Steve Palmer [00:00:01]:

All right, Steve Palmer here. Here with Troy again, for another they don't teach you that in law school series. And what is that all about? Well, we talk about stuff they don't teach you in law school. And Troy, being a law student would know better than any of us what they teach and what they don't teach. Or at least so far. Second year, right. Finishing your. Or you finish your second year, starting your third year.

Steve Palmer [00:00:19]:

Yep.

Troy [00:00:19]:

Rising 3L now is the term 3L.

Steve Palmer [00:00:22]:

So this is like fancy talk. So this. This goes way back. And I think there's a guy named Scott Turow who wrote some books. He was a novelist, and he wrote Presumed Innocent, became a Harrison Ford movie. And I think that was Turow. Anyway. I think he wrote a book called 1L, which goes way back, but it was about your first year in law school.

Steve Palmer [00:00:44]:

But later that became a series called the Paper Chase, I think, or a movie and then a series called the Paper Chase.

Troy [00:00:51]:

So, anyway, now I know my origins of my name.

Steve Palmer [00:00:55]:

Now you know one, so they call it one L. Like your first year of law student. Like, you're so cool. You've got the lingo. Or you could just say, it's my first year in law school. Yeah.

Troy [00:01:04]:

Yeah, I could probably do that.

Steve Palmer [00:01:05]:

All right, well, look, I'll tell you what they're not gonna teach you in law school. A lawyer is not a bus. That's true.

Troy [00:01:11]:

I don't know what that is.

Steve Palmer [00:01:12]:

A lawyer is not a bus. I didn't learn this in law school, but I did learn this right after law school when we were studying for. There are two facets of the bar exam. Now, one is something called the mpre, which is the Model Professional Responsibility Exam. You have to take that.

Troy [00:01:29]:

I'm taking it this fall. A big thing is I'm taking pr, which is the class that preps you for it. And then after that, I'm gonna take it in December. Right.

Steve Palmer [00:01:38]:

PR is. Tell us.

Troy [00:01:39]:

Professional responsibility is a class that's required, at least at our school. Most schools it is. It preps you just for the mpre, so most people will take that class, and then right after that, you would take the mpre. So that's why I'm taking it this fall.

Steve Palmer [00:01:54]:

I got you.

Troy [00:01:55]:

It makes the studying a lot easier.

Steve Palmer [00:01:56]:

It's not just to prep you for the mpre. It's professional responsibility, designed to teach you the rules of ethics and professionalism that govern our practice. And the MPRE is like the BARSSA or the ABA or whoever makes up this crap. It's their way of saying, of ensuring that you learn those things before you enter into the real world and face the storm of the practice of law. But we do have rules, right? We have rules that govern what we do. Things we can talk to clients about things or things we can. Things like attorney client privilege, what I'm getting at, and all sorts of other things, how we conduct ourselves in front of judges and courts, et cetera. It's not just for the NPR, but I think somebody in preparation for the MPRE, back when I was probably a 3L, so maybe I did learn this in law school, maybe, but it was outside law school.

Steve Palmer [00:02:57]:

We took a prep class, and the guy gave us three rules to pass the mpre. I don't remember the other two, but I do remember this one. But I know all the rules. I promise. I know this one. And the first rule, he says, a lawyer is not a bus. And I've never forgotten it. He had some other quippy ones, but that one stuck with me.

Steve Palmer [00:03:16]:

And here's his point. What's a bus do? We'll play a little Socratic law school.

Troy [00:03:20]:

A bus drives people around, just transports people. That's about it.

Steve Palmer [00:03:25]:

So a city bus goes to every bus stop and has to stop, has.

Troy [00:03:30]:

A planned route, takes people where they need to go, takes their money, that kind of deal.

Steve Palmer [00:03:34]:

And his point is the city bus has to let people on the bus. If you've got your nickel, you get to ride the bus.

Troy [00:03:41]:

Yep.

Steve Palmer [00:03:41]:

All right. But a lawyer's not a bus. We don't have to stop in front of every client's house and take on that client. And the reason I'm bringing this up, because I'm going to sort of shift this. Now that you've seen the practice of law upstairs, it's really easy to fall into the trap of letting the client run the show. And I'm not saying the client. It's not. The client's interest in the client's opinions isn't important.

Steve Palmer [00:04:10]:

It certainly is. But we are the professionals that have to make the decisions legally. And we have to decide what's ethical and what's not ethical. And we can only do. We can only work within those bounds. And clients would say, I don't give a rat's behind if it's ethical or not. I want you to do it. And the point I think that this guy was making is we are not buses.

Steve Palmer [00:04:29]:

We can say no to representing somebody that we're not comfortable representing. And this comes up in all sorts of ways. We could be, say, I had a client recently and had received a target letter. I'm not going to talk about the specifics, but there's a target letter from the federal government, and this client was under investigation for something. And the target letter said, contact the usa, the United States attorney. I did that. And then things sort of went dormant. Well, the client was going haywire.

Steve Palmer [00:05:03]:

I didn't like that. Wanted something to happen fast. Wanted stuff to go on. Wanted me to do things that were outside the purview of what I thought was prudent. And eventually I just had to say, look, no hard feelings. I can't do that. I can't do it. And of course, the client went elsewhere.

Steve Palmer [00:05:21]:

Fine. Now, it also comes up in times when clients call us. Say you're a young lawyer. You get a call from a client that says, look, you and I do criminal defense work together. You help me upstairs. How much divorce work do we do?

Troy [00:05:37]:

We do no divorce work.

Steve Palmer [00:05:38]:

No divorce work. So let's say you're Troy Hendrickson, attorney at law, and you got your shingle hanging out there, and the first month comes along and you got couple bucks in the door, and it's getting sort of lean because your phone bill's due, and you're thinking, man, I need to get some cases in. And next thing you know, Mr. Jones calls and says, I got a divorce. Can you do it or will you do it?

Troy [00:06:04]:

I can technically do it, but I should not do it.

Steve Palmer [00:06:08]:

Or you have to consult with somebody else to help you do it.

Troy [00:06:11]:

If I was planning on going the family, I could probably work with an already established family attorney, maybe do it together and learn from them. But I should not just take it on. Do something I have never done before.

Steve Palmer [00:06:21]:

But you're not a bus. You don't have to stop and pick that guy up just to get his nickel. No. Now, you know what else comes up A lot is, and you're going to experience this, and new lawyers just starting out. And I'm not necessarily talking about the guys going to work for the big firms. That's a different ilk. But people that do what we do, where we're slugging it out on the streets day in and day out. Aunt Joanne calls, says, I need you to do this case.

Steve Palmer [00:06:46]:

Can you sue? I bought this car, and the engine's bad, and I need. I want you to do this case.

Troy [00:06:53]:

Or you get that phone call.

Steve Palmer [00:06:54]:

You get it all the time. And there's two problems. One, there are always these mish. Not always, but most of the time, these are like These wishy washy. I don't know. But because Aunt Joanne. I don't know. She's compromised.

Steve Palmer [00:07:09]:

Meaning she knows you. And it's really hard to look at your aunt, who has sort of been above you in the human hierarchy because she's older and she's your aunt, and you've always given her respect. It's hard to look at your aunt and say, you're wrong. And then you get the this is what I call. Can't you just. Questions. Can't you just call.

Troy [00:07:30]:

Can't you just file this? Maybe if they see a lawyer's involved, maybe they'll just immediately give up some money.

Steve Palmer [00:07:35]:

And it's like, can't you just write a letter? Yeah. Can't you just. Can't you just. Can't you just. You have to say no to this. You have to say no because it's always a hornet's nest. I don't care what. It's almost always a hornet's nest where you make the phone call, and next thing you know, you're on the hook and there's letters going back and forth.

Steve Palmer [00:07:54]:

It's an area of law. You have no idea what the heck you're talking about. And you're thinking, why did I do this? And you forgot that you're not a boss. You didn't have to stop in front of Aunt Joanne's house and take her on.

Troy [00:08:07]:

But I really wanted to.

Steve Palmer [00:08:08]:

Well, Aunt Joanne says, look, I promise I'll pay you. And she says, how about I give you $500? And you're looking at this thinking, all right, I could use the 500, but if this requires a lawsuit, it's going to take, like, 50 hours of my time. That's worth more than 500. What do I do? You're almost always better saying no. You know, I love it. One of my favorite sayings is, no is a complete sentence. Can you do this? No.

Troy [00:08:39]:

That is a complete sentence.

Steve Palmer [00:08:41]:

No, I can't. And look, you don't have to be rude to people, but saying no to representation is critical. And being able to discern what you can do, what you can't do, what you should do, and what you shouldn't do as you start practice. And I think law school does not do a great job of teaching this, because maybe there's no way to teach it in law school. You have to step into that pit full of spikes on your own and experience it. Because, I mean, look, here's a war story. Early on, I took on a case just like this. I Needed the money.

Steve Palmer [00:09:16]:

It was some litigation, some potential medical malpractice case that had very little value. And I thought, well, look, I need the money. I'm not busy anyway. But then I get busy. Then something that you want to do, something that in your area comes along and this gets brushed aside. And you can get sideways very quickly in this stuff. And this is how lawyers screw up. This is how you go sideways with your responsibilities to the client.

Steve Palmer [00:09:39]:

The other thing can you think I'll ask you other times you should say no. Even in your practice area.

Troy [00:09:47]:

In criminal defense, probably should say no.

Steve Palmer [00:09:52]:

I'll help you. Okay. Crazy people, right? And look, I'm sorry, I don't know what you want me to tell you. I don't know what else to call it, but there are people who are crazy.

Troy [00:10:02]:

Yeah, We've had discussions.

Steve Palmer [00:10:05]:

And look, I'm going to use the political corrective. There are people have mental health issues, and sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not so obvious. But as you experience, like, the more you experience it, the more you'll learn to see the signs. I read an article one time about. It was a criminal defense lawyer of probably when I read the case or read the article, he was probably my age. Looking back, I saved it somewhere, but it was back when we saw it print. So I don't know if I can dig it up, but I saved it somewhere. I ripped it out of the bar journal or something and put it in a file.

Steve Palmer [00:10:37]:

And it was like. It talked about all the warning signs of a case you shouldn't take. Client wants to pay you in payments, client or client wants to pay you later or after the case or client is demanding stuff, or clients communication needs are way beyond what you're capable. Like, whatever it is, it always goes like, you know, the signals in the back of your head. The point of the article is that we always know in the back of our heads, like back here in this little area where it's saying, or maybe over here, the guy, the angel, saying, don't do it. Don't take it. Don't take that case. It's going to be a problem, and you know it.

Steve Palmer [00:11:11]:

But then the devil is here saying, you need the money. You need the money. Take it. You need the money. It's like Animal House. But you have to listen to the angel. You have to, because it's hardly ever worth it. And when those just sometimes those deals never, ever end.

Steve Palmer [00:11:28]:

And back to the mental health. I mean, I've had people say, look, the FBI is following me. They've got bugs in my car. Maybe they do, and maybe they do. They've got. And, you know, you start to listen to the story, and it goes on and on and on. And next thing you know, there's like this. I had somebody tell me they have this scope that nobody's ever seen before, but it can slither under doors.

Steve Palmer [00:11:52]:

And it was going through the doors and up into their bedroom and watching them at night. And, you know, after all, like, it took me about 10 minutes of listening to this person talk, and then that came up. I'm like, oh, there's a mental health problem. And I don't want to laugh at the mental health problem. It's a serious concern. But the point is, like, if you take that on, you are taking on a message, and almost always people can't pay you to do it. Those cases hardly ever work out in our financial. It's never a fair deal.

Steve Palmer [00:12:20]:

All right, I know what you're all thinking. Like lawyers, you're all sharks, and you steal money from it. This is our job. We do this for a living. And there's components to this where I think, if you don't want to help people doing what we do, if you don't have that in your heart. Where's my heart? Heart's over here. If you don't have that in your heart.

Troy [00:12:40]:

Anatomy is not taught in law school.

Steve Palmer [00:12:42]:

Don't worry. Yeah, we didn't learn anatomy in law. They don't teach you that in law school. If it's not in your heart to help people and try to. And get people through problems, don't do this. But if that is in your heart, sometimes it tugs you in directions that go too far, and you end up not earning a living. Because we have the. You want to help people, and we have to earn a living.

Steve Palmer [00:13:05]:

And if you spend all this time over here, you know you're going to struggle. So now there are places. Look, I firmly believe there's a famous public defender and lecturer on trial advocacy skills named Terrence McCarty McCarthy McCarty. And he's awesome. He's probably retired by now, teaches at Capitol Law.

Troy [00:13:31]:

Probably.

Steve Palmer [00:13:31]:

Yeah, probably. But he would go around to lecture seminars, and he used to say, look, do God's work, meaning public defender work. Because then you're getting like, you can help those kind of people. Like, if your heart really pulls you in that direction, you can do that kind of work and help lots and lots of people. But if you do what we do, we have to. We're not getting paid unless Our client pays us. We don't get paid unless our client pays. Like, this is our job.

Steve Palmer [00:13:55]:

This is our job. It's like you've got a side business, and unless you get paid, you don't make any money. Yeah. So you can't just the. Can't you just. Questions don't pan out.

Troy [00:14:08]:

I think the commercials is what tricks people up. Because you always hear all the personal injury ones where it's like, I don't get paid unless you get paid. It's like, well, we're not here really. We're not getting you money. We're trying to help you out here.

Steve Palmer [00:14:20]:

Well, you bring up an interesting point. So I get this question all the time. Look, if you win, if you take my case and win, I'll pay you X dollars. Can't you just do it that way? Because if you win the case, then I can go back to work and I can pay you. You're talking about the we don't get paid unless you get paid. That's a contingency fee, like a personal injury case. And there's a valid reason for those. But.

Steve Palmer [00:14:49]:

But back to the rules of ethics. We're not allowed to do that. I can't take a contingency fee in a criminal case. In other words, if you hire me to do work or hire us to do the job for you, you're not paying us to win the case. You're paying us to work for you. And we want to win the case, but we have to get paid for our work irrespective of whether we win the case. Now, people would say, well, that's not fair. That sucks.

Steve Palmer [00:15:10]:

Why would I do that? Just how it is. And maybe this is another important point they don't teach in law school. When you hire a criminal defense lawyer, you're hiring somebody to help you through the problem. Maybe that means a jury trial. Maybe that means finishing the appeal. Maybe that means helping you through an investigative stage and nothing. Whatever it is, you're hiring our time.

Troy [00:15:36]:

A lot of my friends in law school, I was telling them very few do criminal. And they were all like. I was telling them we get paid usually beforehand. And they're all just like, what? Because they all get paid on the back half. And I was just like, I mean, yeah, imagine we do go to trial. Imagine they lose.

Steve Palmer [00:15:49]:

Yeah.

Troy [00:15:51]:

Go to jail. And they're like, oh, well, that makes sense. And I was like, yeah, it's just how it has to work in criminal. Like, you can't do it on the back half. And so I just thought it was crazy that law students didn't even.

Steve Palmer [00:16:00]:

Well, they don't do a good job. And I'm not saying they should do a good job of teaching us law. Maybe they should. I don't know. But they don't teach you in law school. This idea of. Of client interaction, and I don't want to say client management, because that means we're trying to manage a client, but look, we have to set expectations for our clients immediately. It starts immediately, with the first phone call.

Steve Palmer [00:16:21]:

So we get calls all the time. I mean, you hear me talk to people on the phone all the time. They're like, well, can you. What are the odds I can win my case?

Troy [00:16:30]:

I don't know.

Steve Palmer [00:16:31]:

I have the foggiest idea. Right? I don't know anything about your case. Well, yeah, but if I tell you this, this and this, can't you win?

Troy [00:16:36]:

We should sell, like, an app that has, like, FanDuel, like, gambling settings for your k. Like, put in your. Put in your facts. It's like, okay, betting odds on you right here. And then people can start betting on, too. We could. We could take.

Steve Palmer [00:16:46]:

We could lay odds on the outcomes. Yeah, it's sort of like Pete. Yeah. Anyway, I could see why that would be run afoul of the rules of ethics, but not people like, they. They say. They. They deliver us facts and say, tell me you can win. If you can't win, I'm going to hire somebody else.

Steve Palmer [00:16:59]:

And almost. It's not always. It usually doesn't come out that concisely, but I've shortened it here for conversation purposes, but that's the gist of what they're saying. And I usually tell them, look, if you want me to promise you an outcome, I'm not. Not going to. I'm not going to. Why am I talking to you? Then I will promise you that I will work as hard as I can for you, that if there is a way to win this case, I will do my best to find it. That if it can be won, I probably.

Steve Palmer [00:17:27]:

I'm. I've done this a long time. I have good experience. I can help you. But I can't promise you that we're going to go into a courtroom and win your jury trial. What are the chances I win?

Troy [00:17:38]:

Well, my buddy Troy has this app that you should try out. That is where we can figure out your chances.

Steve Palmer [00:17:43]:

I don't know. But guess what? Tell all your friends here, because we take a vig on the backside. But the point is, we're not buses right? We don't have to take that case. That's one of those cases I'm talking about where the bells are going off in the back. Back of your head. People are trying to extract from you promises that you are not capable of delivering. And when you're young and you're starting out, and most important, you are hungry. And I don't mean like hungry motivated.

Steve Palmer [00:18:11]:

I mean, like, hungry, because you can't go to the grocery store and pay your bills. You're going to take those cases, and they're problems. There's a snake pit on the other side because guess what's going. I mean, you already know what's going to happen. You don't win the case, then what?

Troy [00:18:25]:

Then aunt gets really mad at me. Every family reunion's awkward from there on out.

Steve Palmer [00:18:29]:

Yeah, those. I mean, I'm not talking about Aunt Joanne, but. Well, look, great. Let's talk about Aunt Joanne. Like, what happens? Like, at Thanksgiving, Aunt Joanne wants to talk about her car dealership case. And you're thinking, I want to grab a beer and eat some turkey. Yeah. So Thanksgiving dinner tastes funky now because Aunt Joanne's always bugging me about my legal problem, and she wants it free, which is the worst thing.

Steve Palmer [00:18:52]:

So another bit of advice. Some lawyer. I can't remember her name. I'll think of it. But she told me early on, don't do freebies for your family. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Troy [00:19:03]:

Because then Aunt Joanne tells the rest of the family, my DUI was free through Troy. Now everyone at that Thanksgiving thinks it's free. DUIs all around. Everybody's driving home from Thanksgiving at that point.

Steve Palmer [00:19:13]:

So Troy will help me. Troy will do it. Yeah, I'll call Troy. And I've run into this where family expects you to do stuff for free. And this really emerged for me during COVID when we didn't have a whole lot of work and people were laid off, and it was chaos. I didn't have time. People were calling me and wanted me to. There was somebody that called and wanted me to.

Steve Palmer [00:19:35]:

It was a distant relative. Hey, I got this sighting installed on my house, and that didn't go right, and whatever it was. And I was just like, look, man, I love you. I don't have time. I can't do it. And first of all, I don't know anything about citing litigation on houses. Secondly, I don't have time to figure it out. And thirdly, I can't make any money on it, and I don't have the time to give away I can't pay my bills as it is.

Steve Palmer [00:19:58]:

So it's one of those where if you learn early on and they don't teach you this in law school, maybe you know what? They should bring me in. Bring me in and talk to the third years going out into the rural and say, listen, here's the stuff you need to know. You're setting yourself up for disaster. Learn your first phone call how to say, no, I'm not a bus. I don't have to pick you up. And when I say, learn how to say it, don't be mean about it, but just say, no, I'm sorry, I can't do that. Well, can't you just. Can't yout just.

Steve Palmer [00:20:34]:

These are the. Can't you just question. Well, can't you just write a letter? Can't you just. I'll tell you one more war story. Somebody I knew one time was asking me to do something like this, and I helped one person. It was two roommates, and I helped one person. I wrote a letter. So I violate my.

Steve Palmer [00:20:51]:

Look, Palmer's rules here are written in blood, my own, like the mistakes that I have made. I wrote a letter for somebody, and it was two roommates and a landlord tenant problem. And I got my friend out of it, and the other friend wanted the same letter. And I was like, look, so the first friend saying, can you do the same for my buddy here? I mean, you comment on that one. So I got one person, I got out of a lease, and the other person has asked me to do the same thing.

Troy [00:21:21]:

It seems, at least in the criminal world, this seems like a conflict. Like, you shouldn't be. You can only pick one of them.

Steve Palmer [00:21:26]:

That's right.

Troy [00:21:26]:

And then you could refer the other one to another attorney who is going to charge them. Yes, yes.

Steve Palmer [00:21:31]:

Right. And can't you just write a letter, though?

Troy [00:21:35]:

No, I can't. I'd like the ethically, like, excuse that you're like, I'm sorry, ethically, like, can't do that.

Steve Palmer [00:21:40]:

Right. So. Which is great.

Troy [00:21:41]:

Excuse.

Steve Palmer [00:21:42]:

Exactly what I said. Look, I cannot do that. I cannot do it. The lease is in this person's name, not your name. You don't even have a lease with this company. This person. Not only is there a conf. Not only is there two of you, there's a.

Steve Palmer [00:21:53]:

There's an actual conflict because your defense is, that guy's on the lease, not me. And anyway, it got so crazy that the first friend, or the friend of the friend asked the first friend to steal my letterhead and Write a letter and forge it. And I found out about that. I went public. I don't even talk to this person anymore. It was like, it's lunacy, man. I mean, people will push you to do stuff, and you have to say no. It reminds me, Abe Lincoln, I told you this recently.

Steve Palmer [00:22:25]:

A lawyer's time is a stock in trade that's attributable to Abe Lincoln. Whether honest Abe actually said it, I don't know. But it is our time. And I think the can't you just. Questions are really a way of saying, can't you just give me your inventory for free? Can't you just do this for free? Can't you just work for free? And sometimes with clients. This goes so far where I would just say, look, man, what do you do for a living? I'm a plumber. What do you make an hour? 25 bucks an hour. Can't you just come to my house? I got this remodel going on.

Steve Palmer [00:23:01]:

Can't you just come to my house and plumb it all?

Troy [00:23:05]:

Just install this one toilet real quick for me?

Steve Palmer [00:23:08]:

Well, there are a lot. Sometimes one toilet. Can't you just come install the toilet? Can't you just. Can't you just. And just for free, just do it. And that sometimes will help sort of frame the problem. And then you get the next inevitable question. Don't you have to do pro bono work? Pro bono is free work for the people, for the good.

Steve Palmer [00:23:33]:

And I guess I wasn't going to get into this, but we will. I'll give you my spiel on pro bono work. I believe in it. I believe in pro bono cases. I do a ton of it. I represent folks without charging them. I do it for all sorts of reasons, money or not money. I do it for ego.

Steve Palmer [00:23:52]:

I do it for cause. I do it to help. I do it for whatever, all my reasons, I do it. And meaning pro bono work, like I'll take on a case knowing I'm not going to get paid, and I'll just do it. A lot of big firm lawyers will do criminal cases or appellate. Criminal. Appellate cases. Pro bono.

Steve Palmer [00:24:08]:

And it's a bad mistake, by the way, because you don't know what you're doing. I mean that. But it's sort of like we. Look, I can do a criminal case.

Troy [00:24:16]:

What they really should do is let's just hire people like us who do it.

Steve Palmer [00:24:19]:

Spend the money, right? Spend the money and get them. Get the same thing, right?

Troy [00:24:22]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like, literally, just. You can literally put your name really on it like if they really wanted to. And like, at the end day, it would look way better. Yeah, you might get better results. And it's a win win for everybody.

Steve Palmer [00:24:33]:

Yeah. So a couple things about that. First, no, we do not have to do pro bono work. There is no requirement. Now, in the rules of professional, in the rules of ethics, there's a suggestion that you should. And I think I do believe in giving back and I do a lot of that, but we don't have to. And I'm certainly not going to do it for the person who demands it. So this is my pet peeve.

Steve Palmer [00:24:58]:

Yes, I do pro bono work when I want to do it. And call me selfish if you will, but I can't always take on a pro bono case because I'm busy or right now. I've got stuff going on in my personal life. There's no way I could take on a pro bono case. I don't have the time to do it. Sometimes I do and I will. And it's got to be a case I like, and it's got to be a client that I know I can get along with. Those things have to converge.

Troy [00:25:24]:

The planets have to align, the stars.

Steve Palmer [00:25:27]:

And planets have to align. And then I'll do pro bono work. But I get to choose. When I do that, I get to choose it, because I'm not a bus. If I see somebody that I know or somebody that I think is that I want to help on the side of the road and I want to pick them up, I can do that. But it's a private bus. It's not a public bus. I don't have to stop if I don't want to.

Troy [00:25:44]:

Or a private bus. I was thinking more like. I don't think private buses exist, do they?

Steve Palmer [00:25:51]:

Sure they do. They're called limousines or Uber. Uber is one.

Troy [00:25:55]:

Well, yeah, Uber. I was trying to think of like. Like a private, like, driver, almost.

Steve Palmer [00:26:00]:

Like, look, before Uber, you could hire private drivers. You could hire. They'd show up in a Lincoln Continental or something and they would pick you up and take you. But they didn't have to. They could. They could say, look, I took you before and you were an. I'm not. You left trash in my car and spilled your beer all over the place.

Steve Palmer [00:26:15]:

I'm not picking you up.

Troy [00:26:17]:

Heaven forbid. I have a roadie. I'm sorry.

Steve Palmer [00:26:19]:

Right. But I'm not a bus. I'm not going to do it. So the point of all this is they're not teaching in law school. These boundaries and I Think these are lessons for life, too. I mean, you've got to establish boundaries or people will take advantage of it. And when you're a lawyer, people presume you're already experiencing. People assume you know everything.

Steve Palmer [00:26:41]:

Yeah.

Troy [00:26:41]:

It's a terrible mistake on their part, particularly in your.

Steve Palmer [00:26:45]:

Yeah, right. People think you know everything. And I get these questions all the time. Like, I got this problem. I got this stuff going on my siding, or I got this stuff going on over here, I got this letter from whatever, and I'm like, aren't you a lawyer? Can't you do this? And there's a really easy way to handle it. No. Or if you want to help what I do, I say, listen, this is not my area of practice. I can't do it.

Steve Palmer [00:27:17]:

I know people that can. Here's a referral. Call this person. And are they going to charge me? Yeah. Yeah. Just like if you referred me to a mechanic to go change my engine in my car, I'm going to have to pay for that. But then it's easy. It's done.

Steve Palmer [00:27:35]:

It's out of my practice area. Now, if it's in your practice area and they want you to do it for free, you have to decide, is this a case I want to do for free? And if it's your family, if it's your aunt, if it's your uncle, if it's your nephew, if it's your brother, it's almost always a bad idea. Almost always. So anyway, they don't teach you that in law school. That I promise. They should, though, talk to those people.

Troy [00:27:56]:

Yeah, Yeah. I want to know.

Steve Palmer [00:27:57]:

All right, well, look, if you've got a law school question, any other question or a topic you want us to cover, check us out. LawyerTalkPodcast.com. we're on the socials. We're in the podcast world. We're in the ether. We are everywhere. Off the record, on the air. Until next time.