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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
This is Khurram with Khurram's Quoram. My guest today is Randy Gah. Randy is the cofounder of the law firm Gahpo. I found Randy through his post on LinkedIn, and I was struck by his somewhat unconventional approach thinking about and talking about the kinds of cases he litigates. In this episode, we talk about the path from big law to launch your own firm, the business of boutique law firm, case selection, strategy, a lot to cover here that'll be very interested for anyone who is looking to launch our law firm or curious about what it's like to to jump to the other side of the beat.
Khurram Naik:Here's Randy. Randy, thanks so much for getting on the podcast. I am really interested to have you on because of your path to building your own law firm. You started on Big Law, and then launched your own law firm, which has grown since then, and you're doing some interesting work. And I always think it's just really, really interesting when people leave Big Law to go to the other side of the V.
Khurram Naik:And so, excited to have you on here to share your story.
Randy Gaw:Thanks, Karam. It's very nice to meet you, and thanks for having me.
Khurram Naik:So let's start with your your motivations for launching your firm. So you had been at two great law firms, had a cinematic experience doing largely defense side commercial litigation work. I'm curious about what was the inflection point that said, hey. You know what? Any number of lawyers, I think, express curiosity in launching your own law firm, and any number of do.
Khurram Naik:In your case, can you recall any inflection points that said, you know what? I I think this is beyond just an idea. I think this is something that I I can really do, and then and start to take steps to to implement.
Randy Gaw:Yeah. Sure. I had an interesting genesis. That's for sure. Part of it was formed by the immediate experience that I had, which is in 2007 through 02/2008, I was involved in an eleven month trial down in San Diego.
Randy Gaw:I'm normally based out of San Francisco, but I was down in San Diego, and I was there for thirteen months on an eleven month bench trial, which was, as you might imagine, a lot of hard work and a fantastic experience. But one thing that I observed in my role on that case, and I was one of many senior associates, was that just the way the big law firm structure worked, the senior partners, you know, they made the decisions. And and then my specific field, you know, litigation and trial work, the senior partners are the ones who are doing all the work at trial. They're the ones who examine the witnesses, who give opening statements, closing arguments, and so on and so forth. Right?
Randy Gaw:They're they're paid the big bucks, literally, so that's that's what they do. And just kind of like game planning it out years into the future, there wasn't a path that I saw where I would be getting to do similar type work for a long period of time. And that's even assuming that, you know, I was made partner, which, of course, the odds are pretty difficult, you know, at a large law firm. Not only do you have to, you know, impress the partnership, but there has to be a business case for you. And in my particular field, business litigation, it wasn't it wasn't like I had a any particular specialty or novel set of skills that I can make a case for myself.
Randy Gaw:So just kind of looking at it all, it was a situation where, well, I don't know if I would make partner. But even if I may partner, I don't know if I would feel fulfilled necessarily for a long period of time. Because if you do litigation, you wanna be in front of a jury. You wanna be in front of the judge getting to make the arguments, getting to examine witnesses, and so forth, and that wasn't looking like it would happen to me, at least at the firm, you know, that I was with at the time. So I embarked on, you know, a period of reflection, thinking about what is it that I want, what how do I go about getting what I want, and kind of serendipitously around that period of time, so we're now in 02/2009, there were one or two articles written in the local media legal media about attorneys like me, big law firm lawyers who had ventured off and started their own solo practices or boutique law firms, and I read those articles.
Randy Gaw:I knew some of the people who were involved. Some of them were my former colleagues. So I reached out to them to gather their thoughts. What's your experience been like? Do you find it rewarding and so forth?
Randy Gaw:And one thing led to another, and ultimately, I decided to take the plunge, I guess, so to speak, and do my own thing.
Khurram Naik:What was it you learned from those former colleagues that helped you wrap your head around how they're approaching their their firms and and and your approach? Like, what what was it that that you learned that said, okay. There's a plan here, and I can act on it.
Randy Gaw:Well, I learned that, one, it's doable. Right? So there were all these people who were doing it, who were lawyers first, and who had become entrepreneurs out of necessity. And it was a kind of an intimidating idea for me initially because I don't consider myself a business person. But to kinda see these people go through with it and to thrive, you know, that was very reassuring.
Randy Gaw:And I think, you know, other than just sort of talking logistics and and other things that kind of go involved into starting a law firm, which I was, you know, wholly ignorant about, just hearing all of these people talk about the extreme satisfaction that they felt with the decision that they made. I mean, these were people who had taken ownership of their careers and were doing what they wanted to do, who were getting their own clients, who were going to court, who were making money. You know? Everything that, at the time, I was thinking, is this even possible for me? You know?
Randy Gaw:These people who had gone ahead and done it ahead of me, they showed me it is indeed possible, and it's something you can actually be good at despite not having any prior experience in that in those areas. Mhmm.
Khurram Naik:Did that in terms of implementing next steps, what takeaways did you have for, okay, here's the tangible next steps after you had those conversations? Like, what what came next from that?
Randy Gaw:Well, for me personally, the main next step for me after talking to people learning from them that it can be you know, and and deciding that this is something that I definitely wanted to pursue was to really more look into the business side of things, like, what does it take to open a law firm? And and I would say I spent, like, the better part of a year just looking into these things, looking at, you know, the difference between a solo practice versus a professional corporation or limited liability partnership, looking into legal software, cloud software, you know, to run the business, modeling out things like, well, how much do I need to charge? What are my expenses? I mean, stuff that I think business folks probably would just say, oh, yeah. That's, you know, intuitive.
Randy Gaw:You would do this all the time. But at least for me, you know, as as a non business person, it wasn't necessarily intuitive. And so I spent time just learning and reading up about what it is to open a business. What do you have to do? Why should you do x instead of doing y?
Randy Gaw:And there was actually a very, very helpful book by an author named Carolyn Elephant, who I believe that's her name, who had her own has her own solo practice in Washington DC. And she wrote a work book, I think it's called solo by choice. And it's it was highly recommended by multiple people. And I read it, and it was very it was just had great advice, you know, about what it is you need to do, what you need to think about, and why, you know, you should go into solo practice if if that is what you want to do. So, you know, a lot of research for me, which is kind of, I would say, very consistent with sort of my approach to the practice of law in the first place.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. Okay. So you took this very research intensive approach, which as you say, I think it's it's very common among experienced litigators. And it's interesting because it this theme of making of of a business mindset as being novel was it just is keeps on coming up here. And so then how did you take that leap from how'd you say, I've done enough research.
Khurram Naik:Now I have to act.
Randy Gaw:Well, you just kind of, like, give yourself a deadline for doing things, right, to force yourself into action, because inertia is powerful. It's very easy to just keep sliding along and and doing what you're doing, but you kinda give yourself a deadline for for getting something done, and, you know, it's very motivating. And in my particular case, I was actually coming on my tenth law school anniversary. I went to I went to Stanford and graduated in 02/2002. September, I think, 2012 September 2012, I think, was my ten year reunion.
Randy Gaw:And so it just kind of intuitively made sense. Hey. I wanna have started this by the time of my tenth reunion, which I was definitely going towards to and, and so that was a motivating to kind of get things done. By then I actually launched on 09/01/2012. And in my particular case, also, my wife, you know, she gave birth to our first child on in January 2012.
Randy Gaw:And so that actually kind of originally, I was thinking, oh, maybe I might want to launch in late twenty eleven. But I kind of realized, you know, that might be just a little too much on my plate, you know, juggling so many things. So, you know, the the firm that I was with, O'Melving and Myers, had a very generous paternity leave policy, so I took advantage of that. And, you know, they're very good about sort of, like, getting people, you know, time to you know, take time off to you know, for for children and so forth. So I I took advantage of that and then kind of, like, just gradually sort of worked up to the point of of, you know, launching in September 2012.
Khurram Naik:You know, I'm struck with that. So I also launched my business when my first child was pretty young. And, yeah, I ran this by a very successful lawyer. And, you know, he said, you know, really, changes come all at once, and so they're they're really associated with each other and and feed into each other. How did you find that?
Khurram Naik:That because that's a hell of a lot in your plate at once. Like, how did you experience that? Do you feel like there's a momentum effect to going through all these changes? Like, what was that like?
Randy Gaw:I'm sure psychologically that had something to do with it, right? I mean, if you're changing one thing, why not change other things you've been meaning to do all at once? It's sort of like, if you're remodeling, well, just don't remodel a room. If you want to have all these other changes, assuming you can afford it, like, do it all at once. Get it get it over with.
Randy Gaw:For me, also, it was recognition that if I waited too long after my kid was born, I would become risk averse because, like, alright. There are I have an additional person, you know, that I have to now think of. I have to think of their future, provide for them, and I might not want to take chances at that point. And so taking the leap now, before I had any kind of concrete expectations, before I had settled into something where I need to sustain a certain minimum lifestyle, you know, that was the time to do it before it was before I'd scared myself into thinking that it was too late. And, you know, as it turned out, you know, because I, you know, I didn't have any clients to start.
Randy Gaw:I'd I'd certainly made no effort to poach, you know, firm clients or anything like that. I wanted to kind of do things the right way. You know, the first, like, couple of months were certainly, like, extremely slow, and really, like, I didn't it took, like, a full year to kind of ramp up to full capacity, which gave me the free time to basically spend with my wife and my firstborn. You know? Like, I could leave work early most days and just kind of enjoy the time, enjoy watching him grow, kind of, like, you know, take advantage of a period probably that I'll never have again in my career where there were very low there was a very low pressure environment.
Randy Gaw:There were very low expectations. And, you I could just sort of, like, be I could just exist without worrying too much.
Khurram Naik:Tell me about what that ramp up period like. So it took, like, a year. Like, how long did you expect does it take before a year? When you say ramped up, by the way, what what do you mean by that? So you say it took me a year to get ramped up.
Khurram Naik:What does that mean?
Randy Gaw:In terms of just being fully occupied with clients such that, you know, I had kinda like a full plate of work, you know, most So
Khurram Naik:did you have an expectation heading into it? Okay. 09/01/2012 start date. Did you have an expectation heading into it for how long it would take to get to that point?
Randy Gaw:No. Because I just didn't really know. Right? It's it's kind of even the people who had gone ahead and done it before, they had their own unique experiences. Some of them, you know, knew already knew clients or or just kinda like more natural networkers or or business developers.
Randy Gaw:And so it I only knew for myself. I didn't know what to expect. I'd certainly not done any business development of any kind before. And in terms of preparing a business plan, one of the reasons why I felt comfortable going off and doing what I did was because I modeled that, you know, I'd saved enough money that I can go two years without literally making any revenue. You know?
Randy Gaw:And so I was like, okay. I know I have enough runway to kind of really give this a try for some period of time, and if it completely fails, I can just pick myself up and try to do somewhere else. Go work for another firm. Go work for the government. There's you know, I figured I figured that I'm a talented enough lawyer that I can probably get someone to hire me somewhere.
Randy Gaw:But, you know, so I had no expectations. And the first three to four months, you know, I picked up the odd client here and there, but nothing really big. But then I think I got, like, a I think I got an arbitration matter probably two or three months in, and that, you know, started taking up some time. And, naturally, you know, I just started picking up more and more significant type of work, you know, which would be able to occupy me.
Khurram Naik:How did you get these matters? Is this through some efforts you were taking? It just people said, I I'm thinking of Randy. I'm gonna send him work. Like, how did it all happen?
Randy Gaw:Yeah. I'm thinking of Randy, and I'm gonna send him work. It's it was all referrals. And it you know, to this day, our firm, I would say, like, 95% of our cases are referrals. You know?
Randy Gaw:It was nice kinda like launching when I did in September 2012 in that, hey, everybody at the reunion, right, that I met, I would talk up about that I'd started my own firm, so people were naturally supportive and wanting to help. And I made sure you know, I just made sure to let everybody know that I had started a new a new firm. I got the word out. And so I was top of mind at that moment, and friends, you know, had potential clients come to them, say, this is something that happened to me, and they sent them my way, and, you know, the rest is history.
Khurram Naik:And then how'd you scale up? I mean, had you had an arbitration before?
Randy Gaw:I mean, certainly as part of a team, right? I worked on those matters for my ten years at Big Law, but this was my first time being the sole decision maker. Before, I would either my job was to execute, you know, specific action items or perhaps kind of help formulate strategy. Even, like, you know, as a senior associate, you're you're kind of helping to think of ideas and and whatnot, but I'd never been the architect, so to speak. Right?
Randy Gaw:I was always someone else's plan that I was following no matter how much I contributed to the overall plans. And now it was on me. I had to think of the strategy. I had to execute it, and it was a brand new kind of challenge, and it was a fun one.
Khurram Naik:How did you bridge that gap?
Randy Gaw:I mean, the the only way to do it the only way to get good at it is to have practice in it and do it repeatedly. And so I did my best in the first arbitration. I got a deep pretty decent result, and I certainly have learned from it to become better at the second arbitration and the third arbitration and the fourth arbitration. Kind of like every case that I handle today, I'm always learning something new, partly because I'm not in a high volume type of litigation practice, right, where We try to handle matters only of a certain amount of value, and so we only work on a certain number of cases at a time. Really, all of them end up being unique learning experiences where you can apply to the next such experience.
Khurram Naik:How did you manage expectations early on? So this is your first arbitration matter. How did you communicate expectations to client? The client said, Hey, how many these have you handled? And you told them, or with any of the earlier clients, how did you communicate or manage expectations around your level of experience and what they could expect?
Randy Gaw:Sure. A, just be transparent. The people who hired me for the first arbitration, they knew that I had just started my firm you know, two or three months prior. And, you know, in my particular case, I had not been the lead on this thing, but they knew about my very significant experience, you know, for ten years doing arbitrations and trials. You know, in my particular example, I probably had a lot more trial experience than the average kind of like a big firm lawyer.
Randy Gaw:Right? I mean, a, When you have an eleven month trial, then in terms of just sheer quantity, you've had more months at trial than almost anyone at a firm. But, know, I had at least two trials, I think, which is pretty rare in in big law, and it had multiple arbitrations. And so I was, you know, pretty experienced on that front. Like, I definitely knew what I was doing.
Randy Gaw:You know? It was just my first time in the driver's seat, you know, so to speak.
Khurram Naik:And then you also mentioned a couple of different points that, you know, you didn't have a a business mindset into this. You thought of yourself as a lawyer first. Is that and that, you know, you didn't identify then as an entrepreneur. Do you see yourself differently now? Or do you still share those same views?
Randy Gaw:I mean, I'm reluctantly come around to the idea that I'm an entrepreneur, and I have to have to be entrepreneurial. For the first number of years, try to ignore it as much as possible. But, you know, but that's just the reality. Right? You're running a business.
Randy Gaw:You have to think like a business, and you, you know, you have to do things like business development and whatnot. But, you know, in my heart of hearts, I consider myself a lawyer first. And so I'm happiest working on cases and not trying to think about the business side, you know, so to speak, you know, which is probably partly, you know, why we enjoy doing contingency fee lawsuits so much because, you know, you're not sending out constant bills or worrying about the time you spend and whatever. Right? You can just kind of focus on the practice of law and let the business stuff sort itself out.
Randy Gaw:But no, I mean, we are very much, you know, now aware of the the business of law and doing what we can to operate under, you know, reasonable, sensible business principles.
Khurram Naik:What does that business mindset or entrepreneurial mindset change? So somebody who is adopting that approach, how does it impact the work you do and, you know, structure of firm? What what are the implications of taking on a business or entrepreneurial mindset?
Randy Gaw:That's a good question. I would say, I mean, like, one, probably you always have to be thinking about your next source of revenue. Right? Like, you know, in the sales context, I guess, you always have to be thinking about your next lead. You can't only be working on your existing lead.
Randy Gaw:You have to have the pipeline, I guess, as they say. And I think that's a I think that's an idea that certainly is, I don't wanna say foreign, but it's not it's not something which many lawyers are comfortable with. We're probably comfortable just working on our existing our existing work and not having to think about, like, well, how does that how does the next case come in? Like, where do we get that next case? Where do we get the next client?
Randy Gaw:And that's sort of, at least for us, a transition where we now are always thinking about, well, where is that next case in addition to as we're working on the existing cases. You know? And it's a little challenging because litigation doesn't tend to have too many repeat players. At least for us, we don't have to have too many repeat players. So we have to, like, really think strategically about where can we get future clients and especially the clients that we want to get.
Randy Gaw:You know? What can we do to make it easier for clients to for future clients to either find us or to be comfortable with us, you know, or or to seek us out?
Khurram Naik:And what's your answer to that question today?
Randy Gaw:One, we're still trying to figure it out. Right? But, you know, I would say one thing, at least, that I think has been effective for others that I've seen is getting people to understand that you're out there, that you're do you know, who you are, that you're out there doing the work, and that you're getting good results. Right? I think there there are certainly many people who are kind of, like, not comfortable with what what might be considered self promotion, but, you know, call it what you will.
Randy Gaw:It is very effective for getting people to realize that you are out there or to getting you on top of mind, you know, with for the people that you do know. And I suppose it just, you know, it really has to do with how you present yourself. Right? If you're presenting yourself in an authentic manner, then, you know, it's less self promotion and really more just kind of like keeping people abreast of what it is that you do and, you know, why you're a good fit for people out there. Mhmm.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. I think you're doing a a really good job of that. I think that's a key part of why I was was drawn to your story and saying, hey. You know, you're without being very ham handed on it, you know, when you talk about some of the the plans you're taking in these class action cases and some of the companies the that you're suing and the councils representing them. It's, you know, it it's, you know, it's a light version of Dave versus Goliath.
Khurram Naik:And so, like, that's a classic. That story endures for a reason. And so those storytelling principles are effective that, you know, you're not gloating or going on and on about how amazing you are, but just simple narratives, I think, that do draw people and say, Hey, yeah, this is a skilled lawyer taking on an interesting case. And I think that's a compelling story. That itself is a compelling story that people are drawn to.
Randy Gaw:Thank you. I mean, I'm glad you think so. It shows that at least I'm doing something right on that field. But also, it's good practice for what it is that I'm doing. Not the marketing part, but the fact that we're in litigation.
Randy Gaw:We do trials. You're telling stories about trials. And if you're unable to tell your own story effectively, how can you expect to tell someone else's story effectively? Right? Like, you you have to be the most you have to be the best at telling your own story.
Randy Gaw:And so, you know, certainly, whatever it is that I'm doing where I'm trying to educate people on, you know, what it is that I've done or give people updates as to how our firm has, you know, accomplished this or or what or even, like, you know, failed at something. Right? Like, I'm pretty open when talking about setbacks that we have. It's it's also exercising kind of like the storytelling muscles, you know, that we have. Like, you you don't get better at something unless you practice it repeatedly, and practice can kind of come in all sorts of different forms that you don't even necessarily think of as practice.
Randy Gaw:You know? Like that movie, The Karate Kid, right, where the guy's washing a car and, like, not realizing that that, you know, is actually kind of developing muscle memory and certain skills that translate into, you know, the various karate moves that he ends up executing later in the in the movie.
Khurram Naik:That's a great Karate Kid reference. I'm so glad we got into that. Every every podcast should have a Karate Kid reference.
Randy Gaw:Pretty movie.
Khurram Naik:So okay. So early on, it it's unless you're able to you you said, hey. I can finance my law firm for two years. That'll be a very aggressive timetable for contingency work, let's say class action work. So then, what was the transition from billable work to contingency work?
Khurram Naik:What was the draw to that? And then, how did you know that you're ready to do that in terms of the business of it, in terms of the substantive work? Tell me about that transition to taking on contingency work.
Randy Gaw:Sure. So we took on our first contingency case in 02/2014. So I basically went a year and a half or so doing only hourly work. And truth be told, I did not envision myself doing contingency work at the time I started my firm, probably because I was still I mean, I was I was entrepreneurial enough to start my own firm. But I was like, wait a minute, hold on, I don't get paid unless like I collect that's, that might be a bridge too far.
Randy Gaw:But it kinda came about in 2014 in our first case, and we had met a client who was had a great case, had been paying hourly for his current attorneys, and was not getting a very effective result by them and basically had run out of money. And I remember, you know, a friend of mine at another firm, it was his he he found this client somehow. Right? And so he introduced me to that person and kind of said, you know, would you be willing to kind of join me in kind of working on contingency? And so it was like back then, it it was a it wasn't something I expressly proposed.
Randy Gaw:It was, you know, my friend who kind of proposed it out of necessity because this client couldn't afford hourly attorneys. And thinking about it, it was like, well, a, the risk is mitigated somewhat because, you know, my friend's firm was also doing it. Right? So it wouldn't be us just shouldering the burden. We'd be working together on this contingency case.
Randy Gaw:And two, it was, you know, a client who really couldn't kind of afford hourly rates anymore. And so it was like a binary question of do we just take you know, we we we can't have this client otherwise. Right? So it's like, is this a good case, or is this not a good case? And so if this is a good case, why wouldn't we take it?
Randy Gaw:You know? Because, ultimately, if you think that you can do a good job and if you know the defendant is in the position to pay, you know, one way or the other, this is an opportunity. That first case made me realize that there was a market for contingency fee cases in the business litigation standpoint because a lot of firms wouldn't even consider it. You know? Like, their business model just says, no.
Randy Gaw:We don't do any contingency work at all, or we do very limited contingency fee work. And this client was considering us solely, really, because no other firm, you know, that they approached was willing to do it on a contingency. So I kinda realized, well, hey. There's less competition. There's less competition, you know, in the business litigation world if you're willing to do cases on a contingency fee basis.
Randy Gaw:And if you're confident in your own skills, you will get, you know, probably be rewarded for doing so and rewarded well. Like, we ended up getting a good result on that case, and it was you know, our cut of it, of this resulting settlement, was definitely much higher than what our hourly rate at the time was. And that kinda, like, led on you know, led us on to kind of, like, taking that on as a business model.
Khurram Naik:And so do you have a target? Like, how do how do you identify how much contingency work you should be doing? How much hourly work you should be doing? How do you how do you identify that mix?
Randy Gaw:I would say in an ideal world, we're fiftyfifty, you know, up to maybe like 33 hourly 66 contingency.
Khurram Naik:Is that based on time put in or revenue?
Randy Gaw:Time put in.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Randy Gaw:So in a in an in an ideal world, you know, we're fifty fifty, but, you know, certainly, one third hourly, two thirds contingency, we have done many time. We've probably gone over two thirds contingency. That is kind of like I said, in a ideal world. It's it's not a there's no rule at our firm. Right?
Randy Gaw:Because the reality is, if there are really, really high quality contingency fee cases, and they just can't if one is coming in right after the other, we're gonna take them, and we'll find a way to to pay for it or make it work. Right? Like, we're debt free. And, you know, my partner and I have certainly invested, like, a lot of money into contingency fee cases. And it's it's just it's a good investment.
Randy Gaw:You know, it's sort of like, if you're if you're a venture capital fund, you don't turn down, like, you know, future investments just because you've already deployed funds. It's like, if this is something that that hits all of your checklists, and you realize that you're gonna get, like, you know, you have a high probability of getting a really good result. Like, you take it on. You know? Like, we're in the risk business, so take risks.
Khurram Naik:How do you how do you identify that ratio as being ideal for you?
Randy Gaw:I mean, just because it's always nice to have monthly revenue come in on an hourly basis. Right? It's nice to know that you're making payroll without any problems, you know, that you pay rent without any problems, that you that you can you know? And and frankly, those are pretty low cost, relatively speaking, in running a firm. In in a contingency firm, the big costs are paying for the contingency cases.
Randy Gaw:You know? The experts are the expert witnesses cost a lot of money. You know? Electronic discovery costs a lot of money. So so, really, it's kind of like keeping the lights on so that you can pay for all of this stuff, especially since, you know, under tax rules, it's contingency you know, case expenses aren't deductible at business expenses.
Randy Gaw:Right? They're they go on your balance sheet. And so, really, you're using your after tax dollars to pay for these contingency fee cases, and we you know, having, like, at least one third of your cases be hourly cases, that covers your contingency fee costs, you know, which are which are high. Like, you know, currently, you know, my partner and I were out, I don't know, like, 1,200,000.0 or something out of pocket or something on contingency fee cases. You've got to be making enough hourly and other contingency fee cases to pay for all of that.
Khurram Naik:Have you used funding in the past?
Randy Gaw:We have, regretfully.
Khurram Naik:What made it regretfully?
Randy Gaw:The high interest rates. Sure. You know? It it's something actually I I mentioned on LinkedIn. You know, we took funding, and the funding the interest rate was between 20 to 30% annually, And kinda like what they you know, how they pitch it to you is, well, it's nonrecourse.
Randy Gaw:Right? So you don't have to worry about paying us back if you don't hit, which is like, okay. So you you kinda think about it. You're like, well, yeah. Okay.
Randy Gaw:They they deserve a 20%, you know, or 25% interest rate since they're shouldering all that risk. But then, you know, kind of like we eventually, you know, we did hit, and then we paid them out a lot of money because of that interest rate, and just kind of I realized, like, wait a minute. Why was I so worried about it not hitting in the first if I'm worried about the case not hitting the first place, I shouldn't be taking it on contingency in the first place. Right? I mean, you're you're taking it on because you are very confident that you're gonna get a good result, knowing, of course, sometimes things happen and you don't.
Randy Gaw:But if you're confident that you're gonna get a good result, then, you know, don't don't, like you know, what's that word they that they they use? Don't derisk by giving away, like, a very substantial part of your upset. Like, when you if you derisk, like, you know, do it on a more appropriate level. And so that kind of changed those experiences kinda changed, you know, at least my mindset about taking funding. Like, funding is really only for those cases where you can't even take it on in the first place unless you have the capital provided to you by funding.
Randy Gaw:So then in that case, funding makes the case possible. But if you're taking on a case if you already have the ability to self finance a case, then just believe in yourself. You know? Take your own risk. You save so much money, like, an unbelievable amount of money because, you know, 20 to 30% every year really adds up, obviously.
Khurram Naik:To your point about taking on marginal cases to the extent that you can, like, in the analogy of a VC, You know, a VC might say, hey. Just this option is too good to pass up. Let's go to LPs and get some additional capital to invest. So you're saying, by way of analogy, your goal is to self fund, you know, a plate of cases that you identify. And then to the extent that, you know, it sounds to me that that that to the extent there is an additional case that's too good to pass up, but you can't finance it on your own, that's a scenario where you think funding would be helpful.
Randy Gaw:For us. Yeah.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. And so, yeah, I get your your premise about adverse selection where, you know, to the extent that you're leaning on somebody else for financing, like, say, in the context of, you know, people a personal residence, any number of people might a personal residence is is, in the eyes of many financial decision. Sometimes people perceive to be purely a decision about consumption. But, you know, you you can definitely make the case that the existence of mortgages, subsidized mortgages, whatever, make it easier to spring for larger prices because, hey. You know, I just somebody else is throwing money at this too.
Khurram Naik:But so I wonder how you think about average selection in the context of case selection to begin with. Because when you said earlier, hey, this company had gone to several other this first class action case had gone to several other firms, and nobody had chosen to take on a contingency. There's two ways to interpret that. One is, hey, there's there's not a lot of competition for this, and so this plays into us, our strengths, because we're lean and and inefficient, so we can take this on. And another interpretation is, hey, this is a dog of a case.
Khurram Naik:Right? Now how do you so it seems to me there there's potentially an adverse selection even in taking on those cases to begin with. So, like, what is your vetting criteria to mitigate the risk of adverse selection at that stage?
Randy Gaw:Sure. Well, I mean, you definitely take into account if someone had passed on this case who does contingency fee work. Right? And and at least in our case, we a lot of times when cases come our way, it's been passed on by people who do hourly cases as opposed to contingency cases. So, you know, we don't we don't necessarily have another contingency firm's feedback, you know, as to why they chose to take or not take a case.
Randy Gaw:But, you know, definitely, if you know that someone has if someone if a comparable law firm has passed on this case, you ask yourself questions, and so you vet it a lot more carefully as to whether or not it makes sense for you to take on this case. Sometimes we reach a similar conclusion as the other law firm, and sometimes we don't because you know, we have a certain view of things. We have a certain view of our skills, and we feel like, you know, we can get a better result perhaps than what the other firm did, or maybe the other firm is just better at making decisions than us. Ultimately, you know, it could be both or or or, you know, neither.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. Right. I I mean, I think the thing about legal work is, of course, the reason why we're compensated I mean, you were talking earlier about this litigation funder. They're you know, to be charging 20 to 30% whatever interest rate is because they're taking on this risk. And so too with lawyers, there's just it's the risk comes from ambiguity.
Khurram Naik:Right? You don't know what the outcome's gonna be. If you had certain run the outcome, then it would cost a lot less to finance it. Right? And so, yeah, just legal work product, I think so much about understanding the business of law flows from understand particularly in litigation flows from understanding the litigation's inherently unpredictable.
Khurram Naik:That's how if litigation was predictable, it'd be some other thing other than the nature that it is right now. That's the I think the essence of litigation work is that it's it's largely unpredictable. And, of course, your goal is to do things to make it as predictable as possible, but just you can never abstract away that risk. And so, yeah, I think that makes sense that, you know, some in the context of investing, any number of times you have one, you know, very successful investor taking a large equity stake in a company while another one is exiting. They just have different theses on the nature of that opportunity, and they potentially can build through your right, you know, depending on their time horizon.
Khurram Naik:And that also plays into your comment on on being able to finance these cases. Maybe it doesn't make sense in the short term, but maybe makes sense in the long term.
Randy Gaw:Yeah. And, I mean, you know, a lot of firms, I think, who consider maybe have passed on the cases that we've taken on, I don't know necessarily what their evaluation criteria is. Or if, you know, they're a larger firm, they can't afford to take on a miss, whereas us being a smaller firm, you know, we're we have fewer mouths to feed, and so we we can be more aggressive in taking on a risky case, you know, compared to them. And then, frankly, sometimes there are people who, you know, I just think are less creative than we are because, you know, a lot of kind of a success in the law and litigation comes from edge cases. And sometimes there are people who are just a little too conventional thinking about the law or applying, you know, the law to the specific facts, and they don't realize that, you know what?
Randy Gaw:There's an interesting edge case that you can make out of this, and you have an avenue for success. So there there are definitely people who are, I think, a little too rigid with their analyses, and sometimes we're the beneficiaries of that because, you know, we're willing to kinda, like, think of multiple angles in order to pursue, you know, a particular particular, you know, path to success for our clients. I'm I'm actually thinking of this one case that we did as a class action, and the client had gone to multiple law firms, some really big law firms, and absolutely none of them were willing to take it on contingency because their kind of very traditional analysis, you know, just didn't, you know, didn't have, like, a strong You know, I guess they didn't see it as a as the strongest claim or something like that. Don't know. All I know is kind of reviewing their emails afterwards, you know, when they were when we collected our clients' emails, and, know, filter them out for privilege and all that stuff, right?
Randy Gaw:You kind of look at what the other what they were saying to other law firms and what they were telling them, right? Like, Oh, that's interesting. But, you know, we kind of we had approached it from a somewhat different angle, and we were ultimately successful and validated in that approach. You know? We got class certified.
Randy Gaw:We got a class action settlement. You know? We we did well financially. And so it's like we're kind of rewarded for our our ability for our ability to identify kind of, like, new angles and and our willingness to take them.
Khurram Naik:Can you give us some more inside baseball? Like, what was the the legal theory, or what what did you identify that was you're using the phrase edge case? Like, what was it you identified that previous counsel didn't?
Randy Gaw:I mean, I don't remember the specifics exactly, and, you know, some of it is still a lot of it, you know, is confidential or attorney client privilege. But, you know, the kinda gist of it is, there was a contract, you know, between the parties, and people just kind of, like, looked people looked at the contract and said, well, under this contract, you can do this, or you can do x, or you or you can't do this. Right? And there are things that say that say you can't recover for this, so therefore, you can't recover for this. You know?
Randy Gaw:And and we kind of, like, did a more holistic approach, and it's like, well, you know, what were they saying? What was the defendant saying contemporaneously at the time they entered this contract? What did they say after that? Is this is this language ambiguous? Is there are there certain industry norms or standards that apply here that people understand that help interpret what this means?
Randy Gaw:You know, things like that. You know? And so we were able to survive motions to dismiss. We were able to get class certification and, you know, ultimately kind of present like a we had a viable case. Don't know if it was we we you know, at the end of the day, we don't know we would have won or lost that trial, although we were actually pretty confident.
Randy Gaw:But, we found we were willing to challenge conventional thinking, and in that particular example, we were rewarded.
Khurram Naik:I wonder if the ability to be more creative comes from taking on fewer cases, having more space, just and being able to think more about fewer cases. Like, can you speak to where that creativity comes from? Because I imagine your you know, some of these other people that firms have passed or some number of comparably skilled litigators maybe with similar experiences to you, but maybe the conditions of the pressures they face in those firms are such that they are you know, they have more matters or yeah. Just stress then. What however you wanna put it.
Khurram Naik:What do you attribute to why you're able to for somebody who's comparably skilled to you as litigator, why you're able to apply this or generate this creativity?
Randy Gaw:I mean, I think you're you you identified one of those reasons. Right? We have more time, or we're able to allocate more time into thinking about these cases at the prospect stage. So that's certainly one of it. Other than that, you know, all I can say is part of it is a kind of inherent judgment ability by lawyers.
Randy Gaw:Right? Some lawyers are able to think out of the box a little better than other lawyers, but, you know, in return, they have, like, probably worse skill sets in other areas compared to those other lawyers. I would just say, my partner and I, Mark, we just happen to be pretty good about thinking creatively you know, finding, you know, doing kind of like, and doing the law school, the basic law school stuff. It's just like, you know, what is the basic principle of law here? Like, how do the facts fit in this principle?
Randy Gaw:And how can you, if you kind of know what the correct in the sense of what is the just outcome? If we know what the just outcome is, there's a wrong is in search of a remedy, well, then you kind of, like, think, well, there are you know, the law usually tries tries to find a way to remedy wrongs. And so you just kind of, like, just look with that approach to seeing what other ways you can pursue this to get the remedy that the client deserves.
Khurram Naik:How often are we able to identify, or could you give you examples, of a time where a client thought there was a certain wrong, and actually, was a much more significant wrong?
Randy Gaw:That's a good one. I would say it probably, at least in my experience, happens more in the sense that when you kind of dive into the facts of this case, you probably realize that the the scope or scale of the wrong being occurred is is much greater than what you had thought as opposed to kind of, like, discovering a whole discrete, different wrong that had taken place. I'm sure it has happened. I just can't necessarily think about any specific examples sitting here right now. Can
Khurram Naik:you talk some more about you know, earlier in when you're building up the firm, you're taking the work that you can get. And then over time, you start to get more work. So I I think there's two aspects of that that I'm interested in is case selection in terms of how you choose to niche. So we talked some about billable versus contingency. I'm interested also in practice areas.
Khurram Naik:So, like, how do you choose areas of law that you're saying, Hey, let's focus on? I guess we'll start with that, and then I'll work in the other jumping off points.
Randy Gaw:Sure. Areas of law. So I sometimes half jokingly tell people when they ask me, what what kind of litigation do I do? And I say, well, I do opportunistic litigation. And so if there's a case that comes across my radar, and I think that either it's interesting or lucrative and that we won't end up committing malpractice if we take the case, then, you know, we'll we'll try to pitch for that particular kind of work.
Randy Gaw:One of the benefits of being a small law firm is that you have the flexibility to do that sort of thing. You just need the owners to agree, like, yeah, let's see if we can take on this kind of work. But, you know, to kinda give a more serious answer to your question, I think ultimately for us, the areas of practice that we focus on are influenced by, one, can you make a good living off of that? Right? Because we wanna do high margin work, not low margin work.
Randy Gaw:And two, is this something that kind of is intellectually stimulating for us, which, you know, is which is not a requirement for any case, of course, but it certainly kind of we're more willing to kind of go beyond our boundaries if it's a case that we think is interesting. And, you know, also third, is this a case where we feel like we're helping people as opposed to not helping people? And that's not a requirement either, but, again, it kinda makes for, you know, an edge case for us. It's like, you know what? We wanna kinda expand beyond kind of, like, our personal comfort zone if we feel like that we're in a position, you know, to help people.
Randy Gaw:Mhmm. So there are definitely cases that we've taken on in the past that we normally don't handle because one of us felt, Yeah, we kinda feel sorry for these people, so let's see if we can help them out.
Khurram Naik:Got it. And so when you're saying helping versus not helping, well, you just mean people have a particularly sympathetic cause that may not be financial rewarding?
Randy Gaw:Yeah, well, you know, yes. We don't gratuitously do low margin work, so we certainly, when we're taking on a case, we wanna make sure, hey, this has to make money for us. At least it has at least the prospect of making money for us. But, you know, we certainly recognize there are some cases that are unlikely to be particularly rewarding. You know, maybe we'll break even, but we still do it because we think we're in a position to help somebody, and others won't do as good a job or un are unwilling to to do a job.
Randy Gaw:You know? But, you know, I I don't wanna make it seem like, you know, we're these crusaders out there. Right? Like, you know, for example, we don't we don't deal with immigration law, you know, or civil rights or things of that sort, because that's just not our that's not our background. That's not our skill set.
Randy Gaw:And there are a lot of other people doing, like, really good work, you know, in this field. And as much as sympathetic as we might be, like, we're just it's it's too much for us to, like, learn, like, this whole area of law, you know, or other sets of procedures potentially that we just don't know anything about. But within, you know, the kind of, like, realm of work that that we do, you know, we will sometimes, you know, go out of our comfort zone if we feel like we're in a position to help people.
Khurram Naik:How do you for a boutique, how do you arrive? It sounds like you're you're going the route of opportunistic. It sounds like you're going the route of of having some diversification of work. How do you how how should boutiques think about opportunistic versus strategic, niche versus diversification?
Randy Gaw:I think well, I think, you know, one, you know, every owner has to decide for themself, really, because it kind of it kind of goes back as to what it is they want to get out of owning a lot a large law firm. It or sorry, owning their own law firm? Is it just about, like, making, you know, as much money as they reasonably can or or not? Because, like, the decisions are different, right? Like, if you wanted to maximize your revenue, you probably are better off just kind of, like, really specializing in one or two, holding yourself out as an expert in one or two areas and relentlessly marketing that, you know, and not getting distracted with with other stuff, which is, the way, perfectly valid.
Randy Gaw:Like, I I you know, there are people who are doing a great job of that, and I, you know, I admire them very much. But if, you know, if if your kind of, like, goal is to also just sort of, like, you know, keep yourself intellectually stimulated about something, you know, the work that you do, then, you know, your your decision making calculus is different. It's not just, oh, am I making, enough money from this? It's like, you know, is this an area of law that that I'm doing that can actually keep my creative juices flowing, you know, for one reason or another? And I'll just, you know, I'll just use our firm as an example.
Randy Gaw:You know, we obviously do business litigation. You know, that's bread and butter. Like, every most civil litigation firms do business litigation. Right? Like, that keeps the lights on, and and it is it can certainly be very interesting in its own right.
Randy Gaw:So we do those. We take on we selectively take on personal injury cases. You know? I call them catastrophic injury, you know, that are high value. And we take them on partly because I mean, even though the law is not particularly complex in those areas, they have, like, really interesting human stories.
Randy Gaw:Right? And so you working on those cases kinda goes back to almost like, you know, when you're in law school in the first place, like, thinking, why do I why do I wanna become a lawyer? Well, you know, this person was injured because of the wrongful conduct of another person, and I'm in a position to tell their story and to, you know, help them get, you know, some justice for the ills that have befallen them. So, you know, personal injury kind of, like, satisfies the that component, the the interesting facts, you know, component. And then we also do antitrust work.
Randy Gaw:You know, we have a particular expertise in this real initiative called the Robinson Patman Act. It's the federal price discrimination, and that, you know, kind of, like, is an intellectual exercise for us because it is an area of law. It's it involves a lot of, you know, economics, for example. It involves, like, the application of some very esoteric laws, you know, regarding that particular statute. And that's intellectually interesting, you know, just kind of like dealing with, like, sort of these almost policy type arguments in the law, and keeps things interesting for us.
Randy Gaw:And could certainly pay well too if you know what you're doing, so it checks off all the boxes for us.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. It's really interesting to identify these different practice areas, not by, say, necessarily the economics of them or from any anything structural to that, let's say, Privacy is, you know, just there there's no reason that privacy is going in any direction and becoming more important in higher stakes. But it's interesting to talk in terms of motivations and personal motivation, and the feel that you get from these different practice areas. I think it's a very interesting lens to choose work.
Randy Gaw:Yeah. I mean, one could say it's a way we choose work. One could say it's a way that work is chosen for us. Right? Like, you know, if you're kinda just getting solicitations for the certain types of work, you know, it's low hanging fruit, and so you're kinda like, okay.
Randy Gaw:Well, let's, like, really look into this kinds of cases more and more, and you kind of maybe unintentionally develop an expertise in them, and it becomes self reinforcing at a point, I suppose.
Khurram Naik:So, yeah, I think that motivation sounds like an important criteria. But, like, heading into a year, I mean, so going back to this business entrepreneur mindset, how do you plan ahead for the year? Like, how like, what do you set as or whatever your time horizon is for your goals? How do you define goals for your firm?
Randy Gaw:Yeah, we're not huge into concrete goal setting, and perhaps we should be. We're still very much learning about optimizing the business of law. But, you know, I would say for us, we just more have abstract ideas of, you know, okay. We have we're working on, like, these nine cases. Right?
Randy Gaw:So the goal for this next year is to you know, how do we get good results, you know, in those types of cases? Right? Like, what do we do? How do we set up ourselves to getting the best possible result in those cases? But then beyond that, the next case, right, that I mentioned earlier.
Randy Gaw:Where are we getting our next cases from? You know, our goals are along are probably be more loosely abstracted to what cases do we want to get in the future? What do we do to position ourselves to try to get those cases? How do we get cases like that of higher value as opposed to lower value? You know?
Randy Gaw:Like, do we need to go out and talk to people more in order to do that? Do we need to do we need to maximize our results in these other cases and publicize that in order to achieve this outcome? Right? So we're kinda, like, thinking about our goals. The only kind of, like, quote, unquote, goals that our that we have as our firm, typically speaking, is what can we do to maximize our opportunities to get the kinds of cases that we want to work on?
Randy Gaw:Because we don't set goals in terms of headcount. We don't set goals in terms of revenue or whatever. Like, that stuff works itself out. We we just set goals on what kind of work we want to get and how do we get it.
Khurram Naik:If you execute on the ideas and and the work that you're doing now, how will your firm be different two years from now?
Randy Gaw:Well, probably a little bit bigger. You know? Like, if we if we successfully do what everything that we wanna do, then naturally, we'll get bigger and bigger cases to work on, which means that we have to get more and more people to work on them, you know, and then kind of like there's a positive feedback loop in that you're getting even bigger and more interesting cases to work on, which means you have to get even more people to work on those cases and so forth. Right? And so that's why I say like the revenue and headcount thing, know, all that stuff, like it works itself out.
Randy Gaw:If you're if you're doing what you want to be doing, you'll naturally make more money. You'll naturally have more people because you need the more people to make the more money in the first place.
Khurram Naik:And when you picture having more people to work on those cases, like, what are the cases? What will be different about the cases that you're doing? Like, what is there something specific that you can picture as an expectation for the mix of work you'll be doing, the safety of the cases?
Randy Gaw:I would say so on the business litigation side, right, it would be we're kinda pretty consistently working on, you know, eight figure type cases, like, you know, seven figure, eight figure type cases, and, you know, it would be getting to the nine figure level. Like, consistently working on 9 figure cases, whether that's one on one one v one or class action type cases. Like, that would be, like, a next step for us. In the Robinson Patmanack field, you know, similar thing. Like, we are typically working on, you know, high seven figure, low eight figure type cases going to mid eight figure type cases, maybe even, like, you know, high eight figure type cases, you know, in this particular world or or taking on, like, really, really big targets, you know, in this particular field.
Randy Gaw:You know? We so far, we've the people that we've sued have largely been manufacturers of well, very well known products, but, you know, they're not necessarily the products that every household has them. And so kind of going on to the next step would be, you know, those defendants that are making the products that every household, you know, has. The personal injury context. Right?
Randy Gaw:It's like the the types of cases where there is just some massive harm that was perpetuated on a large group of people, and you're getting redressed for that all at once, you know, as opposed to, like, a one v one, you know, type of harm. Although, you know, I I will say in the in the personal injury field, I don't think we ever necessarily want to get into the mass tort field or something that involves, like, you know, multi district litigation, MDLs. Like, that that's, like, a level of of administrative complexity that I don't know if we necessarily want to deal with since we just sort of do this stuff on the side. But, you know, for the other two cases, that's certainly what I could kind of, like, set out as goals and visions, you know, for the next five to ten years.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And you've talked about the skill of, you know, identifying interesting fact patterns and then, you know, the role that motivation has for you for finding work that's compelling that way, then also the importance of storytelling. Yeah. That's a recurring theme. So can you talk some more about storytelling in your trial work?
Khurram Naik:How have you developed the principles of storytelling that you use? Are there recurring principles of storytelling? Is there a technique, a formula, a process that you use for arriving at effective storytelling?
Randy Gaw:Sure. I mean, when you get to trials, that's all about telling a story. There's the story that the plaintiff has to tell about how the plaintiff was wronged by the defendant, and then the defendant's story is like, no. You're not hearing the whole truth. You know?
Randy Gaw:This is the real story. Right? And so when you're at that point, it is incumbent upon you to figure out a way to present your story as cogently, as compassionately as possible so that the jury wants to go for your client instead of the other client. Right? Like, trial is about motivating people into motivating the jury into wanting to support your side as opposed to the other side.
Randy Gaw:Because that ultimately colors how they view the law and how they view the facts. Because if they want to go for your client, when they're looking at a set of facts, they'll be interpreting it in the light that's favorable to your client as opposed to the light that's favorable to the other the other side's client. So I think, you know, effectively telling the story is how you do that at trial, you know, is at least how we would go about doing it, you know, is is done through, you know, one of certain ways. I mean, like, one, at the very start of the case, you kind of need to, like, have a sense of what the story is. Right?
Randy Gaw:I mean, you, we as lawyers are treating us to, like, legal analysis. We're like, okay, so this is the cause of action, or this is the affirmative defense, which is all great. You know? But you have to, like, kind of go beyond that and just say, what is the core narrative that is driving this story? What do I want the decision maker to be thinking about when the time comes for them to make the decision?
Randy Gaw:And at least for us, when we analyze this a a case, you know, unless it's like a, you know, unless it's like a, you know, strictly numbers based kind of thing, which sometimes happen, like, when you have claims that just involve accountings or whatever. But, you know, at the end of the day, when when we are taking on a case, we have in mind, there is this story to be told. This is what we want people to know. And when you kinda have figured out, like, the story to be told, which, by the way, is kind of like what makes this what makes us helps us decide is whether to take a case on contingency or not. Right?
Randy Gaw:Because if you're thinking, oh, man. This is a terrible narrative for a jury. Like, the jury's not gonna like our client even if the law may be on their side. You know, that definitely cautions you about taking this case. When you kinda have in your mind what the ultimate narrative is, then you start thinking, well, how do do I need to do?
Randy Gaw:What do I need to develop both on the legal and the factual side so that I can tell this story, you know, at trial. And so kinda like when you're thinking that when you're thinking of that story at the very inception of the case, that drives your strategic decision making, you know, for the rest of this case, You know? What you choose to pursue, what you choose not to pursue. You know? Why are you bringing this claim and not that claim?
Randy Gaw:And so kind of like when you have, like, this end goal in sight, it helps you make decisions as to what to do in the first place. And then also, I mean, I do not pretend that we know everything about everything, especially storytelling. There are some very good experts out there who are much better at telling stories than we are. And because we know there are other people out there who can do it, we get their help too. Right?
Randy Gaw:Like, jury consultants, for example. We go to trial once or twice a year on average, right, which is kind of a lot for a firm that does sophisticated commercial litigation. But a jury consultant's going to trial 20 times a year more, and they've done it for decades, they know all the stories out there. They know everything that resonates. So at least what we typically do is as we're getting close to kinda, like, the jury trial phase, we send out our you know, we hire the jury consultant and say, like, this is what our case is about.
Randy Gaw:What do you think? What should we pursue? What resonates most with the jury? And you get we get great insights, like, really great insights from the people who's like who are in the business of predicting what juries like and don't like. And that usually helps us hone the message quite effectively.
Khurram Naik:When you say what to pursue, what do you mean by that? Sorry? When you say you're talking to these jury consultants about what to pursue, what do you mean by what to pursue?
Randy Gaw:Oh, sorry. I didn't mean that in terms of the jury consultant. It was just more, at our stage, early stage, when we envisioned the narrative, you may choose to make certain claims and not make certain claims because you realize inconsistent with your narrative. Sure.
Khurram Naik:Yep. Have you ever taken a claims first approach, a legal issue first approach, over a storytelling first approach?
Randy Gaw:Mean, certainly. Because some cases don't involve particularly sophisticated themes, And so, you know, you have a narrative, but the narrative is like, well, you have a contract and this person breached, like, it's clear cut, right? Like, there's a contract service was supposed to be provided, or good was supposed to be provided. They didn't do it. And it's like, you know, I mean, you this is not one where you're gonna be searching long and hard for, like, particular narratives and themes at trial.
Randy Gaw:So, you know, certainly, you kinda go for a claims first approach. And then when you're on the defense side, sometimes you do, like, do a claims first approach on the defense side because if you feel like you can if this case has severe deficiencies, you can knock it out before it gets to a jury, then, yeah, you absolutely analyze it from a technical perspective.
Khurram Naik:Sure.
Randy Gaw:Because your job is to make sure it never gets to the jury.
Khurram Naik:Right. Yeah. That makes sense. And would you think all things considered contrast disputes are more amenable to a legal approach, whereas opposed to, say, tort claims? Which are much more than storytelling.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. That makes sense.
Randy Gaw:But, you know, tort claims sometimes, frankly, are the easiest to go from a simple claims perspective. If there is clear negligence or clear wrongdoing and someone was harmed I mean, the claims write the narrative almost. Like, you don't have to you don't have to deep dig into those. Right? And so, you know, we had, you know, we had, like, recently a claim where we we handled the unfortunate case of a woman who died because her fertility doctors, you know, gave her the wrong medication and, like, clearly breached, you know, clearly breached standards of care in doing so.
Randy Gaw:It was like an awful story. We had a great narrative for it. Like, our complaint and our mediation brief, especially. Like, the mediation brief was like, you know, you can, frankly, move someone to tears, you know, from it. But, you know, I don't wanna pretend that that was what caused it.
Randy Gaw:It was just like, look, that's just a simple that's just a simple legal claim issue. There's clear negligence. There's clear harm. You know? And we you know, any number of other lawyers probably could have gotten the exact same result as us.
Randy Gaw:I'm underselling our our capabilities, you know, there because sometimes sometimes the harm is so clear, and sometimes the legal claims are so clear that, you know, it's it's kind of, like, silly to to argue that, yeah, one lawyer one law firm skill is going to get a materially, you know, different results like, well, no, like once law firms are roughly a certain level of skill, everybody should be getting, you know, that kind of result for you. And I've, I've told prospective clients that, you know, I've, I'm very transparent, you know, when they talk to us. I don't hold us out as being something that we're not. I don't hold us out as being God's greatest gift to lawyers or anything out there. You know?
Randy Gaw:I I remember telling them. There was, like, one case. You know? It was, like, another clear case of medical malpractice. And, you know, they they gave a they gave me the facts, told me what I thought.
Randy Gaw:And I was like, this is what I would do, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, you know, and and they said, well, you know, why should we consider you instead of other firms? And I said, well, you should consider I said, first of all, you should know that any firm, you know, that you're considering should acknowledge the obvious. Like, you have a great chance to win, period. Because, like, it's like the facts are the facts, and the law is very simple in this regard and that any halfway decent lawyer in this field should be getting you an equivalent outcome.
Randy Gaw:You know? All I can tell about us versus, you know, what other firms may be considering is how we would approach this case, how we would work it up, how I would personally give my attention personal attention to this as opposed to, you know, delegating it off to somebody else. And you decide for yourself whether that's of whether that appeals to you or doesn't appeal to you. You know? Because sometimes the facts are so compelling that, you know, it's like it's just a question of, you know, whether the client works better with one approach as opposed to another approach, you know, as opposed to any, you know, inherent skill by a lawyer.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. And I I have can appreciate in my work and the work of other, you know, skilled professionals is that, yeah, there there is plenty of room for skill and plenty of room for personal preference because, again, like, much of any kind of white collar work is inherently ambiguous. And so there's many potential paths to success and different approaches that resonate with some people other than over others. So, yeah, I I definitely have an appreciation for that. And having factored that in for for looking at comparably skilled litigators, you know, maybe in boutiques, maybe with comparable experience that you have, what do you think does differentiate your approach over a comparably skilled peer?
Randy Gaw:I would say, just at least based on my personal experience, we we're a little unique in that, like I said, we look at the narrative first. We look at the end result. We kinda like how we look at it is what will it be like to be to to to be at trial? Is this a case that we can win at trial? Is this a case we want to take to trial?
Randy Gaw:You know? Is this a case we're comfortable taking the trial? And so I would say we kinda look we have a, like, a further time horizon in terms of evaluating the case and presenting it. So that's, you know, one thing that differentiates us. And I would say also, you know, another thing that differentiates us is that we tend to kinda present matters to the client in terms of strategy with theming and with long term goals in mind as opposed to, well, what's the next step?
Randy Gaw:What's the next step? What's the next step? You know? Sometimes, you know, when you're in engagement, like, literally, you're just kinda working on the next procedural step, and you don't think too much further beyond that. But we tend to try to, like, predict, well, this is what we think will happen.
Randy Gaw:And so we do this, and then that leads to this, and that leads to that. And then they're gonna do this, and that leads to that, and so on and so forth. Right? And so we're just trying to we're just trying to map things out as much as possible and make sure that the client is kind of, a, informed and aligned with us, you know, every step of the way.
Khurram Naik:I talk to people who use ideas from different disciplines. So I was at a conference recently, and a keynote speaker was formerly a consultant who's very successful, then got really into chess, studied it for a couple years, and now applies ideas from chess strategy for coaching. Yeah. As an executive coach for sports teams, it's it's kind of this interesting application of chess. And I had Tim Yu of Bird Morale on the podcast, and so he talks about his love of professional wrestling and the ideas that he's learned from there about storytelling.
Khurram Naik:So there's there's different disciplines that we can draw on for our work. Are there disciplines that come to mind or principles that you draw on to your work?
Randy Gaw:I like that question because for whatever reason, I've been reading a fair amount of you know, opinion pieces and thought pieces about, well, I really like x, and that has that has helped me practice law for the following reasons. Right? And it's it's always interesting to to to hear all this stuff. You know, I would say, like, first, I'll give a global answer. It's like, works for people, whatever works.
Randy Gaw:Right? It's like, ultimately, my kind of takeaway from it is if you're passionate about something, you can always find an application of your passion to make yourself better at whatever it is you do. You need to be a better parent, to be a better lawyer, to be a better whatever. Right? Because there is something that we always can learn from doing something, and we can apply it to other things because there are principles that are universal.
Randy Gaw:There are ways of dealing with unfavorable outcomes or favorable outcomes in one activity that we can apply to others because it's the process of coming to understand, coming accepting certain outcomes or learning what your decision making process is that helps you realize, I can apply that to other activities to help drive a better outcome. So it's kind of like a funny I I haven't read the or heard the anecdote about professional wrestling, but, you know, it's just like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm sure it works, you know, for this individual in a in a really good manner. For me, you know, I would say there is nothing in particular that I can honestly say I reference this or I I derive my personal experiences from that to help me become a better lawyer. I would just say there's a lot of things that I just try to take from what I do in my day to day life or you know, if I'm just doing something for fun that I realize has application to my job. Right?
Randy Gaw:Because for you know, just to take something like going to school and talking to other parents, you know, about what it is that I do. Right? Very mundane stuff. Right? All of us do it.
Randy Gaw:We are we say, you know a of my you know, the other parents at school are not lawyers. Right? They have no idea what it is that we do it other than other than some myth sized version, you know, of what they see on TV. How does that help me? It's my storytelling exercise.
Randy Gaw:It's my storytelling muscles. Right? Like, I have to take a complex idea and reduce it to a level where people can understand, but also want to understand more. Right? Like, people want to have follow-up questions and engage, and do it a way that's not condescending to other people, you know, to, like, explain it to them, you know, with respect, with sincerity, with authenticity, and, you know, get their interest, get them wanting to learn more.
Randy Gaw:And it's like it's just sort of like applying, you know, like, that kind of, like, level of what we do, you know, to just kind of day to day interactions. I love playing poker, you know, Texas hold them. That's kind of like the quintessential litigator's kind of, like, practice because you're anticipating what people are doing. You're trying to model out outcomes and probabilities. You're trying to bluff.
Randy Gaw:You're trying to calculate the best kind of, like, value proposition for yourself. It's like, well, you know, if I take this action, what's gonna happen here? You know? And you you have to come to grips with disappointment, you know, knowing that sometimes you have your decision making process was correct, and that you get an outcome, a bad outcome, sometimes a really bad outcome. Right?
Randy Gaw:And then you just have to pick yourself up and realize that, you know what? Sometimes these things happen, and you, you know, can you can do is learn from the experience and figure out whether there's anything you can do better. And if if you conclude that, you know, you did most of the things correct or you couldn't do anything better, then have the conviction to do it again because you have to have confidence in yourself that, ultimately, you do this long enough, you will get the right outcome most of the time, you know, because you're following the right process. And at the same time, if you sometimes luck into winning a hand, you know, you play it horribly, but you get, like, a huge jackpot, you know, through sheer luck. Having the humility to recognize that that was because of luck, and that, you know what?
Randy Gaw:You should be very happy that you got it, but you realize I need to improve in this and this and this and this so that I'm not in a position again where I need blind luck to bail me out. You know? And so, you know, in trials, there have been times where, we've done everything that we thought we could have done, and we didn't get the result we wanted. But you just kind of have to say, well, we got to do this again because we know this was the right process. And then there are times where we got a result, and it's like, oh, we didn't necessarily anticipate this, and so we probably need to figure out how can we do a better job of anticipating this in the future, or what can we do to exploit this particular tendency or you know, predilection by the jury.
Randy Gaw:You know? Like, learning from learning from it and adapting and so that the next time, we're better positioned.
Khurram Naik:Let's take somebody who is journalist, commercial litigator, ten years experience in big law, has quality, substantial experience, someone similar situated to you at the time that you left your firm, what counsel do you have for that person for how to think about the decision to open up a firm and approach?
Randy Gaw:Do you want to be the decision maker or not? If you want to be the decision maker, then make it happen. Just do the research. All of us can do the research. Talk to people.
Randy Gaw:Educate yourself. But then make sure you find reasons to go forward as opposed to reasons to not do it. Because, ultimately, if you want to be the person who drives decisions, who architects litigation strategy from start to finish, who's the one who tells the client, I think we should do x and not y, the one who's giving the opening statements or the closing arguments at trial, then, yeah, start your own firm because for most people in big law, not all people, but for most people, that will accelerate your ability to become the person who makes the decisions as opposed to having to wait your turn. But if you do not want to be the person making those calls, then don't do it because you're putting your you're you're you're not starting at your own firm is not conducive to your skill set, to your to your mindset, and you're not putting yourself in a position to succeed. You know?
Randy Gaw:We have to have an honest conversation with ourselves. What am I good at? What do I want to do? And there are some people who are who will, I think, find that they are very happy not being in the driver's seat. They're very happy being the second chair.
Randy Gaw:They're very happy executing someone else's stuff. And that's great. I think it's a great career, and there are people who are very fulfilled and do an excellent job at that. And, you know, and there are times where when I see the profits per partner metrics of of, like, these big law firms, and I'm like, you know, to be a service partner in some of these firms doesn't sound so bad at all. Right?
Randy Gaw:You just just sit down and do the work and have fun. But, yeah, you just need to you just need to have an honest conversation with yourself as to what you want and what you're capable of doing.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. That's great. Rainey, thanks for sharing your experiences. Really interesting to hear some of the running themes around, I think, particularly around motivation and how you've really reverse engineered work that you find motivating. And I think that's I don't know a lot of people thinking about work in those terms.
Khurram Naik:So I I think that's a really helpful additional lens on work. And so thanks for taking the time to sit down
Randy Gaw:and and share your story. Appreciate it, Karam. Very happy that I was able to, you know, talk about some of these issues.