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Hosted by Jared Correia, Legal Late Night is a weekly, pop culture-infused romp through the latest & greatest business management ideas and technology tips for lawyers, featuring engaging guests, and constructed in the format of an old school television variety show.
Jared Correia (00:00):
Hello everybody. We've got to show the promises to be at least mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. I'm your host, Jared Kria. I'm the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting for my monologue. I'm talking meetings. Should this monologue have been a text message? Maybe in the interview. It's time for Haitham Amin of a Amin law. He runs a family law and personal injury practice in San Francisco. In the counter program we play a little. People also also ask. Now it's time for that meeting about meetings, so I hope you're on time. Everyone hates meetings, but they are a necessary evil when it comes to managing teams, including law firm teams. And lemme tell you, lawyers aren't great about committing to meeting schedules. However, meetings, whether hosted live or virtually, are helpful for removing bottlenecks and as an avenue for offering feedback to staff, which millennial employees especially highly value.
(01:11):
But if you run a tight ship and build agendas for your meetings, those can be really effective and not impossibly time consuming. There are three types of meetings you should run in your law firm on a weekly basis to ensure that your business operates like a well oiled machine. The first type of meeting you should run is called the standup meeting. This is a six minute meeting where everyone literally stands up. The meeting moves quickly because everyone wants to sit back down again with a rotating host so that everyone on your team can take some ownership over the process. Who asks everyone two questions. What's the most important thing you're working on today, and are there a bottleneck that exists that you can't solve without help from someone else? If your staff person is focusing on the wrong thing that day, this is your chance to redirect them.
(02:02):
If your staff person is stuck, they get a chance every workday morning to run that problem up the ladder. This is a good way to iron out bottlenecks because it happens on a daily basis. The second type of meeting that you should run in your law firm is called a case review meeting. Lawyers know they need to have these. They just put them off constantly. The good news is that case review meetings don't have to be as long as onerous as they used to be with case management software tools, providing a relational database, offering a quick view into each case, you can instead tackle primary pressing issues that need to be addressed as a team. I'm not kidding when I say one of the reasons I left law practice was we always had these crazy long case review meetings where we would literally look at every case with case management software.
(02:53):
I get a holistic database where I can look at that stuff and I can see what's most pressing, which cases. It was really a game changer, and if they had that and it was being used aggressively when I was a lawyer, I might still be practicing law. Oh my God. The third type of meeting that you should run in your law firm is called a metrics meeting. Within any business, law firms included, everyone should be pulling their ORs in the same direction and working towards shared goals. The metrics meeting is a place where you can review those firm-wide goals and check your progress. However, it also makes sense because individual employees have specific jobs to generate personal metrics or KPIs for every person in the firm. Some law firms even tie those metrics to compensation. So in your metrics meeting, you could be reviewing the success or failure of an overarching marketing strategy while also determining whether your intake coordinator was able to generate the five Google reviews you wanted that person to acquire in the past month.
(03:54):
These meetings are also a great place to revise your metrics when you need to do so, which you should look into every quarter or every year. All of these meetings need to take no longer than two hours and six minutes in the aggregate each week. That's not bad, right? Simple math lawyers like simple math. I like simple math. These meetings should be calendared on a recurring basis with attendance for all of them being mandatory. These meeting types are so highly structured that the agenda sort of works itself out in many cases, but if you're using artificial intelligence tools, one of the things that those products can do is to generate meeting agendas on your behalf so you can meet more. You just need to do it more efficiently. Okay, that's it. I feel like this synergy is already improved up in here. By the way, please note, I've got my newest hat on today.
(04:49):
It's a new era, hacked. Fitted. It's a real hat. These are the guys that do the MLB hats, and this was sent over to me by my friend Chad Sands, who runs the Trial Lawyers Journal, TLJ, as you can see right there, that is produced by his company Cloud Lex. So Chad just got a free advertisement. If you want a free advertisement, you can send me a fitted hat too. Not a shitty hat, no adjustable, no mesh. Come on now. So check out the Trial Lawyer's Journal. In reality, it's a pretty cool product that they put out. Print journal, old school. All right. Next we've got Haitham Amin of a Amin La w, just what is a social media legal influencer you're about to find out? Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast. So I'm just going to silently reconsider some of my life choices for the next hour. No, I'm just fucking with you. I have no regrets. Let's bring our guest in Yolo. Our guest today is Haitham Amin, the principal attorney at Amin Law in San Francisco. Welcome to the show. Yes. Can you tell the people what you do because you're a practicing lawyer, a busy practicing lawyer as well.
Haitham Amin (06:18):
Yes, yes, yes. It's a great question to ask because a lot of people, and I've struggled with it throughout the years because when people say their profession, I feel like they boxed themselves in. And for me, myself, I am. Yes, I'm a practicing lawyer of now 13, almost 14 years, but throughout the years, I feel like I'm also so much more entrepreneur, a social media guy, so to speak. I do a lot of social media
Jared Correia (06:46):
Work. We'll get to that as well. Yeah, go ahead.
Haitham Amin (06:49):
And I'm also a real estate broker, so there's so many things that I do, and I feel like if I just box myself in as a lawyer, it takes away from being an individual and being something that it's not just a profession. There's more to me than being a lawyer.
Jared Correia (07:10):
You're renaissance man. Yeah. Takes one to recognize one hell, yeah. Tell me about the practice a little bit, because you've got a pretty interesting practice and you're diversified into different practice areas, so just talk about how that works.
Haitham Amin (07:28):
Yeah. I started off as a criminal defense attorney at the public defender's office in Solano, and then moved on to Marin. I always like to tell the story, Marin or Solano, for people that are not from the Bay Area, it's super underserved and not much going on with respect to development and very unfortunately, very poor county. And so the resources are very limited. Then we went, I was obviously defending a lot of folks that are victims of being homeless and drug addicts, et cetera, whereas Marin super wealthy county, was it George Lucas, the guy who made the, I'm trying to remember his name.
Jared Correia (08:17):
He lives there.
Haitham Amin (08:17):
Yeah, he made, yeah,
Jared Correia (08:19):
George Lucas, a Star Wars guy.
Haitham Amin (08:20):
Star Wars guy, yeah. Has a huge estate there. Just to give you an idea, Danny, you got a lot of money out there, Sausalito and all that, by the Golden Gate. So when I was a public defender, we were defending folks that were painting homes without a license. So after that, I went private in 2013 and never looked back. I had like to say, I graduated from being in the trenches, finding out, putting out fires to now I do. A lot of my practice now is diverse. I start off, or rather from criminal defense, moved on to family law with the emphasis on restraining orders. And my personal favorite that I've always loved from day one is personal injury, auto accident, personal injury. It's a passion of mine, but it's a very competitive market. So of course with your help, I brought on another associate and she's taken that load
Jared Correia (09:24):
Off. Oh
Haitham Amin (09:25):
Yeah, I talked about that too. Yeah, I remember she's taken off the family law load and allowing me to focus on my personal injury stuff, which is nice.
Jared Correia (09:33):
That's awesome.
Haitham Amin (09:34):
Yeah. If Deborah, Debra, you're listening to this, you're doing an amazing job.
Jared Correia (09:38):
Shout out to Deborah. Great job, Deborah. Okay, so in the first place, I want to get to the associate and all that stuff. What made you decide that you want practice law in the first place? Why did you get into the legal space
Haitham Amin (09:54):
You're going to like this story? I used to translate, I used to be as a child, I used to accompany family, various family members, aunts and uncles, and you call 'em aunts and uncles. You have when you come, I, I'm Egyptian, I'm a hundred, both my parents are Egyptians. It makes me a hundred percent Egyptian. So a lot of aunts and uncles are not really your aunts and uncles. They just call aunts and uncle out of respect, right?
Jared Correia (10:17):
Friends of the family.
Haitham Amin (10:20):
And then you accompany these folks as a child to immigration, lawyer's office, and you're doing the translation. And I felt like I was at some point growing up, I felt like I knew a lot more of the answers as they were being asked by those family members or relatives. And I knew what the lawyer was going to anticipate saying. A lot of times he says, it depends by the way he or she would say it depends. And I already knew that was going to be the answer to a lot of these questions.
Jared Correia (10:54):
That's so funny.
Haitham Amin (10:54):
And funny enough, one of the lawyers, James Canfield, God bless him if he's still alive, he's got to be in his nineties now. A lot of family members would go to him. And growing up, at some point he was like, you got to consider law school.
Jared Correia (11:14):
Cool.
Haitham Amin (11:14):
I was in the beginning, I was like, that's a profession really I never thought I can accomplish because I was the oldest and my parents really didn't know what the hell they were doing with me. Although emphasis on school just wasn't important. It was survival with immigrants. And so I kind of just figured it out on my own. And I got a,
Jared Correia (11:35):
Let me just confirm that James Canfield still appears to be kicking out
Haitham Amin (11:39):
Immigration law. San Jose
Jared Correia (11:43):
Got, we can shout him out as well.
Haitham Amin (11:45):
His bar number is like, it's one of those rarity, I think they're like four digits or something. His bar number is 1 0 0 1. Yeah, he is incredible human. I mean, his letter, he wrote me a letter of recommendation for law school, and that was the story
Jared Correia (12:05):
Read. So he saw this in you and he was like, Hey, you should be a
Jared Correia (12:08):
Lawyer. You'd
Jared Correia (12:09):
Be
Haitham Amin (12:09):
Good at this. He is like, you consider immigration law. And later, obviously I went to law school and I'll tell you that story if you care to hear why I did not want to go to immigration law after. But people that do immigration law, if you are watching this show my hat off to you. God bless you. You're doing God's work,
Jared Correia (12:30):
Especially now. Is it tough? Yeah, it's very tough. Yeah. Kudos to the immigration
Haitham Amin (12:35):
Attorneys. Absolutely. If I did it, I would be in jail. I cannot the disrespect.
Jared Correia (12:41):
Alright, so you teased it a little bit before, but you went to law school, how is that? And
Jared Correia (12:48):
Then you were like, there's no way in hell I'm doing immigration law after that experience.
Haitham Amin (12:52):
No way in hell. Absolutely. Well, yes, I got into law school. Well, it was such a shocker to a lot of family members. First of all, when I got into law school, because really as a child I was more of a troublemaker than anything. I was just much of a jokester.
Jared Correia (13:09):
They were like, wait, this guy, yeah,
Haitham Amin (13:12):
I know. I went to my high school reunion, God, that was 10 years ago. I can't remember when. Anyways, I'm Asian myself here. And then he goes, one of the friends, one of the guys I knew from high school, he was like, wait. He was almost in disbelief, in shock because I was just so much into making jokes and pranks and I didn't take school very seriously, but I channeled that energy into something productive as I gotten older, obviously. And here I am. But yeah, in law school I took immigration law. I did such, I mean, I got a Watkins Award. I did so well in the class.
Jared Correia (13:48):
That's awesome, man.
Haitham Amin (13:49):
Yeah. And you remember law school, you don't put your name into when you take exams. There's all these numbers
Jared Correia (13:55):
Still have some PTSD. But yeah, I remember law school
Haitham Amin (13:58):
Vaguely. And then she wrote in one of the finals or whatever it was, she was like, whoever you are, come see me. And I came to see her and she had nothing. Professor Bean, if you're listening to this, Angela Bean out of Oakland, California, if you're listening to this, I love you.
Jared Correia (14:14):
This is the most local shout out we've ever had in the show. It's phenomenal.
Haitham Amin (14:20):
I think she's retired. But anyways, I had shadowed her. She'd selected a few students. We went to immigration court with her. She wanted us to get into the field, the profession, and we went to a removal proceedings and we met her. We were outside the courthouse, immigration courthouse, outside the department, excuse me. And it was myself and four other white students.
Jared Correia (14:46):
And
Haitham Amin (14:46):
We were waiting for her to arrive or we all had suits and we looked like probably young lawyers or maybe, I don't know. We did not look like we were there for removal of proceedings, at least I find. So we got sat, immigration officers opened the door, and these guys can be real.
Jared Correia (15:05):
And
Haitham Amin (15:07):
We sat down and they didn't ask anything. The immigration, one of the ICE officers comes out border patrol or ice. And he looked at me and he pointed and he said, legal. And I'm looking at colleagues,
Jared Correia (15:25):
I think he was talking to you.
Haitham Amin (15:27):
I'm, I think he's talking to me and they're looking at me, what the hell just happened? And I think he realized how uncomfortable I got. And then he is like, are you a lawyer? And then he smirked and I'm like, these innuendos and these jokes that they pull. I feel like if I were as a practitioner having to deal with that on a daily basis, the public defender in me would probably just choke out. The officer and I would be in jail.
Jared Correia (15:53):
And things have gone so well since then. It's only improved.
Haitham Amin (15:59):
I've hear phenomenal stories. They don't ask questions now they just kind of yank you out.
Jared Correia (16:04):
Yeah, we need to get our shit together in this country. That's awful. Well, thank you for sharing that though. I think a lot of people would feel too uncomfortable to share that.
Haitham Amin (16:14):
Yeah, yeah. I just
Jared Correia (16:16):
Want to add, unfortunately, that dissuaded you from considering that practice area, but I'd be in the same boat. Yeah, go ahead. What were you going to say?
Haitham Amin (16:23):
No, real quick. I think it's a profession that, and I hate to be like this or hate to say it, but hey, whatever. If you're a white person, I think a white lawyer, you should consider immigration law because I think you serve your clients better. I hate to say it just in that current climate that we're in, it just, I think you do more if you're of certain race. That's what we need more
Jared Correia (16:49):
White lawyers.
Haitham Amin (16:50):
No, exactly.
Jared Correia (16:53):
Let's get the profession more diverse. Immigration law. Come on. Immigration law. Immigration law.
Jared Correia (17:00):
Oh my god. All right. Let me ask you this. So you recently hired your first attorney, which you mentioned before with your help. Thank you very much. Oh, my pleasure, man. And you've got a growing business, and that's a really hard thing to do. It's very hard to be like, I'm going to hire somebody because you've got payroll, got responsibility. So how did you come around to making that choice and how has it been going so far? It sounds like it's been going well.
Haitham Amin (17:28):
Well, first of all, let me start by saying it wouldn't be possible without you. I'm not just saying this because I'm on your show. I really attribute that a successful portion of my business because of your health. Well, I appreciate
Jared Correia (17:44):
That.
Jared Correia (17:44):
Happy to get people over the hump.
Haitham Amin (17:46):
It really did. Because I think it was one of those where you just pushed me and I had to swim. But you also did some analytical. We engaged in a lot of analysis and discussion beforehand and it worked out well so far. But I think it was the scariest part in the beginning for me was how am I going to afford this person? And I think you are able to help me understand how to make her profitable for me because she's not supposed to be a liability.
Jared Correia (18:19):
I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I talk about this with attorneys all the time. I think a lot of lawyers hire on vibes where they're just like, I'm going to bring somebody on. It feels like the right thing to do. But you actually looked at the numbers, figured that out, brought somebody on. And how close has it been to expectation in terms of what this person was supposed to do or would be bringing to the firm?
Haitham Amin (18:42):
I'll say she's definitely profitable.
Jared Correia (18:44):
Yeah, that's
Haitham Amin (18:45):
Awesome. She's very, very profitable. And the fear initially was like, do I have enough work for her?
Jared Correia (18:51):
Yes.
Haitham Amin (18:52):
That was the fear. And I feel like when you are able to take a backseat and allow someone else sort of take on the work, it gives you enough space and time to figure out how to bring on more business. So it's not like I'm spin the
Jared Correia (19:10):
Wheel it up to go find more clients. So it sounds like initially you had some work for her to do, but also you've been able to expand the amount of work you had for her to do because you're out there getting clients.
Haitham Amin (19:23):
And part of it also too, and I have to say the AI space, I think, and from my line of work, or I should say from my practice has been kind of instrumental. It's been very helpful because it kind of helped me streamline work and kind of teach her how to take on the tasks I want her to take on without very little supervision because it's sort of like,
Jared Correia (19:56):
Yeah. So this is so interesting to me and this is actually what I want to talk about next. It's a perfect segue. You are a pretty aggressive user of AI in your practice, right?
Haitham Amin (20:04):
Very. I love
Jared Correia (20:05):
It.
Haitham Amin (20:06):
I embrace it.
Jared Correia (20:08):
So I want to talk more about that. And so talk to me about how you're using it in conjunction with your associate. Are you encouraging her to use it as well? Do you use it in terms of your interactions with her and on the cases? What does that look like?
Haitham Amin (20:21):
Yeah, so it's like anything else. I like the fact that with ai, I will, if I want her to do a specific task, I can have my business account on Chad GPT, distill my ideas or rather break down my thoughts in a way that it's dumb ass proof, so to speak. And you can make it so easy that you can't f it up. And I just give her the instruction and she'll do it. Obviously, one thing I don't take chat, GPT for any other AI program for that matter, is case law research,
Jared Correia (21:01):
Because
Haitham Amin (21:01):
We've learned the hard way that can get you in trouble real quick.
Jared Correia (21:04):
Hallucinations is not ideal
Haitham Amin (21:06):
Hallucination, but one thing that I like about AI is it takes emotions out of tasks. If I have an angry email, if I want to put out a very angry or an aggressive email, I put it through the AI program and I ask it, I prompt it to take out the emotions, make it professional, and it yields better results almost always. And
Jared Correia (21:28):
So you're giving it a role and some structure, which is smart.
Haitham Amin (21:31):
Absolutely. And also, even if I'm proofreading some of my drafts or memorandums or whatever it might be, it's so nice and quick and it's almost always perfect with respect to grammar and everything else that we would spend hours on. So emails, proofreading, obviously. Anything else that you would feel comfortable, like email drafting potentially. All that stuff has been very helpful and very efficient. And it saves client money. One, because you're not necessarily taking an hour proof reading. Something might take you, even if the AI does it, you still might have to glance on it quickly, but you might be charging the client less than what you're actually spending otherwise. So I don't know why more people are not using it because then you can take on more work and you can free up more of your time and do other stuff, bring more business.
Jared Correia (22:32):
I don't know why either, honestly. So to that point, you were talking about your associate. Was she reticent to use AI before you sort of got her doing it? And why was that the case if she was,
Haitham Amin (22:45):
I think it was discouraged from her previous firms where she was an employee. She was discouraged from using it. And I think the reason being is, well, if you are using ai, you're not meeting your billables because you're more efficient. But that's not a good way to look at it because if you're able to be efficient, the clients is happy and you have more happier clients than you can bring in more business.
Jared Correia (23:16):
I mean, that's the way you have to look at it. If you're not going to change your billing, you need to bring in more clients who are better clients. So you see that
Haitham Amin (23:24):
Clearly. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know, I mean if they're happier, they're going to leave you better reviews and more people are going to read that is going to make you, and also at the same time, if you are so efficient and you're doing such a phenomenal job, why isn't your hourly rate reflecting of that?
Jared Correia (23:42):
Yeah, this is great. I hope people are listening to the way you use AI because a lot of attorneys are not thinking of it in this way. Do you have favorite tools that you use? Are you a chat GPT guy? Do you use other applications?
Haitham Amin (23:58):
I'm a chat GPT guy and I also kind of somewhat hate leaving something I like, but also the other program, I forgot what it was called. It's on Google.
Jared Correia (24:07):
Oh, Google, Gemini.
Haitham Amin (24:08):
Gemini. I like Gemini too. And I think you also gave me another one not too long ago. I just haven't signed up for it
Jared Correia (24:13):
Yet. I got a lot of people now using the notebook softwares. So like Google Notebook, LM or Microsoft copilot, which is l sort of like a small language model. Have you been using it, even putting stuff in there?
Haitham Amin (24:24):
I have not used it. You showed it to me and I got so overwhelmed with all these programs. The nice thing about chat GPT too is that you're able to index a subject matter.
Jared Correia (24:34):
Yes,
Haitham Amin (24:37):
I want to plan a trip. Obviously I should be talking to your wife who
Jared Correia (24:42):
Plans incredible trips. Trips. Yes. Everybody. Everybody out there planning a trip, you just thought to my wife. Thank you. You
Haitham Amin (24:45):
Have to. But I put on the just, hey, I'm thinking, where do I go in the winter? And it'll tell you and it'll save it. So now that I just have to, if I pull the trigger, I just have to send it to your wife and then she can give me the recommendations for everything else.
Jared Correia (25:03):
Alright, let's change subject matter for a second. So I will say unequivocally, you do an amazing job with online content. Your videos are so good and you've got legal specific videos, you've got other videos. So as I was looking up some of your stuff to put together some questions for you, you described yourself as a social media legal influencer. So what does that mean to you?
Haitham Amin (25:31):
Well, the twist of comedy, I'd like to think, well,
Jared Correia (25:34):
The twist of comedy. Okay, social media legal influencer with a twist of comedy. Alright, let me reset. What does that mean to you?
Haitham Amin (25:42):
Well, to me, okay. I think the legal space is filled with very boring, outdated, what? No, go ahead. And sort of in the box. We still one of the only professions that probably wear suits, right? Others have graduated to scrubs and whatever else, but everything is so just boxed in and redundant with all due respect to everyone else that does billboards and TV commercials. Maybe I'll do 'em one day, but it's boring. It's just boring. And every time I put
Jared Correia (26:16):
Myself, I could not agree more. You're in the right place my friend.
Haitham Amin (26:21):
You watch any legal commercial and I know it's serious. It's not meant to be funny and stuff. Someone that's suffering from serious brain damage or something that's nothing funny about it.
(26:33):
But at the same time, I think it's okay to kind of be creative and that's when I felt like there's certain boundaries I'd like to push. If I'm going to braid my hair and go on video, I'm pushing boundaries because a lot of lawyers are not necessarily braiding their hairs and doing immigration skits. That's another thing, the immigration skit that I did. There's nothing funny about immigration raids really, if you think about it. But if I'm going to teach somebody, if I want to deliver a message and I want people to watch and retain that message because there's value in it to protect them because that's what I want to do as a lawyer, I can deliver that with some comedic relief if I
Jared Correia (27:16):
Can. Gallows humor, black humor, that's always been a thing for sure.
Haitham Amin (27:19):
I mean, Larry, David, I feel like he's the king of that.
Jared Correia (27:23):
Yes. Hilarious. And you're providing useful information too. That's part of this and useful information. This as well.
Haitham Amin (27:28):
I mean the other alternative is I get in front of the camera and I say, here are five things to do if immigration officers knock on your door. I feel like the minute I say that, people just flip. I mean the three second rule is social media. Within three seconds people make their decision whether or not they're going to
Jared Correia (27:42):
Keep on. You got to be right on that. So you've done immigration videos, you've done some family law videos. I think you put together some personal injury videos as well, right?
Haitham Amin (27:53):
PIs? Yeah. Even though I don't do immigration and a lot of the stuff I speak on, I don't necessarily do. I just have it for value on build my social media presence and kind of pick up on hot topics like immigration for example. But yet a lot of the hot videos or the prenup videos and those crazy clauses and whether or not they're even enforceable if the cheating clause or toilet seat clause in a prenup or something. Yeah, you want to out explain that one. Yes. Is
Jared Correia (28:21):
That actually a real clause by the way people have put those in prenups?
Haitham Amin (28:27):
I've heard. I haven't seen it personally, but I've heard people have even gone as far as putting weight claws. If your spouse, oh, that's really
Jared Correia (28:34):
Funny.
Haitham Amin (28:35):
If I guess he or she gained 10 or more whatever, seven pounds or whatever during the marriage, there's a penalty or some form of you've got to pay up. What
Jared Correia (28:47):
A fucking horrible world we live in. Speaking, speaking of call's, humor. So when you come up with ideas for videos, is it just like, Hey, this is a hot topic I'm going to do, this is some of it. Here's some information I want to impart in a practice area for potential clients, do you sometimes aim those at referral sources? How do you go about doing that?
Haitham Amin (29:12):
So a combination of ways, but more, I have a video coming out and I got to actually post it. This is based on a true story and probably can speak freely on it. It's been over 40 years.
Jared Correia (29:26):
Yeah,
Haitham Amin (29:27):
You can, I think we're good.
(29:30):
So this idea, I can't take credit for it actually came from my uncle, my mom's brother, my real uncle. And he was just telling us a story back in San Francisco in the eighties, and they were all playing soccer. I think it was Golden Gate Field or something. And one of the guys with them hurt his ankle or broke his ankle or something, sprained his ankle and they picked him up and they were going to take him to the hospital and he stopped as he fumbled as walking or trying to walk, he stopped in midway and said, no, no hospital dropped me off at Macy's. And they're all like, Macy's, the hell is wrong with me. And you got to understand, these are the eighties, I don't know what kind of
Jared Correia (30:12):
Cameras they had. Eighties, man, everything went down in the eighties,
Haitham Amin (30:15):
Everything went down and they threw him at Macy's here in Union Square, San Francisco. I don't condone this obviously as anyone to do. It's fraud. But yes, just to be clear, don't do this. Here's an disclaimer, don't do it. And they threw him at Macy's and then he sued Macy's and I think he made 50 or 60,000. That's
Jared Correia (30:37):
So funny.
Haitham Amin (30:37):
I don't know if he's still around or not, but Karma probably got him. So I made a video about it. I literally made a video about it and we shot it. So we shot it. We went to the soccer field, and by the way, I produce and I write all my scripts. So for me it was, yeah, which is amazing. I even picked out the actors. So we went to the soccer fields, we even went to Macy's and we got kicked out. They saw the camera and you tried,
Jared Correia (31:05):
What are you going to do?
Haitham Amin (31:06):
We tried, and I mean as a soccer player, limbing in cleats, Macy's is going to draw
Jared Correia (31:12):
Attention. Yeah, they're probably get the fuck out,
Haitham Amin (31:14):
Right? Precisely. So LA I feel like we would've gone around it if we were in LA this time around, but I felt like it was much easier to shoot a here. And after that we went, yeah, we went and we finished it in my common area upstairs, but we ended up, the message was don't commit fraud. So we shot out scene by scene and it was two three hour shoot with four different actors and the message was, it's not worth it because you can get caught and you can get in long
Jared Correia (31:48):
Trouble. That's cool the way you spun that up,
Haitham Amin (31:50):
Right. And it was also a pi angle, right? Because if you get hurt and you're injured, I mean, don't give a fraud then come to me.
Jared Correia (31:57):
Call me. Yeah.
Haitham Amin (31:58):
But yeah, if you're really injured, genuinely injured, give me a ring. And that's a nice thing about social media and these videos, kits that I now understand as a, you can make these into commercials without really people knowing it's a commercial
Jared Correia (32:10):
Because
Haitham Amin (32:11):
You're watching a skit
Jared Correia (32:12):
And
Haitham Amin (32:13):
You think it's for entertainment. It is entertainment. It's just kind of a clever way to advertise, because I'm not saying, have you been injured in a car accident? Like everybody else
Jared Correia (32:23):
Says, give me a Yeah,
Haitham Amin (32:24):
Right. I'm not trying to disrespect or throw shade, anyone that does this, I'll do it for you. I feel like there's better ways to do it than the traditional method.
Jared Correia (32:35):
No, that's brilliant. Okay, so the other thing I wanted to ask you about is, so you do these legal videos, but then you also produce a whole host of other videos. Just personally, do you still have time to do that? Do you like doing that? Is that more of a hobby? What does that look like for you?
Haitham Amin (32:51):
Yeah, I get bored very easily. Very easily with repetitiveness. Like TikTok was when I was doing a lot of TikTok, the trends was the huge thing to
Jared Correia (33:04):
Do,
Haitham Amin (33:05):
And it just got boring because it's creatively like you're boxed in. I have to wait for a trend that's now hot and whatever the trend might be, it might be Beyonce's song from 20 years ago and people now are doing it
Jared Correia (33:21):
On TikTok. I love how the songs come back and then my kids are listen to the song on TikTok and I'm like,
Haitham Amin (33:27):
Oh, this is from 1960 is trending
Jared Correia (33:29):
Three or whatever. And they're like, shut up anyway,
Haitham Amin (33:32):
Go ahead. Yeah, they don't want to hear it. They're like, there's dinosaur. Right, right. But you're creatively boxed in. That's a problem. Also, I feel like with social media, if you're not willing to push the boundaries and kind of be creative and creative, creative is hard. And to be a lawyer, a busy lawyer and creative is even harder,
Jared Correia (33:57):
Especially somebody like you because you take on a lot of roles. You're a writer director. I
Haitham Amin (34:01):
Take on a lot of roles because I realized so before then I do have my videographers and they do come up with ideas sometimes, but there's a difference between you being passionate about an idea or some execution of an idea versus someone doing it because it's a job. Right?
Jared Correia (34:19):
Absolutely. And
Haitham Amin (34:20):
I think that's where creative comes in and a lot of these ideas, you might have it, but the execution is all that matters. I mean, you and I can have a thousand ideas, but how are you going to execute it is where it gets tricky.
Jared Correia (34:32):
So let me ask you this, do you still have time to do the non-legal videos? And if you do, do you, okay, did you view that as helpful in terms of developing your reputation as an attorney?
Haitham Amin (34:45):
I did. I also, creativity, it helps you build, because remember, well remember you already know I'm not an actor, but when I started doing this about almost six years ago,
Jared Correia (34:54):
Kind of are,
Haitham Amin (34:56):
Yeah, before I was, I mean, we're all lawyers, so we're comfortable speaking in public,
(35:01):
But there's a difference between speaking in public and actually acting out during a script or a video. So I had six years basically. I consider that acting school. A lot of it, if you watch the first video I ever done, it was probably horrendous. And as you progress and you just get gradually better and better. So I think it's character development and I think all these other videos that I've done that were not necessarily legal helped me to become the better, I guess actor. That's a great way to look at it that I am now. Yeah, I guess I would consider myself an
Jared Correia (35:36):
Actor. We're going to consider you an actor, so we'll put some links to your videos in our show notes so people can check 'em out. I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you right now. They are really good and well done. Thank you. Some of the best. A lot videos I've seen, to be perfectly honest,
Haitham Amin (35:54):
That means a lot to me. Humbling. I'm humbled.
Jared Correia (35:57):
Oh, it's totally true. All right, let me ask you one more question last one before we get into our last segment. How do you view success in terms of your online content? Is it simply views? Is it referrals? Is it a mixture of things? What are you looking at for a return on investment?
Haitham Amin (36:17):
Well, for me personally, success is I'm proud of that piece of work that I put together.
(36:25):
I can care less that my video gets 10 views because I'm so proud of how much work I've put into it that I can care less about the algorithm. Eventually, I hope is the algorithm catches on or enough people catch on. So consistency, obviously, if you're so proud of, I'm so proud of this work, I'm a lawyer, so for me to produce, write, pick actors and put this video together, to me it's rewarding because I never thought I didn't go to school for that and I never thought that I can put something like this together.
Jared Correia (36:59):
Yeah, you're like self-taught for
Haitham Amin (37:00):
Sure. Yeah. So if I'm able to be proud of it and show it to people and say, this is a piece of work that I'm proud of, to me that's success. And eventually people catch on just like anything else. It may not be cool today, but a lot of things are not cool today. They end up being trending in the future. Just think of all the old songs that from 20 years ago that are now trending
Jared Correia (37:26):
On TikTok, all the bands that didn't have success earlier, all the movies that weren't successful in their initial release For sure.
Haitham Amin (37:33):
Right.
Jared Correia (37:34):
What an uplifting story.
Haitham Amin (37:36):
Yeah, I don't care about likes and comments and views and it's nice, but I don't care about
Jared Correia (37:44):
Me neither. I don't want to say more about that. Evan's going to get angry at me, but hey, this was fun. Will you hang around for one short segment before we finish up?
Haitham Amin (37:52):
Absolutely, man. No place I'd rather be than this show.
Jared Correia (38:02):
Alright everybody, welcome back. It's the Counter program. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Ham, welcome back.
Haitham Amin (38:20):
Thank you. Thank you Jared for having me. I appreciate being on this amazing show. Appreciate your time.
Jared Correia (38:25):
Yes, I appreciate yours. Alright, I'm launching a new segment today just for you. I might make it a recurring segment if I like it, but I want to test it out with you. I know run. You're a content guy. So I was googling you to get some questions together when we're going to speak. And I found some weird shit in the people also ask section of the Google results for you. So if people dunno, people also ask in Google is real search queries from real people. So let's call this people. Also ask our new segment in which I relay some of the items I've discovered and you can just explain to me why these are related to you in any way, if they actually are now, have you done this yourself at all?
Haitham Amin (39:12):
Have I Googled
Jared Correia (39:12):
Myself? Do you Google yourself? Yeah,
Haitham Amin (39:14):
I have Googled myself. Yeah, just to see what kind of stuff is out there and it's a lot of crazy stuff sometimes.
Jared Correia (39:23):
Alright, good. I found the same
Haitham Amin (39:24):
Thing. Nothing with deepfake and AI just yet. Thank God.
Jared Correia (39:27):
Not yet. Give it like six months. Well I think the problem that you and I have is we produce enough content that if somebody wanted to deep fake either of us, I think it would be relatively easy to do. I'm not encouraging anyone.
Haitham Amin (39:39):
I hope not. It would be relatively easy to do. It would be very easy. Absolutely. You're
Jared Correia (39:43):
Right. Alright, ready? Here's number one. This came up and people also ask when I searched your name, do lawyers make $500,000 per year?
Haitham Amin (39:54):
Not all lawyers, which I think is, I was going to say, I think that's a credit to you. God, I think if you make less than a million and you live in San Francisco, I think it's like the poverty, right? Isn't probably poverty line bought. Quick story. I went to this fancy matcha place. I don't drink matcha
Jared Correia (40:18):
By. I wanted to get coffee. That's like the green tea stuff. Is that?
Haitham Amin (40:21):
That's the green tea. It's good for
Jared Correia (40:22):
You. Okay.
Haitham Amin (40:24):
I wanted to get a latte more specifically and I glanced over and there was this amazing looking croissant and I'm like, Hey, maybe I want a croissant. And as I get closer, it was almost 10 bucks for a croissant.
Jared Correia (40:40):
Crazy.
Haitham Amin (40:40):
I'm like, I don't care how, first of all, I don't care how much money you make if you're spending 10,000 on croissant at a coffee shop. I don't know. It's a principle. You can get a whole dozen of croissants from Costco, I feel like for less than 10 bucks.
Jared Correia (40:54):
Can I tell you, right before we were on this episode, we didn't plan this. My wife went to Costco, bought a big ass thing, a croissants. There were like 12 croissants in there for four bucks. Thank you. They're fucking delicious. Thank you. So you did not get to croissant is what you're telling me.
Haitham Amin (41:10):
I did not spend 9, 9, 9 on a croissant.
Jared Correia (41:14):
Yeah. Good for you. We got
Haitham Amin (41:15):
To have some principles. I did spend seven bucks on a latte day. It had, but we won't talk about
Jared Correia (41:19):
That. But we won't talk about am a latte guy. I am one of those suburban latte desks. I love lattes. I probably should stop. Me
Haitham Amin (41:27):
Too. I really do.
Jared Correia (41:30):
All right, next one. That was related to your name. And I don't know if this is a coincidence, it's probably not. Who is considered the greatest lawyer of all time? You're in the running for that. It would appear
Haitham Amin (41:44):
Jesus. I don't want to, that's like talking about ego, man. I can't. I feel like I have to the greats before me. I can't.
Jared Correia (41:55):
Well, let me ask you, who do you think the greatest lawyer of all time is? I'm interested to know. I have an answer as well.
Haitham Amin (42:04):
Are we going off success or are we're going off people that are still alive
Jared Correia (42:07):
Or whatever criteria you want. Live dead successful, unsuccessful. Up to you.
Haitham Amin (42:13):
It may not be a popular opinion, but I really like Johnny Cocker, not just because he won that case or did a phenomenal job. I feel like his story is just coming up was kind of inspirational. And he was also why he was a good lawyer and I'm not a religious person, but I will say this much. He was a good lawyer because he would preach on Sundays. He was sort of like a part-time pastor.
Jared Correia (42:36):
I mean that works in the courtroom for sure.
Haitham Amin (42:40):
It really does because you know your audience
Jared Correia (42:42):
And
Haitham Amin (42:42):
You sort of how to preach at people. So I feel like that's what made him a phenomenal lawyer.
Jared Correia (42:48):
That's a great call actually. Alright, do you know what the list was that Google generated from the AI suggestions under? People also
Haitham Amin (42:55):
Asked, I would like to know your answer before
Jared Correia (42:57):
I the list off. I'll tell you, he wasn't a practicing lawyer for a long time, but Abraham Lincoln is probably my favorite American in history.
Haitham Amin (43:06):
See, if you would've asked me the favorite president, I would've said Abraham Lincoln. But please,
Jared Correia (43:09):
Same. I'm the same. Yeah, no, Lincoln was phenomenal. Really good like homespun lawyer, but then also the greatest politician of that era saved the country. So where's Abraham Lincoln? Now I ask you. So Johnny Cochrane's a great one too though. I think that's a really cool one. Alright, so AI suggestions from Google. Were Cicero, Clarence Darrow, ghost Monkey trial, Thurgood Marshall and Jerry Spence. So I think it's still alive. I think
Haitham Amin (43:43):
Jerry Spencer is in his Marshall. Wasn't he a Supreme Court?
Jared Correia (43:46):
Yeah, he was a lawyer first though. He did a lot of civil rights work before he became a Supreme Court justice. But I think Thurgood Marshall could get in for either his lawyer work or his work as a judge.
Haitham Amin (44:00):
Where is he now? In spirit?
Jared Correia (44:03):
Yes, I know, I know. I got a few more for you. This was related to you as well. It came up under your search. And the question is, who are the magic five lawyers? So who are the magic five lawyers and are you involved with them?
Haitham Amin (44:25):
Is that like a superhero group or something? Do we wear capes at night? I would hope and free all the detainees, the ice facilities. I think
Jared Correia (44:36):
We need to do this. This would
Haitham Amin (44:38):
Be great,
Jared Correia (44:38):
Right?
Haitham Amin (44:39):
It would be a good superhero movie. You have the diverse ruble lawyers. They get together at night and they put on capes and they fly detention centers all over across the country and they break the locks and all these poor immigrants, not the criminal ones, not condoning any criminal criminals.
Jared Correia (44:56):
Not that any criminals are being arrested, they're just arresting citizens.
Haitham Amin (45:00):
The poor citizens that are non-criminals. We can free them so they can come back out on the streets.
Jared Correia (45:06):
I feel like we shouldn't have talked about this now somebody's going to steal that great idea. The magic five.
Haitham Amin (45:10):
Magic five. How do we, just
Jared Correia (45:13):
So you know, I did a little research on this and I think that this person was trying to figure out the Magic Circle, which is a group of five firms in the United Kingdom, but I like your idea much better.
Haitham Amin (45:26):
See, that's what happens. Where as content creators, you and I, we automatically just go into this mood of creation.
Jared Correia (45:33):
So many ideas, we're just vibing here. We just need, the fives are immaculate on this podcast.
Haitham Amin (45:38):
We need three more. We have two lawyers already. Now we just need three more.
Jared Correia (45:41):
Alright. Alright. Send in your applications.
Haitham Amin (45:44):
Yeah, if you're listening to this.
Jared Correia (45:47):
Alright, I got three more for you related to a search for you. Is Kim Kardashian an attorney or a lawyer? What do you think of this Kim Kardashian stuff? This has been like the news a little bit.
Haitham Amin (46:02):
I'm going to hurt some people's feelings, but I'm just going to come out and say it. I never watched any of her shows. Me neither. I don't think she has any talent, although I don't want to take away from the fact that she's very wealthy somehow and she does well for herself. But when you have so much money, why the hell do you want to be a lawyer? Number one. And I guess it's one of those things when you have so much money, you want something that you can't buy. So then you go out in California, we have this stupid thing, and I don't know why they still have it, where you can do a mentorship for X amount of years and then you can take the baby bar, which kind of bypasses you need for to go to law school. And unless you're Abraham Lincoln, which we don't have that anymore. I don't know what law firm, I'm sure a lot of law firms will sign off to say, oh yeah, she's been here for the last whatever, three years, give her the baby
Jared Correia (46:58):
Bar.
Haitham Amin (46:59):
But it's a testament to how the system is working because she's taking the test like three or four different times and she keeps on
Jared Correia (47:04):
Failing. Failing all the time, right? Yeah.
Haitham Amin (47:07):
Is a hard bar exam, I feel
Jared Correia (47:08):
Like, isn't
Haitham Amin (47:09):
It? Well, it's the hardest in the country, they say. I don't know. But this is the first, by the way, this is the baby bar. Yes. So this is just to say you got to take the bar after you're done still. So this is the first step. So my question is, she's doing it I think for social media and relevancy. So people can go around and say they sell these shirts now, says, Kim is my lawyer. It's cute. Or if you don't know what a lawyer, they say, Kim is my attorney. Because they don't know the difference. I guess in other countries, attorney and lawyer mean different things from what I understand.
Jared Correia (47:41):
So I actually put this in my notes because this was, I think what part of the question was related to, so a lawyer has a law degree, but an attorney is a lawyer who's passed the bar exam. So I think what people are asking is, which is she? And I think right now she's neither, right? She did
Haitham Amin (47:57):
Not pass the exam neither. Well, she's just a very, very wealthy billionaire. Her dad was a lawyer and a real estate broker, by the way, who just happened to renew his license. They sat on the bench next to Johnny Cochran and the rest of the
Jared Correia (48:12):
Exactly. Fee. Fee. It's full circle.
Haitham Amin (48:15):
Full circle. Full circle.
Jared Correia (48:16):
But we still need three more magic five attorneys.
Haitham Amin (48:19):
Yeah. Were they five lawyers sitting next to oj? Was it?
Jared Correia (48:24):
I think it might've been Barry Schack, f Lee Bailey, maybe four. Four or five four.
Haitham Amin (48:31):
Oh, Robert Sha
Jared Correia (48:31):
Shapiro. So it was five
Haitham Amin (48:32):
Shapiro
Jared Correia (48:33):
And Kardashian. Yeah. Maybe that's the magic five.
Haitham Amin (48:37):
Can you imagine now as any defendant in the courtroom with five lawyers sitting next to him?
Jared Correia (48:42):
It's kind of crazy. That was a wild time. The eighties were wild. The nineties were wild.
Haitham Amin (48:48):
A lot of time to be alive. Right?
Jared Correia (48:51):
I got two more for you. You could take this question any number of ways, but the question is, who is higher than a lawyer
Haitham Amin (49:04):
In a profession? I guess you'd say taking whatever way you want to take it. Right? Who's hired? I
Jared Correia (49:08):
Thought that was a loaded question.
Haitham Amin (49:11):
God. Well, just in case you have any judges that watch your show, A judge is higher than a lawyer.
Jared Correia (49:18):
I like what you did there. That was very nice. We didn't even get into mushrooms or LSD
Jared Correia (49:24):
Or anything like that. No, no, no. All right. Then the last question I found related to a search for you, and people also ask, is lawyer a stressful job? I will say, if people are listening this, you don't seem like a super stressed dude,
Haitham Amin (49:43):
I used to be worse, but I will go back to my tort professor in law school. I said, if you're here to make money, there's easier ways to make it. So the profession is very stressful. Obviously anything that makes money stressful. But the problem with us is there's so many rules around our profession that you can't really do your job in peace. You always have to make sure there's all these check marks. Right? Worried
Jared Correia (50:10):
About all the ethics rules and stuff. Yeah.
Haitham Amin (50:12):
Ethical rules. And if you're running,
Jared Correia (50:15):
Which other business owners don't have, if you opened up, I dunno. Well, Chris shop. Chris Shop, great. Thanks for bringing it back around. Far less rules for that far, far less rules. Lawyers have restrictions on how they can access potential clients. I can put a sign out in front of croissant shop if I want to. I could pull people in off the street and be like, I'm trying my $10
Haitham Amin (50:40):
Croissants. You can literally bribe people to see. I'll give you a buck to try my croissant. Yeah, that's true. Whereas obviously us, we are restricted. And then on top of it, if you're running a business, it's a practice. You have to be a lawyer and then you have to be a business person. And then you have all these rules around payroll and IRS. Oh my God, lawyers and CPAs, they can go back seven years and audit you. Absolutely. I like to sleep at night. So every time I talk to my cpa, I say, Hey, don't get creative. I want to sleep. I don't want to have to do anything related to just like the bar, if your client complains and there's an inquiry, you have to print out these emails and you prove all this work that you did. It's almost like IRS audit.
Jared Correia (51:31):
It is. And more substantive. In some cases I feel like
Haitham Amin (51:35):
I'm more substantive.
Jared Correia (51:36):
Right. So how did you de-stress as a lawyer? How'd you figure that part of it out?
Haitham Amin (51:41):
Here's my secret. I play soccer almost three to four times a week. I do yoga Saturdays. I used to do yoga Tuesdays as well. But I just let loose when I play soccer because it's, you're running it, releasing your stress. And a lot of times now I've learned that I don't have to take it home. It's okay to, there's different personalities and people are going to be people I don't have to try to think about. And I tell this to Deborah until this day, because she's a newer lawyer. I say she's outraged often by client's conduct or opposing counsel. I always tell that 90% of our practice is really therapy.
Jared Correia (52:32):
True.
Haitham Amin (52:32):
Because clients come to you at their worst and a lot of times they're looking for answers and solutions, but they also, they're so distraught that hypothetically speaking, their wife cheated on them and left them. And now there's a restraining order that was handed to them because they broke the glass when they found out somebody was cheating. Couldn't
Jared Correia (52:52):
Keep the toilet seat down or
Haitham Amin (52:55):
Seat down when they got worse. Pop in this case,
Jared Correia (52:56):
Yes,
Haitham Amin (52:58):
Whichever preference you have. And they're just distraught and they just want to be heard. And lawyers don't have, because we're not trained therapists, we're not willing, a lot of times we don't want to listen and we want to just get off the phone and just like, yes, yes. We get off. And I feel that that creates tension and yeah, I advise my client to seek therapy elsewhere cheaper than, excuse
Jared Correia (53:25):
Me. It's cheaper than you.
Haitham Amin (53:28):
It's cheaper than to have to pay me to listen to it. But you can do that in a nice way.
Jared Correia (53:36):
Yes,
Haitham Amin (53:37):
You can do that in a respectful way and just be okay with the fact people are going to be human and just don't take it with you and practice yoga,
Jared Correia (53:44):
Soccer. This has been fun. I hope this was therapeutic for people listening. Thanks for coming on. I had a good
Haitham Amin (53:49):
Time. Thank you, Jared, for having me. It's been a pleasure being on this very, very cool podcast. Can't wait for it to be Eric.
Jared Correia (53:57):
Thank you. Take care, man. Thanks for our guest, Haitham Amin of Amin Law. To learn more about Haitham and Amin law, visit amin law.co. That's A-M-I-N-L-A w.co. That's the personal injury site and amin law.com. Just add the M. A-M-I-N-L-A-W dot com for family law and more. This dude, he's got a million videos, two websites now because I'll always be a nineties kid who thought the Blair Wish project was real up until last week. But his true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm not just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlists for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is a collection of tunes to listen to by the Bay. That's right. It's songs about San Francisco and is sponsored by Rice Serone, the San Francisco treat. Is it rice? Is it macaroni? Is it both? How much metal does it contain? The current FDA will never tell.
Jared Correia (55:06):
That means it's a
Jared Correia (55:07):
Lot. Damn. Now they're never going to sponsor us for real. Join us next time. One, I will not be licking toads.