, but I knew he was going through a hell of a lot. And so when your client, if they don't testify well and don't, you know, explain non economic damage or what they're going through, that credibility is built up and it really adds on to it at the end. 09:22 Max Massey It's funny because it's so many of going back to the little things that we just don't learn in law school. 09:29 Jack Zinda Yeah. 09:30 Max Massey And so to see it all build up and to see how each one played such an integral part and to be honest, how it distinguished us from the competition. 09:39 Jack Zinda Yeah. 09:40 Max Massey Was just amazing to see and it was funny. So I'm going to give a shout out to St. Mary's Law. 09:44 Jack Zinda Yeah, let's hear it. 09:45 Max Massey They, they did just win the national competition for ABA negotiations. 09:51 Jack Zinda Awesome. That's great. 09:52 Max Massey They're getting ready. 09:53 Jack Zinda You did that, right? 09:54 Max Massey Yes. 09:54 Jack Zinda And then there's a little plug there. 09:57 Max Massey There you go. Go rattlers. But they're getting ready for client counseling and I've been talking to some of the members of the team as they get ready and they're all starting to hit that point with like, we need a job, but we also want to start studying for the bar. So when you start bringing in candidates or you start looking around, you know, what are some things that you look for in law students? 10:16 Jack Zinda That's a great question. You know, and I will tell you some things we don't look at really closely. One is, I'm not obsessed with what law school you went to. I think that can be an indicator of something, but to me it's not a very definitive determinant factor. I'm looking for certain qualities that make you a good personal injury. The first is what I call the couch test. Like, would you feel comfortable going into a lower middle income house or a lower income house sitting on the couch with your client and just like having a beer, talking about life, going through their photo album, or would you kind of feel like I'm uncomfortable? You know, I'd rather be in a boardroom wearing a suit. So that's one piece. The other is I look for people that are competitive. 10:58 Jack Zinda And, you know, they have something in their background that shows a level of competition. It could be sports, it could be, you know, competitions in law school. It could be your competitive runner. One of our attorneys is like super iron man person. Like, you know, I think Evan's 150 mile races, something that shows you're competitive. And then grit is another one. Because it's so difficult to do a practice area where you don't get paid till the end. Right. When you were working those late nights on that case, there's not a way to determine if this hour is like, worth it or not. She's like, and you can always do a little bit more, do a little bit better. And so you have to have that energy, that grit to kind of battle through and have that perseverance. 11:38 Jack Zinda Like, I want to do this to get the W right. The other is a real strong ability to problem solve. You see how many things you deal with that are. Some are legal, some are problem solving with clients, some are logistical. So being able to problem solve well and the ability to reason well and use the law well. You know, I find a lot of law students, unfortunately don't know how to get good legal answers. They'll bring you something back and you're like, no, this isn't quite right. You're missing something. So I think the ability to research and answer the law well is really important as well. Also. 12:10 Max Massey Yeah. The I, I like the couch test because I've never heard that before. 12:15 Jack Zinda Yeah. But it could mean a lot of things. Yeah. After the me too movement, that's a, that's dangerous. I should probably delete that from our application. Yeah. It's not in the application, you know, saying, would you pass the couch test? 12:27 Max Massey But I like the problem solving because a lot of this job, especially when it is not necessarily legal oriented or if it's, you know, medical bills or dealing with adjusters, it's just your job is to get this done. 12:38 Jack Zinda Yeah. 12:39 Max Massey And it's a lot of perseverance. So. So I guess when you're looking at applications or you're interviewing someone, how do you know that they have that like, it factor? 12:48 Jack Zinda Yeah, that's. I mean, what I'll say, it's important to get your resume in front of the decision maker. I'll tell my story real quick just because I want to talk about myself some more. So when I was in law school, I was going to Baylor and I had some clerkships in East Texas and Houston. My girlfriend, now wife, was in Austin. So I turned those down. I said, I'll just get a job in Austin for the summer. I came here, and I could not get a job anywhere. I applied to 150 law firms, and I was waiting table at Wildfire in Georgetown, and I hated myself because I was. I was like, all right, I graduated college. I'm never setting food in a restaurant again to wait tables or wash dishes or cook. And so I basically stocked this one firm. 13:30 Jack Zinda I kept sending them stuff, and. And he said, listen, I don't have a job for you, but I'll put it on the Williamson county listserv. And he posted it on there. And then I got a call from a practitioner in Round Rock, and he called me in for an interview. And I'm getting the clerkship, you know, making eight bucks an hour, and it. Working there, it all works out. But I. I tell that story is like, I was shameless. Like, if you want a job, be shameless. I guarantee you I've never been mad at someone for applying to me times. Jason Aldrich, who's a partner here, literally applied seven times. And on the seventh time, I was like, I will interview this guy. He will not stop applying because his resume didn't have what I was looking for. 14:07 Jack Zinda But when I met him, I was like, oh, this guy is awesome. He's been an army ranger. He's, you know, blackjack dealer, like, you know, crap sealer, whatever. It was like, get a really cool background. So getting your resume in front of the decision maker is really important, I'll tell you. You know, we use a digital system and, you know, for every job opening, we might get 300 applicants. And if we find a really awesome one in the first hundred years, might not even get seen. So mail it in, drop it off in person. I have a rule. Like, I probably shouldn't say this. Like, if you drop it off in person, I make sure we look at it and we vet you. So getting in front of someone's really helpful. Now, what's. What's on the paper? 14:48 Jack Zinda I would say, you know, if you're going to do a cover letter, make it meaningful. I almost, like, subtract points when I see a cover letter I knew they used for everybody else because it just. I don't know. You should send a cover letter. But it almost says, like, why bother? Like, so. But when I see one, hey, this is why I want to be a personal injury lawyer. This is why I want to be part of your firm. That can be really helpful on the resume itself, you know, Try to find stuff that makes you unique or special. You know, is there a sport you play? Is what sort of blue. I always like to know what blue collar jobs people had. That's usually not on the resume, but I like to see. Did you deal in customer service? 15:27 Max Massey Yeah. 15:29 Jack Zinda Have you shown an interest in litigation or this before? If you run a really compelling cover letter that explains how you can help the law firm and why you want to do it, that can be really helpful, too. So trying to think of examples. Like if I see someone played a Division 3 sport or Division 2 or Division 1, you know, the reason I say Division 3 is like, it's kind of like all the work, none of the glory. Yeah. 15:48 Max Massey Do you have any experience in that? 15:50 Jack Zinda Yeah, exactly. I called it volunteer basketball. Yeah. You know, like, one thing that attracted me on your resume is you were on the roaming team, right. At Penn State. 15:58 Max Massey Yep. 15:59 Jack Zinda I keep saying you were the captain. Were you the captain? I was the guy. All right, you were the captain. I was hoping that was right. And that is a gritty sport. It's like you're just, you know, you have to get up early in the morning, you have to work really hard. The other thing is you worked during law school, which was also really appealing because it means you can juggle a lot of stuff. And you'd been a reporter, which is really cool. It shows your ability to talk in front of people. So, like, those three things there were really attractive to me. You know, the awards in law school, I would never do with that. I think you should include them. But, like, I want to see if you've done, like, a competition is helpful. Helpful to see the review. 16:36 Jack Zinda Journals are on, but there's so many now. It's not as impressive as it used to be, you know? 16:41 Max Massey No, that makes sense. So I want to go back to the. The Division 3. 16:44 Jack Zinda Can I have one more tip real quick? Remember, if you have bad grades, don't put them on there. I know people say to include it, but that just at my firm, I would probably not put them. That's me. I follow the advice of whatever your career counselor tells you. But sometimes I'll get one that'll be like, I was 84 out of, like 130, you know, I would probably just, like, not put it and hope it's over soon. 17:04 Max Massey That's. 17:04 Jack Zinda That's my call. 17:05 Max Massey So if you're applying this into law group, don't put your drink. 17:08 Jack Zinda Well, we'll get them, but maybe we'll miss it. 17:12 Max Massey So. So basketball. 17:13 Jack Zinda Yeah. 17:13 Max Massey You play Division 3 basketball. Right. 17:15 Jack Zinda Okay. 17:16 Max Massey So I guess what did you take away from that? Knowing that you weren't gonna play in the NBA? 17:19 Jack Zinda Yeah. 17:20 Max Massey Still going to the hard practices, playing till you're essentially blue in the face. 17:24 Jack Zinda Yeah, yeah. I mean, for what we do as lawyers, especially trialers, the competitive nature of it is really like, I think that's critical. And what we do is not, you know, glorified a lot of times it's the stuff you do when no one's watching. And that was a big part of that experience and having to juggle all that stuff. And Division 3 is usually rigorous academically. And in my school at least the professors did not like that you played a sport. It was kind of the opposite of the glory. They're kind of annoyed that they had to like give you a special test time so you had to kind of that extra drive to do it. The competitive nature I think in the hard work is really the key. I mean, I squeezed every ounce of athleticism this body was able to get. 18:06 Jack Zinda I think I should have been like a shot footer or like move boulders or something. But like my body was not designed naturally. Basketball. I didn't realize that until like high school. 18:15 Max Massey Did you ever duck? 18:17 Jack Zinda I could duck, yes, briefly, for a couple years. 18:19 Max Massey You were good then. 18:20 Jack Zinda Yeah, there you go. Exactly. Yeah. 18:21 Max Massey In my mind that's the line of demarcation. 18:24 Jack Zinda I'll tell you a funny story. So I've got a 11 year old and when he was younger, I was his hero. I'm still his hero. But he asked me one time, he's like, dad, so you chose to go to law school instead of the mba and he's like five? I'm like, yeah, that was God's calling. God wanted me to be a lawyer. And I, I have not lied. Right. There was a decision that was made by someone and then fast forward a couple years and he's like, dad, what's division three? Oh, damn. 18:53 Max Massey He figured it out. 18:53 Jack Zinda He figured it out. And then like the same time that year later, he's like, you're the best player on your team and I'm still good friends a lot of my buddies who were on the team. I said, well, don't ask your Uncle John. But, but yes, I was, don't have that, don't ask anybody else. But yeah, but that was not true. There's some really good players on the team. But it's funny how like you're went down a few notches after that. That's fair. 19:22 Jack Zinda If you'd like A copy of any of the things you heard about here today, or to set up a time to talk one about one of our team members about a case, please go to Zendalaw IO and we have amazing resources, downloads, guides, and you can set up a time to talk to us if you want to talk about how we handle things or any case in particular. 19:46 Max Massey So after you got the internship, after you started, how did you really start scaling up? Because even, you know, when I jumped on, we had 15 to 20 attorneys. You don't just start with 15, 20 attorneys. 19:57 Jack Zinda No. Well, I think the first thing is you have to know where you're going to get to. And when you say scaling, you have to first determine for yourself what does that mean. For me, some of the best trollers in the country are, you know, teams of two. And scaling to them meant bigger and bigger cases that they're working on. So to them, the path might be, hey, I'm going to, you know, go on the speaking circuit. I'm going to spend more time marketing myself. If you're trying to scale by people first, like, how much money do you want to make? And work your way backwards from there. And I would say you need to be really good at financials or at least have someone who you can rely on that is. 20:35 Jack Zinda Because where a lot of attorneys get into trouble is they hire someone, they don't have enough work or they can't cash flow the person to be there very long, and then they let them go, and then they wash, rinse and repeat that process. So the one way to know if you need to scale is like, are you feeling busier than you should be? Like, do you feel like a little overloaded? And then what's the type of work that I need someone to do? For me personally, we had a plan. So if we wanted to B2 in three, five years. And I was working my way backwards from that plan and I had mapped out how many cases I needed, how many attorneys I needed, what were the different roles that people were going to do. 21:13 Jack Zinda And I'm kind of a nut when it comes to analytics. So I broke it down all the way to, you know, how many demands we need to set, how many lawsuits, who's going to draft the lawsuits, who's going to draft the demands. And that gave me a widget to track to see, okay, here, now let's move to the next level. But I would say cash flow is really key, especially when you contingency fee. And I actually advise a Lot of people to try to team up with either an hourly lawyer at first or someone that has cash coming in, or get someone to fund you so you can have a year where you don't need a lot of cash, because that's what kills most PI firms. You don't get paid for a decent amount of time. 21:48 Jack Zinda And if you don't have a way to get revenue, otherwise, it can be really a struggle. 21:51 Max Massey It's funny going back to the. I keep going back to the $50.4 million case, and that's important because the banners just went up on LinkedIn. So I'm loving it. But it doesn't happen in six months. Yeah, that's over the course of years. And to even wait for it to go into the investigations, the depositions, it costs money. 22:09 Jack Zinda Yeah, for sure. 22:10 Max Massey And so did you ever have, I don't want to say a breaking point, but a point where you were unsure of the decision to go out on your own? 22:18 Jack Zinda You know, I don't think I was ever unsure about the decision, but it is very stressful. So, you know, the key to scaling up is you have to have enough cases that one is always hitting. So if you have 10 cases, and let's say, you know, some take three years, some take two years, some take one year, some take six months, all of those 10 might take a year and a half, just because that's how long they take. That also diminishes the value of your case if you have to sell them for cash flow. And that's kind of a dirty secret that a lot of lawyers don't talk about, is if you don't have the cash flow to stay the distance. This case was almost four years, right. And we spent over $200,000. 22:53 Jack Zinda If we didn't have the same power, it would be difficult to go take this case to trial. I was nervous, like, hey, if we lose this case, we're going to go out of business. You can't go all the way, but when you get to a certain number of cases, you can have more consistent cash flow. You know, so there have been times where I've been super stressed. I remember, like, you know, cutting my first case expense for $4,000 and be really stressed out, like. Like, is this a good idea or not? In other times where I've hired a really expensive attorney and they didn't work out, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, no, I'm not gonna make any money on these cases for a while, and I have to get a new person. 23:28 Jack Zinda But the Reason I haven't ever been to the point I need to like turn in the keys is cash flow. Cash is king. And always making sure I have enough cash for three, four, five, six months of expenses. So when things get tight and I haven't over leveraged myself. So I think that was that helpful. That was incredibly helpful. All right, good. 23:45 Max Massey No, it's a lot of strategy. 23:47 Jack Zinda Pat myself on the back. 23:48 Max Massey And obviously, you know, you're at the point where if there is a bad month, it's not the end of the world. But in the beginning, you know, how did you handle those bad months? 23:57 Jack Zinda Yeah, I mean, so I teamed up with an hourly. I had some hourly attorneys with me at the time. So that was helpful. And the way I try to structure it at all times is like, what is the worst I can do? And what is like, pretty good. And I can't ever go below the worst. And hopefully I go above the best and always make sure I could be within that range. I've also, you know, the way I've gotten cases has been through referrals and also through digital marketing, which has allowed me to spend more or less on the fly. And I look for areas where I can scale up, scale down. And then when you're talking about with your team, you want to try them to have a lot of incentive basis for the attorneys comp. 24:34 Jack Zinda So you're all winning if you're winning and you're all losing if you're losing. So you try to have as many things that when things are going well, you're fine. And when things are going bad, the costs go down. So that's a way to kind of mitigate that. Okay, that makes sense. 24:48 Max Massey Kind of have those buffers. 24:49 Jack Zinda Yeah, those buffers. Yeah. 24:50 Max Massey Yeah, that makes sense. So I gotta say, I don't know if we said this in the last one, but I ran into Jack and his beautiful family at the park. 24:56 Jack Zinda Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, Zilker Park. 24:58 Max Massey And so it seems like you guys, you spend a lot of quality time together. You go on great vacations. How do you manage, you know, all the stress of managing the firm, diving into cases, dealing with all the different departments with a. A great home life. 25:12 Jack Zinda Yeah, I mean, I would say that has been something that everybody struggles with. And I used to be a lot worse at it. The first thing I realized is there's a diminishing return on your time. And so it hit me. You. I used to work like from 7 till like 6:30, then go home, hang out with my wife for like an hour and then work out, then get back to work from like 10 to like 1am and that's one, that's not healthy, right? And two, I realized, like, I wasn't getting the most out of myself. Like, I remember taking a day off to go on a trip and were outside, I think we either skiing or hiking. And I had the best, like, breakthroughs on what I need to do for the business in that time frame. 25:56 Jack Zinda And it started hitting me like, you know, every hour is not equal to every hour. And so trying to figure out, like, what is my limit to when I'm getting a diminishing return on my investment of time. So that's the first thing. The second is figure out what's important for you to do as the owner of the firm and in your practice and carve out time for that specific thing. So I use meetings a lot as being ways to ensure I hit certain issues. So I have a top five meeting with Neil, one of our partners, every month, and we go through the top five cases on his docket because that's super important. So that time is definitely carved out for. And then I have a client meeting with Christian, our head of marketing, every week because that's really important. 26:35 Jack Zinda And then other meetings that are not as important that I will knock off if I can't get to them. And there's a phrase called let it burn that I got from Reid Hoffman. And the idea is, as an entrepreneur and as a traveler, you have to be comfortable letting some things burn, which means they're not doing it ideally, but they're not mission critical to your success. So, for example, you know, maybe the medical records department is like a 75, right? It would be great if it was at a 90, but that's not going to make or break us. What's going to make or break us if I get enough cases or if we get the alien case tried. So it's kind of focusing on that. 27:12 Jack Zinda The other thing is, I think you have to psychologically decide as a human how important is my family to me. And this is not just. It's like really some soul searching. Everyone says the line, my family is very important to me. But like, where do you put them in your priority list? And you have to put that time in first before you put in the other stuff, you know, and what's the minimum amount of time that you're willing to put into that relationship? And that's where I think a lot of attorneys and a lot of people that don't spend Enough time with their family. Haven't had that. True. Like, come to Jesus with themselves. Like, because sometimes when they have more free time, they're not putting the time there. Maybe go with friends or something else. 27:47 Jack Zinda So it's kind of making that decision also of doing that. I mean, also, I still suck at it a lot of times. It is stressful. You know, I take. I do travel quite a bit, but I only take one vacation a year where I check out, you know, so I'm usually working when I'm traveling. Like, we're going skiing next week, Thursday through Sunday. But I will be, you know, working a little in the morning and at night, Thursday and Friday, and then, you know, probably not working Saturday. So it's kind of balancing those two. 28:16 Max Massey Okay, that makes me feel better because I'm. I pride myself on being the last one in the office. And I'm like, just checking to see if your light's on. 28:22 Jack Zinda I'm like, he has family. Well, dude, I will tell you a couple things. If you're a new attorney, one that does work, right. And it doesn't mean you have to always do it, but it's sending signals that I'm a hard worker. Now, I don't believe putting on shows, but showing your team that, hey, I'm going to go the extra mile, I'm going to work extra hard, is a way to differentiate yourself in this current workforce. I'm not one that says, like, the new generation's all lazy, but I think they are a lot more transactional in their jobs and they're going to work the amount that you request of them, but maybe not more than that. So if you can stand out that way, that's really helpful. Now I think there comes a point where you don't need to do that anymore, right? 29:03 Jack Zinda Like, once you've earned the trust of your team, you know, talk to them, say, hey, I'm doing a lot of work at home. Is that okay? Right. You know, if it's Friday at 3, I'm gonna go work the rest of the day at my house. So I have to be here till 6 or 7. And I think it's important to let people, you know, not be tied to the desk being the office all the time. Like, we do a 3, 2 hybrid, right? And that's where we trust the metrics and I trust my eyes, right. If. If you were getting a work product out and you weren't getting anything done and you were saying he'll till 10, you're not impressing me. So. But I Think you got to have that balance, especially as what we do as personal injury lawyers. 29:39 Jack Zinda One, you'll be a miserable person if you don't. And two, like, I don't think you'll be as good of a lawyer because you're not going to be able to tell those stories. I've been so much better of a lawyer since I became a parent. And you know, it's funny, you realize, like, who would be a good juror on this case? Not good. You're on the case. And sometimes cases with kids, parents are the worst because moms will judge other moms. Right. They're like, I would have done this differently versus a single person. Like, oh, that seems terrible. Why did this person do this? So you know, it makes you a better lawyer too. 30:07 Max Massey Okay, that's good. So, so for any young lawyers, listening, earn the respect first. 30:12 Jack Zinda Yeah, exactly. And, and it's just about sending signals like you don't want to be obnoxious about it, but how do you tell your law firm that you're a hard worker? Maybe it's not stay until the boss leaves, but maybe it's like, hey, you did three times as much work as this other person. And I've gotten used to people doing, you know, average. And so when you can go above and beyond, you'll be amazed by how quickly you can get ahead. The other tip is put yourself out there, volunteer for all of this stuff that other people are asking to do. So, for example, I don't know if you've taken a deposition yet. Right. How many of you take it? 30:48 Max Massey Just one. 30:49 Jack Zinda Just one. So, and you haven't been here that long. Right. You clerked for us, but you probably did that because you probably volunteered. Or someone say, I need someone to take a depot. It's like, I'll do it. Yeah, get yourself out there. If a partner is going to let you work on something, it's probably not something they're worried about you breaking. Yeah, and you'll get more used to it and you become Mr. Fix it or Ms. Fix it, the person they call to do stuff. And then you become more important. Then you're part of conversations. Hey, we should promote this person. We should move them up the ladder. So make yourself useful. Kind of be noisy about, hey, I'm willing to do this or that, but make sure you do it. Don't like not do it. 31:21 Max Massey Right. I think it's such a two way street too. Because obviously partners or lead trial attorneys, they have so much in their plate. Yeah, they're trying to manage all these different cases. 31:30 Jack Zinda So. 31:30 Max Massey So it takes something off their plate so they can focus on not saying something more important, but something different. 31:35 Jack Zinda Yeah. 31:35 Max Massey And for a young attorney, I know for me, I learned best by doing it for sure. And like I can watch all the depos in the world and I can strategize and outline and do everything. But once you do it's just. You create some sort of muscle memory. 31:48 Jack Zinda Yes. What. And that's I. That is so important. Whatever way you get good at something, like, you've got to get out there and just do it. I mean, I think I've had friends of mine that are at major law firms, like, you know, whatever the top ML 100 or 50 or whatever it is. And they'll be a six year attorney and they still got taken a deposition, you know, and they're getting paid a lot of money now. It's become this thing. It's like scary. I see that with trying cases too. If you have not tried a case and you're like a 15 year lawyer, you're like, oh, now it's a big deal. Now I'm supposed to be good at. Now you've made this monster in your head. 32:22 Jack Zinda Opposed to if you try one your first year, first six months like you have, you get a lot more positive energy. Like, hey, that wasn't as bad as I thought. You know, the thing that's always surprised me about trying cases is how small the courtroom feels like in your head, it's giant. But then you get there, it's like, hey, we're just in a room and these people are here, the judge is here and we're all coming here together at the same time every day. There's not really one in the gallery. Not that many people go watch trials. So it starts feeling really small and you get loose and you get used to it and you kind of forget that it's a big deal. But if you don't get out there and do it, you won't. 32:53 Max Massey I could not agree more. From my perspective and for any young attorneys listening, just go watch a trial in person. 33:00 Jack Zinda Yeah. 33:01 Max Massey And if you're at a firm or at anywhere, just see if you can join any attorneys who are trying case. Because it does give you such a different perspective. It's almost like getting behind the curtain and like the odds. 33:15 Jack Zinda Yeah. Wizard Rose. Yeah. 33:16 Max Massey Yeah. And so just understanding that it is just a conversation. And most of the time law school and leading up to the trial, you are prepared. 33:25 Jack Zinda Yeah. 33:25 Max Massey As like nerve wracking it could be. And to your point, it is such a smaller courtroom. 33:30 Jack Zinda Well, you know, it's crazy too. I remember in law school went to see a pellet argument. They brought the Texas Supreme Court to Baylor. And I was so unimpressed with the people arguing because I was in moot court and were super polished. And the, It's a really like, aggressive law school. If you screw anything up, the professor will dock you a letter grade, kick you out of class. And that's all these, like practitioners arguing really important cases. Not prepared. Like, like not having their notes handy. Don't know the answer to question. So if you prepare, you'll do well. Like, and you have to go out there and watch people do it. That's a really good tip. Like, go down and watch people and see how you compare to them. 34:07 Max Massey Yeah. No, and for me, I know they, A lot of courtrooms, especially Harris county, they'll stream, they'll live stream their trials and if anything, it's just, you pick up on things whether it's, you know, closings or just how to interact with a judge. 34:22 Jack Zinda Yeah. 34:22 Max Massey I think that was what I was most, I don't want to say fearful of, but just interacting with the judge. Yeah. Especially objecting. And I got to see, I sat right next to Ben Abbas, one of the other associates, and I got to see him throw a few objections out there. And it was just, it was so seamless. One was very exciting, almost gave me heart attack. But it was just, it was everything that, like you said, you prepare for in moot or trial ad and all of that. So I guess, last thing for you, if someone were interested in starting their own firm. 34:54 Jack Zinda Yeah. 34:55 Max Massey You know, what piece of advice would you give them? 34:58 Jack Zinda Ask the fundamental. Why, like, why am I starting my own law firm? I think a lot of people don't know the answer to that question. And there's a lot of reasons you could start a girl firm. One could be autonomy. I want to have freedom and not have a boss at all. I could want a lifestyle business. I want to. I, I knew a guy who coached elite soccer, kids, elite soccer. He played college soccer. He was also a patent lawyer. And he billed like 450 an hour. And he wanted to make just enough money to have a decent lifestyle and coach soccer. So he had his own firm. He had a book of clients. He had no paralegals. It's just him. And that's what he wanted his law firm for. A lot of people do it because they think it'll be cool. 35:36 Jack Zinda It'll be fun. And they don't think about that. So they get into it. And they hate running a business. Man, if you don't like running a business, unless you're doing what my buddy, you know, who's the patent lawyer did, it's going to be really tough. Do you want to be in charge of people? Do you want to lead people? How big do you want to get? How much money do you want? Because sometimes the answer is different. You know, you may not need to start a law firm, may need to do something else. And once you've made the decision, sit down and come up with a plan. At least your first three years. Where do I want to be? Come up with a budget so you can figure out the financials. 36:07 Jack Zinda You don't have to be great at financials, but you have a friend or a buddy who always same thing for everybody. Maybe an enemy, I don't know who is to go through with you. So you can anticipate the expenses you're gonna spend. This is great, man. Really enjoyed answering questions with you. The first one threw me for a loop a little bit, but I think I got my momentum going. So thanks everyone. If you have additional questions you want to send our way, we want to talk about a case or anything, feel free to reach out to myself or Max. We'll be here and always happy to help. Till next time, thanks. Thanks for listening today's episode of the Effective Lawyer. 36:45 Jack Zinda You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast@zendalaw.com as always, we'd appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks. 37:06 Max Massey I tore my Achilles twice and I completely understand it. If I couldn't go to the gym or work out for months at a time, I'd be a different person. 37:12 Jack Zinda It's really, you know, it's funny with stuff like that. It's like the day to day stuff that sucks the most. I tore my chest muscle like two years ago and it's a weird injury because it doesn't hurt like it, I was doing bittress and this like just kind of came off. 37:28 Max Massey It sounds incredibly painful. 37:29 Jack Zinda Yeah, it does, right? And I'm. I met in El Paso and I'm doing it and then the bar fell. In my head I thought the bar had broke. 37:39 Max Massey Yeah. 37:39 Jack Zinda Because I didn't feel anything. I felt like kind of like a, kind of a punch a little bit. And then the bar came falling down because obviously this wasn't working. 37:47 Max Massey Yeah. 37:47 Jack Zinda And I looked at the guy next to I was like, did that. Did something happen? He's like, no, you just dropped it. I was like, that was weird. It didn't hurt. I got up and I kept working out. 37:56 Max Massey Yeah. 37:57 Jack Zinda I was like, that looks kind of weird right there. And then I went to the bathroom and tried to convince myself it wasn't hurt. I was like, I think it's just a strain. And then I ran home, and my father in law is a nephrologist, not an orthopedist. And he's kind of notorious for telling his kids they don't need any treatment or anything. And I showed it to him. He's like, does it hurt him? Like, no. He's like, you'll be fine. And I called my buddy who's an orthopedic surgeon. I took a FaceTime. He's like, oh, yeah, you need surgery. Yeah. And they have to just like, attach it back on. Luckily, it was not that hard of an injury to recover from. 38:31 Max Massey Okay. 38:31 Jack Zinda But even that minor thing of having to use a sling for, like six weeks sucked, you know? And I'm like, the worst patient. I cannot sit still. 38:38 Max Massey No. 38:39 Jack Zinda I have, like, the worst, like, adhd. I cannot sit. I like, I get annoyed during movies. Like, family night. 38:45 Max Massey Yep. 38:45 Jack Zinda It's like, tranquilize me with like, vodka is like.