Jeremy Bombard, Founding and Principal Attorney of Bombard Law

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0:52 Thank you everybody for joining in once again today. I am Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and radio on W four cy dot com. We're streaming live on talkfor tv dot com, and of course we're streaming line live on Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio, and of course we're available in podcasts after the live show and many other platforms including YouTube iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, we are there. The mission of winning Business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer its insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. Those are the how tos, the what toos, the what not tos. And I always say to be challenged and hopefully and certainly to be inspired by the successes of others. But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to has had some form of failure in their lives and careers.

1:47 So listen. While we all have to get our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from meeting major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it today. My guest is Jeremy Bombard. Bombard, I can say it, Founder and principal attorney at Bombard Law. Here's his bio. Jeremy Bombard is a business attorney. He brings extensive experience in managing a wide range of legal matters. He's a recognized advisor with demonstrated success in corporate law, land use litigation, civil litigation and small business advisement. Jeremy's dedicated to empowering small businesses with legal expertise, ensuring their protection and success in various corporate needs. He acts as their outside general counsel and handles d day to day legal needs. His legal expertise includes investigation procedures, corporate defense strategies, litigation management, employment law, and risk management. He is skilled in case assessment, discovery, motion practice, mediation, trials and appeals. Before moving into helping businesses, Jeremy was a limit litigator, which has allowed him to know the risks that businesses face and the consequences of not having the correct contracts in order. He brings that knowledge to keep the risks down for his clients to attempt to mitigate any future legal issues. Jeremy earned his undergraduate degree in politics and government from the University of Hartford and his law degree from New England School of Law in Boston. When he isn't working, you're likely to find him participating in a spartan race somewhere in New England.

3:16 Jeremy Livesten framing him mass along with his wife, Heather. Jeremy Welcome to Winning Business Radio and TV. Thanks for being. Here, Thanks for having me. Kevin, you got it. So most people hear that background and say, wow, I did all that, I know all that, but we just went as a starting point, right. We want people to get to know you, and so I always like to start with some background. I know you live in Framingham. Tell us where you grew up. So I grew up in Central Mass Southbridge, and you don't know where Southbridge is. You've been close because I'm guessing everybody's been to Old Sturbridge. Village for sure. It's two minutes away. So I grew up there and ended up going to high school in Worcester. And then as I graduated, I said, I got to move out of the suburbs to Boston.

4:01 That was years and years and years ago. But when my wife and I went to look for a house, we realized Boston was just outrageously expected. So I took a step back with to Framingham. And now framing him. Is overprice, so go figure cool, I know everywhere is right. So when you were young, you know, perhaps high school, what were your early interests as far as career wise, maybe you didn't even know, you know, what were Maybe what were you into sports. Were you into any pursuits of any kind? No, I was kind of a lazy high school student. It's ironic. I mean I played sports. I played some soccer, some baseball, some basketball, but nothing, you know, like even in college it was.

4:48 More the injur murals. You know. Yeah, nothing as opposed to now where my athletic pursuits have widely changed. And as far as career, I absolutely I was going to be an attorney in. Fact, right, So that was one of my questions. How and when did you know that? So this happened back in I'd say in middle school. I remember taking an aptitude test where they you know, that you went through and figured out what you wanted to do, and uh, I said, that's it. I'm going to be an attorney. And I wish I remembered why I wanted to be an attorney so diligently. But since middle school ever since, and I haven't waivered. I've I was in pre law in college, and I went through college and I said I'm all done with school.

5:32 I couldn't do it another three years of school, so I took time off and I said, I don't want to be in the law and gonna try something different, and I kept going back. I kept going back, kept going back. Was it paralegal doing regulatory work? And I said, all right, I guess the I guess I have no choice. I'm going to law school, so I. Have no choice. And uh, And I was in d C and I just didn't like d C. So I came back here to Boston. I said, it's it. I'm not going to be an attorney. That lasted a year, went back to law school, finished my law degree. So any any good stories of middle school, like negotiating trades at the lunch table or anything. So, because I've always asked my parents and I said, you know, why, why was I always wanting to be a lawyer? And both my parents agree, Its because I argued all the time. I'm stubborn. I was the first born.

6:15 It had to be my way, that high way. So I argued every time everything. No matter what. So I think it just it just Yeah. My parents would say, You're going to make a great lawyer someday, and it's subconsciously stuck in my head. So what made you choose Hartford? University of Hartford, that is? And to pursue politics and government? The glamorous version is it gave me the most money. Hey, that's that's a common reason, and it's a good reason, frankly, but it's. It's when you go to law school. In fact, if I would have done it all over again, I would have actually done even done pre law, because in retrospect I realized it's a worthless degree. It means unless you're going to be a lawyer, it means absolutely nothing.

6:57 I should have gotten English because that's the bulk of. What you do as already is writing, and English would have been much better for a legal career than pre law or political science or whatever they call it. But policide or government. You weren't wanting to get into politics or government law per se. Right, So I interestingly enough, Kevin, I thought about it and I said, well, that's not a bad career being in politics and government. And then I went to d C and that cured me of anything. You got the injection, you got the inoculation. I am funny. People say like, if you go to d C, you're either gonna love it you're gonna hate it.

7:37 And I hated it. It was just I mean, you think the regular court system now is bogged down in bureaucracy, and well, as you can imagine, DC was even more so. And I just said, I don't I don't want to deal with I want to deal with real life stuff. Yeah, hey, quick side step, not a don't tell her, I said that. But tell us about Heather, your wife. So my wife. She is an executive assistant for the institute down in Randall in School. She's been there about two years now. She's uh, she loves the job some days, some days she hates it, like we all do. But we've been together married now. This will be have twelfth year in December.

8:18 About three or four years before that in the watertown. And like I said, we lived together in Walfam and said we want to buy a place in wal Fame. We love wall Fame. We looked at the price and says, dope, that's ridiculous, so let's move where we can afford. But her and I we get along very good. She's actually, if you won't even do more of a side step about my races, she come and crew me. She'll help me out. She's my support group essentially. Wow. By the way, I didn't know that she was affiliated with the manage to do tell people a little bit about that. It's a really impressive organization. Yes, so they are a nonprofit organization that and my wife tells you this. I don't know how many.

9:00 Schools they have, but they're there are schools that help children with autism. They there. I think they're all eastern and central mass I don't know how far out they go. I forget how many schools they have exactly, but yeah, they basically helped the kids with autism, and they provide programs at schooling and all the assistance to families with kids with autism and just basically provide a wealth of information on how to handle a child with autism. Yeah, that's such a cool mission, such an important one, all right, sold Oh why did you choose New England School of Law? You told us, you know how you got into the pursuit of law. You know where that came from? Why New England School of Law.

9:42 So New England School Law I went to again because it was one of the only two law schools in Boston. That have a night program. And I spent a. Year at Columbus University. No, not Columbus University of this. Columbus School of Law at Catholic University a d C, great law school. I just I just like at d C, I wasn't. I just I just wasn't having it and not an expensive school. So I said, I can't afford to go full time. I'm gonna work during the day, I gotta go at night. Yeah. So I looked around. It was either Suffolk or New England, and the essentially they were one and the same. And I think New England was a little less expensive and had a little bit more better evening classes to train to be a be a lawyer. And I know that sounds weird because you think, well, I'm going to law school.

10:36 That's what you are, You're becoming a lawyer. But it's funny. You learn all the theory about law that hardly ever comes into play. On a day to day basis. And I like the fact that there were actual lawyers teaching my classes that would say, look, you're going. To graduate, and here's what's going to happen. Don't forget about this civil procedure, the rule of perpetuities or any of this other stuff. Here's what's going to happen. Here's hey years, how to get work, here's how. To get a job, here's how to you know, go off, here's how to do a business plan. And that's honestly, I think that's helped me more than anything I've learned in law school. Well that's a big plug for a New England school of law because you don't get that a lot, you know. No, to be honest, I don't know if Suffolk has that or not, but I remember looking at the schedule and saying, I want classes where they're more I don't want professors teaching it. I mean, yes, they teach you and you law, but I want to I want to learn from the guys that actually do it.

11:29 So how difficult was it to work full time? I mean I did that for a couple of years, work full time and go to college. Well, how did you find it? The The correct answer is very hard. But the job I had at the time was very easy. Okay. I worked for bank. In fact, it was it was a great learning experience. I worked for Bank of America in their legal department, and my boss and I handled all of the consumer real estate litigation matters for Bank. Of America for the entire country. Wow. So in fact I was actually learning more during the day as opposed to at night because I would learn, you know, how to do that position. I wouldn't do the work, but I would manage the outside council.

12:09 So see how they're doing this, how they're doing that, and more than negotiation, because at the end of the day, you know, it's about coming, especially litigation, it's from getting us from the start to the finish as cheaply as possible. And I learned that a lot managing the outside council. So I was going to ask this a little later, but let me toss it in here, and this will probably take us up to the break for the viewers and listeners. Define the difference between a trial attorney and a litigator. There is none. In fact, well yes, I should have said if there is one too, because I don't know. So a litigator does litigation and the everything from start to finish.

12:50 Now a trial. There are a small. Group of attorneys that do specifically trial work because it's so unique nowadays. When when I think the it's ten percent go to trial now, and that might even be a high number. Yeah, so you don't do a lot of trials now, So there's usually a group of attorneys more likely than not, in a bigger law firm that will just do the trials, whereas a litigator will do everything. The trial attorney just comes in at the trial standpoint. It helps with the trial. So our litigators trying to avoid trial in a sense. Yes, because it's not unless you have a guaranteed slam dune case, which is never.

13:31 Then you want to avoid trial because you never know what's going to happen. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You think you're gonna have, you think you're absolutely going to win, and you know what the jury's going to say, and you know what's going to happen, and then they come back with a completely different verdict. You can't, you can't. What's so, what's the show? Was the show bull? You can't? You can't you ever see that show? Yes, but those. Are the largest scale ones, but you like either ones this small. Like if you're a million dollar like Try, then yes, you're spending the money, but more often than not, you're just trying to get through the trial. Your client is freaking out because you're spending two full weeks of preparation time and X amount per hour and they're just saying, look, get this thing done. And yeah, you never know, you leave it into the hands of the jury, it can be completely different than what you expect.

14:22 Oh, we don't have time to dig into that, although it's very interesting to me anyway. But all right, we're going to take our first break. We'll be right back everybody with Jeremy Bombard in about one minute. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance. Be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, Free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six one five zero six four zero three to one now to get booked on one of our shows.

15:15 That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now, and now back. To Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. Okay, we're back with Jeremy Bombard of Bombard Law. So I want to take you through a few of your positions. We don't spend a lot of time, but I want to just get a sense of your career progression, kind of some of your key takeaways. So we'll start with the various paralegal positions you had prior to law school.

16:03 What did you learn from those experiences and how do they help you with your career growth. Yeah, and I recommend this to any attorney who's not I mean, unless you're one hundred percent you know what you're going to do. Become a paralegal because that's where you learn all the grunt work. That's where all the day to day work that the attorneys don't want to do, that's what the paralegals are doing. And that's what learned. You know, I was able to learn, you know, how to. Do you know, drafting a document, you know, how to find information on a case, how to because attorney will a lot of times attorney will just come to a paralegal and say I need to find out this. Go find this out. And if the paralegal doesn't know, well, that's the paralegals problem. They got to figure this out. They have to go do the.

16:44 Research, find out you know where to find this information. Legal research is pretty straightforward, especially nowadays with everything online, it's actually almost easy. Back in the day, you actually had to go to the books. I distinctly remember having this search through actual libraries back in the day. But yeah, I like the fact that it was I learned the day to day grunt work that is. Involved with law. That's awesome. All right, Then you were at Harvard for a bit as a I believe it was real estate regulatory analysts. Tell us about that role first, and then what you learned. Working for Harvard is so unique, and that.

17:25 They have billions of dollars, and when you have billions of dollars, their thought process is a little bit different than. Someone with a thousand budget. Yeah. In fact, so one of my jobs and it all relates, and I'm glad I have this position is zoning. And we worked with the different colleges for different expansion and if you ever been down. Some of those were contentious too, Right with Austin and Kevin, I think. When you say some you mean absolutely okay. To be fair, I didn't know the answer, but I'm not surprised. Everybody that lives in came hates Harvard, and then now everybody lives in Austin Brighton hates them. So day every school wants to expand, and as you know from going visit finite nonumber of space, you have to mix and match, move around. And then anytime you do one little project, every neighbor complains, goes to the town council meetings, yells at Harvard about now the worst and blah blah blah.

18:25 And it was interesting to see the animosity towards Harvard. And yet at the end of the day, they're probably proud that they live near Harvard, you know when you're talking to right. And you know who spends all the money on the infrastructure and puts a ton of money into the city. Yes, but in fact, speaking of billions of dollars and not having they wanted to move the Charles River. They wanted to move it south of Austin Brighton so they could connect Austin Brighton with Cambridge. Oh my word. We actually drafted up a plan. There was architectural designs as you can imagine it to not go through, but that was the thought and people were serious. They said well, we're Harvard. Of course we could move a river. Why wouldn't we. So that's what I did, and it was experience with.

19:11 Working for you know, one hundred pound else in the room. It was just they got what they wanted for the most part, and they just threw money around it. But it was interesting on the zoning side to see how you work with the municipality and a large scale entity. To get things done. Not easy there either, right, Yeah, slow moving process. Yeah. In fact, Kevin, I've learned that if anybody comes to me with the zoning question, I find somebody else to do it, because it's so it's not even the difficulty of it. You have. You need to know somebody in the town you're doing it. It's one of those situations. Unless you want to get something done, you need to know somebody, and it's always better to have somebody on the ground.

19:52 Otherwise it's it's it's going to take ten times long. Yeah, every city in town's got to be different way they approach everything, right, exactly everything. You think in the state of Massachusetts that have some uniformity, and every town is completely different. Well, we were talking the other day. You would think courts have some consistent, and they're all different in terms of what they do. Because I was asking you about zoom versus in person, and not all the courts are the same. All they're all different. It's a fun job trying to figure out what court you're going to be in and what you have to do for that hearing. And then the judge as well. All right, first American title title examiner. And it looked to me like on the timeline you started that job and then law school was while you were working there, you started law school.

20:33 Am I correct on that. Yes, exactly. I forgot why I ended up going into title exams. Again, I never wanted to be in real estate. It sort of followed me and I followed it. In title exams is basically the building block of real estate. Every title. Every time you buy or sell a house, you have to find the title, and the title is how the property is transferred from person to person. And the worst part. Is you don't want to make You don't want there to be a problem two people back. So you buy a house and then somebody owned it ten years ago. Says nope, I actually owned this parcel of the land and it's ugly. So we did the research. I can actually tell you a story about that. With three siblings, one was kind of left off the sale and a couple of buyers later that one loan siblings said wait a minute, we sold it.

21:23 Yeah, So that was again, and I'm dating myself, but we actually had to go to the registry and use the actual books. In fact, one of my jobs towards the end of my tenure there at First American I was this was at the time when the Catholic Church were in a little bit of trouble and they were looking for some money for the settlements. So First Americans said, Hey, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do all the titles on all the churches. So if they have to sell them, we already have the titles done, so they should use us. Which is great except for me who had to go to the bowels of the Cambridge Registry, which was one of the older restory anyways, and look at all the old books, the dusty old books in the basement and try to read the old writing and go back, because you know, you have to go back fifty years in a title search, which normally is pretty easy nowadays because there's been plenty of sales, but for churches that have been held onto two hundred.

22:19 Years, it's it's interesting to go back. But again it's it's helped me in my career because I talk to people about land use litigation right now, and I can say, no, here's what you need for a title exam. It's this, this and this, and how do you fix it? No problem? So well, I would imagine many businesses certainly not at all, but many businesses have a real estate component, right or want to have one that want to buy a building that they're in or you know right. Exactly if they don't, then they want to. And and it's great to have that me to have that ability to say, oh, no, well what do you have on the you know, what's the mortgage situation? What's the lean situation? Because again that's you know, to jump ahead. It's it.

23:00 If you own a million dollar piece of property with a million dollar mortgage, then guess what that's worth zero? But if you have a million dollar piece of property that has no leans, you have million dollars. All right. We talked about Bank of America a little bit. Then you went solo for a year, Kevin. In fact, no I actually started at this little law firm called Actually it's not little, it's a big it's a foreclosure defense. And the reason I started there first was because at Bank of America I got some great contacts. I interviewed. I was going to actually go into commercial real estate because again I liked the real estate, but the commercial side it's a little bit more interesting, and I like the deal side of things, whereas opposed to litigation, we're fighting.

23:42 And I interviewed with two firms and they said, as soon as you passed the bar, the job's yours. Your your commercial real estate attorney. But unfortunately, this was two thousand and seven. I passed the bar. I called up the law firms. They said, yep, we just laid off our whole. Commercial real estate. Oh man, yeah, so scrambling. I I knew a guy at Harmon Law. They do mortgage foreclosure defense litigation. For various banks. Yes, yeah, Newton. So I called them up. I said, look, I had two jobs lined up, I have nothing. Can you get me work? And we talked. He's like, well, yeah, you know how to do litigation through Bank from America and you did some title work. You're hired mortgage foreclosure defense work is grueling. It's tough.

24:25 It's it's you think in a litigation you're fighting, but you know, when I'm fighting to, for all intentsive purposes, kick people out of their homes. It's a tough day in court. It's a real tough day in court. In fact, I've had judges look at me and say, the law is completely on your side, Attorney Bombard, but I'm going to rule completely against you because of the homeowner. I'm gonna side with them. If you want to peel it go ahead. It's going to take three years to appeal, so good luck. Wow. So I said yeah. They judges said, look, you're gonna win eventually, but I get to keep them in their house. For another three years. Wow. So that that just it was tough. It was a tough day to day battle. And I said that's it.

25:05 I'm not I don't want to do this. And I had a CLIENTIC Chicago Title, and I said, I'm going to go solo if I leave, do you want me to do all your title litigation for you? And they said absolutely, So I said great. I did the title work as a title examiner. I knew litigation. I just combined the two and I did title litigation for three years. Unfortunately, they I always do this. I did so good of a job that I cleaned up all their mess and they said, yeah, our workload has decreased. You've cleaned up all the litigation cases. And that was at the time. It was two thousand and eleven ish and the economy was getting a little bit better, so people were refinancing and getting rid of the old bad mortgages, so they were actually paying them again, so a lot of the work went away. So I said, that's it. It's it's time for me to move on to my next adventure.

25:54 Which seems to be Howser and Allison. Howser and Allison again. They it was more it was some of the same foreclosure, real estate, financial institution related litigation. And the reason I liked that position was I they were a national firm and they wanted to open up a Boston office, and I got in touch with the owner and he said, look, I want you to open the Boston office for me. It's like, I'm sick and tired of like contracting it out losing all this money. I'm going to have you people in the So I was able to start the firm, find the space. Grow the firm. Great experience. It was me when I started, and I think when we left we had eleven attorneys and three paralegals. Wow.

26:36 It was interesting work and it was nice to sort of have that autonomy from the California office and then manage the Boston office. And because again it was completely to Boston and California that had just two completely different litigation worlds. And my boss gave me free reign to you know, manage and get things organized and grow the firm. Really good experience there. And then I'll probably say this one wrong Sea Farth or save farth' shaw close sci Fith sci Farth. Okay, it was a third choice senior counsel. What did you do there and what were your takeaways? So the reason I went there was because it's big law, and you know, every attorney aspires to be big law.

27:19 Get to the big leagues, and you get to the big. Firm and they've hired me because they had a bunch of these consumer financial litigation cases, specifically in Rhode Island. I had experience of Rhode Island. I've licensed in Rhode Island, and I said this is great. I've always wanted to do big law. That's what you're aspired to. And I went to big law and I realized, no, this is it's you forget that you're not only doing the legal work, but you have to do a lot of ancillary work. You have to do articles, you have to do the bringing in the clients, and it's you have to jump through a lot of hoops and they don't tell you what to do, and they get mad. When you don't do what you're supposed to do. And it was just it was. A it was an interesting experience working for like you literally had everybody to do anything, Like if you needed somebody to staple your paper, you just you know, send an email someone coming in staple. But it was.

28:09 Almost had to do everything else, not the legal work. So that lasted a year and I it's funny, this is that's the time when I said, I'm just getting burnt out from litigation. Just litigation is a it's one of the tougher fields because all you do is you fight with people all day. That's it. You fight with the opposing counsel, you fight with your clients because they don't like the way the litigation is going because. It doesn't go the way they wanted to. You fight with the courts, so just it just drains on you every day, just fighting, fighting, fighting. Some people love it, some attorneys really like it, and you know, I don't mind it, but. Every day it just got to me.

28:49 So as a side farth, I met a friend who worked for this e discovery company said, look, we just lost our general accounts who were a small firm. They had ten or so employees. They said, look, we just we got this big litigation we've got, you know, we got all this mess that we got to clean up. Would you would you know, would you be interested? And I said, I have no idea how to be general counsel. You know my backgrounds in litigation. He said, no, it's easy. It's just you you read contract or you know how to read a mortgage, right, it's the same thing. I said, well, it's not the same thing, but let me talk to the to the CEO. So I talked to him and and he's just he's like, look, you know the litigation side. He's like, you could read a contract, right, you know how to read legal ease and all that stuff. You can figure it out. I said, yeah, I could figure it out. He's liked, great, You're hired. Literally the first week I was there, I was in ten depositions, large scale employment wage an hour litigation Act case, which again is ironic, Kevin, because I'm a mortgage financial you know, civil litigation case, not employment litigation.

29:50 So this was again a nice learning curve. And then they had some other smaller they were they had offices in Texas and DC. They had some smaller they had some issues with the city, they had some issues with some other employees. What did they get myself. Into job security? But I loved it because for once, not so much the litigation, but for the contracts with the salespeople. The vendors. We've releases. I said, this is great. We're all, for the most part, on the same page. You know, we're trying to get to the same point. We just need to fine tune the language. And that's that's honestly where my love for business love again.

30:34 All Right, one more question before the break at the bottom of the hour. It's for thirty one Eastern. We'll push it just a little bit. General counsel is an inside permanent employee attorney's dealing with one client that's the company. Yep, it's it's it's the company's attorney on a day to day basis. And how is that experience different other than those you know that obvious focus. How is that different from being in your own firm. So the in house general council handles, it's usually a larger firm because there's usually issues every day. With the company. Every day there was somebody coming to me with some issue about employment, about contracts, about legal formulation. When you say issue didn't have to be a dispute, it just had to have this contract as we're about to make a sale or right something that needed.

31:20 To be done. And I've learned this as general counsel. Even if it wasn't legally related, everyone comes to the attorney first because they figure, well he doesn't know, then they'll figure it out. Whereas my role right now is an outside general counsel. It's not day to day. My clients don't have that many legal issues, so it's usually on an interim basis, month to month, every few months, once a year, so it's not a day to day based relationship. That makes sense. All right, we got to take our second break right here. We'll be back in another minute with Jeremy Bombard. Listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio.

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33:08 Okay, we're back with Jeremy Bombard, founder and principal attorney of Bombard Law, Business attorney Turk and Kehano just a quick experience there, then we'll get into Bombard law since twenty eighteen. Yeah, so that was a. Interesting endeavor when they hired me specifically to help their clients with their business related and some employment. Because I figured I'd done the employment litigation. Soon thereafter, it was apparent to me that that's not what my role was. I ended up doing more litigation. I barely did any business. In fact, when I tried to broach it with the clients, they said. Well, no, you're our litigation attorney. We'll do without business attorney.

33:50 So I said, what am I doing here? This doesn't I'm trying to get away from litigation. So I started looking around for positions in law firms and businesses, and I just didn't find anything I liked. That didn't that didn't fit my my requirements, wasn't a good fit, you know, the salary wasn't wasn't right. So after a year, I said, well that's it. I'm going to start my own firm and it hopefully it works well. It has right, it has. What was the most challenging part of starting your firm the clients. I started day one with absolutely zero clients, and I had no idea how to get clients because I'd never done.

34:35 I said, I'm going to do business law. That's it. I need to find small business owners. And I said, well, look, I'll start with the small business owners because I guess, you know my assumptions. They don't have the attorneys. They definitely don't have general counsels. So if I can find those clients, I could definitely help them out. Great. I had no idea where to find them none, So. That was interesting to start with. So then I re that from a business business owners, marketing is not going to work. I mean, it works for like a criminal attorney, real estate, personal injury, injury, but you know, business owners want want an attorney that that somebody else tells him, Hey, go to use this business.

35:19 They did, he did a good job, you should go use him. Right. So I said, all right, I'm going to network. I'm gonna start networking. I'm gonna make figure it out and hopefully that works. And I started. Uh. I started with B and I. And it's funny because I remember after the first meeting, they said, look, you know, you just realize, like it's not like you don't you don't get clients right away. It takes time. It could take six months to a year. You know, you've got to build up that relationship. And I said, I I'm absolutely understanding of that. That's completely fine. And literally the next meeting, I had four people come up. And. So they didn't get the memo they weren't supposed to hire you with until the first. Yeah they said.

35:59 They said, well, you seem like a good guy, so hopefully you're not gonna, you know, destroy my business. So you can help me. And and that's when I realized it's like that small business owner. Yes they are hesitant, but they need to help. I mean, they don't need to help, but it's it doesn't hurt for them to have that assistance because I can help them circumvent any problems down the road. And again, like I said before, they always come to be. With their weird questions that I would never know anything about. But at least I can sort of break it down. I'm like, all right, well he's his action. No, that's an accounting question. Who's your account You don't have an accountant. Let's find you an accountant. That's the question. We'll get that fixed.

36:40 Yeah, So now talk about the work that you do for your clients. And we'll get into formations. Right, there are various forms ways of I'll use the word incorporating doesn't mean corporation, as you know. But somebody wants to start a business, what do they have to do legally? Yeah, so that's a lot of They come to me first and say, I'm going to start a business. Should I start an entity? And my response is always absolutely, you start an entity. It's going to help you legally, it's going to help you tax wise, and for little money. Why wouldn't you do it? Because if you're a sole proprietor and you get sued, issue's house is getting attached to your own house. And then it's a question of what the two there's the only two?

37:27 Well, you can do partnerships, but I in six and a half years, I've never done a partnership. It's either an LLC or corporation. And it's it's you know, it's what's going to work best for you. How is it going to be formed? You know? Are you going to bring on investors or no? Is it just going to be you and two people? Are you yourself? And you know here's how you know? That's those are the discussions I. Have is what are you going to be doing? What, what's how many people are going. To be involved? What are you going to be bringing on people? Yes, no, are you gonna you know, if a start. Out, what's the nature of the work. How risky is that work? You know exactly? I would imagine there's a factor there. Right, absolutely, And I you know, it's.

38:10 I think there's only one time where I told somebody they don't have to do it because it was a one off. They were going to do one job for somebody and that was it. And I said, well, you're they're actually taking all the risks. You don't have any risk you doing the work. They have to pay you, so they're never going to suit that. I said, it's not worth creating. An LLC for this project. I said, but for the most part. If there's any liability, absolutely, and I said, always talk to your accountant, because there are sometimes different forms are better for different. Businesses. So I you know, from a legal standpoint, the legal liability for a corporation is identical to an LLC. The costs are pretty much equal. There's more paperwork in a corporation. As opposed to an LLC. That's usually the toughest part.

38:56 So es court versus C Corp. That's more of an accounting function. For TAB Yeah, absolutely all right. And then what many companies big and small have to do is create, review and negotiate contracts. Talk about that. That's that's the bulk of my work. And it's in about two honestly, yeah, about two months. I'm gonna get everybody coming to me with their commercial leases there were duals, or if they get a new space, I say, look, you should let me look at it because I can change a little. It can't change a lot unfortunately from a commercial but it's but again, Kevin, it never hurts the ask. So I will be a little aggressive in the lease. Sometimes the landload says, yes, no problem, I'm okay with those changes.

39:39 And sometimes they say. No, we got to tweak this. You're going to bring on a client an employee. You don't need an employment agreement, but you want a non solicitation. You don't want them to learn all your secrets and all your clients quit, steal all your clients to. Go start a business across the street, something to that. Effect, or pull some employees with them when they leave. Exactly. That's that. Or you're gonna you know, whatever you're doing with a client, Like, how what I tell my clients? The biggest thing you want to make sure is you want to get down what work you're doing, who's responsible for what? In the money? Money's always the big thing, like when do they get when do you get paid? What happens if you don't get paid? You know what you know is there different levels of payment? And then I'll put in all the boiler plate to protect you.

40:27 That's it. You know the. Contractors, they'll deal with subcontractors. I say, look, do you have an agreement with them? They say no. I said, what happens if your subcontractor plows into the house? They said, well, I guess I got to pay for it? And I said, well that doesn't seem fair does it shouldn't be the subcontract I mean the subcontract made the mistake. He's like, well, I can always sue the subcontractor. And I said, yeah, good luck with that. I mean, if you don't have a contract, then how do you know whose responsibility is what? It's their word against your word? No, no, no, I have it in a bunch of text messages. That's I can tell you, Kevin. There's nothing more a giant based look at than these random text messages. I said, it's here. Here's what I tell all my clients.

41:07 If you spend a little bit of money on me, I can put something into a contract and it's I don't I'm not like a lot of attorneys. I don't get paid by the word. I'm not going to put forty page contract together when four pages does it. I want to make sure that it's clear, concise. I despise legal ees. I try to make it as simple and as as understandable as possible, but I want all the parties to realize who's doing what, what the ramifications are. If you don't do it, and maybe we'll go to litigation. If it's you know, you don't do it right, but hopefully that doesn't happen. Well it to Murphy's law. Right, Well, that's that's it's Kevin. That's exactly. I think. One of the first blog posts I ever. Did was, you know, pay me now or pay me later, Like you can pay me now to do a contract, or you can pay me ten times twenty times more to do the litigation. I'm more than happy to take your money for litigation, but I'm also happy to do a nice little contract, make everyone happy.

41:58 I what about buying selling it business? So it all depends I taking out a partner for that matter. So taking on a partner is a big deal and it's people do it and don't think twice about it. No, I just I brought on somebody. They're going to own half my business, and I have to say, what's the agreement, what's. What's my buddy? I've known him since high school? Yeah, those again, if I know, they're all passed away, but at this point. But my father had a partner in his business that he knew from high school who ended up stealing money from. Him or family members. I've litigated cases against brothers. Yeah that's rough.

42:40 It's it's really rough. And they say, I don't I can't imagine this ever happening, and I it's usually those are the ones that come to me. After the fact, you know, they say, oh, I sit out. And I like those stories because when I tell my. New clients, they're like, no, no, no again, it's my best friend, it's my brother, it's my uncle. I mean, our families were friends. I knew his kids. We used to go to the houses. One one on the Cape and one in New Hampshire, and yeah, yeah, it's a mess. Say that's I. Say, that's great. I just finished finished up a litigation against two brothers who were in business together. So I can tell you how much that costs, or I can tell you how much of a contract costs. So yes, if you have more than one. Owner, you absolutely need an agreement, not only to again it's it's who's doing what, where the money goes, but also what happens if somebody were to pass away? You don't you don't think about this as a business owner.

43:32 And I get morbid with my clients. I'm like, what happened if you die tomorrow? And they say that's you know, I'm not that old. I said, it's not about being old, it's about getting I think we talked. About this, like, you get busy, do you you know? You what happens to your interest in the company, what happens to your partner's interest? Is there insurance to pay for that? And it's funny they come to me and say, I never never thought about that. I said, ninety nine percent of the time it will never happen. But you don't want to be that one percent I mean, we know you probably know the story, but I won't mention his name. We know, common an attorney whose partner passed away, and all of a sudden he found himself in business with this widow right who had no idea and was expecting a lot more than there ever was. So it became very messy.

44:14 It's almost like you want, I want to put a book of all these bad experiences and them out to my clients and say, yes, it probably won't happen, but here's all these twenties you. Do those few things, right, yeah, but. Yeah, So buying and selling a business again, some people think, no, it's no big deal. It's it's it's we were friends. I am selling it to my friend or I'm selling it to my kid. It's going to be great, no problem. And again I said, look, I I'm. Sure it is it. But if you you're gotta make sure the money because it's always no, no, no, I said, you were going to get pay me this and this much and this percentage, and like, no, no, no, that's not the agreement. It's not in writing. Then it's then it's then it's up to the jury to decide. So do you want to go to a jury. Do you want to put it in writing when you know it's in These aren't complex?

44:58 I mean they're not, they're not. You know I have one right now where yes, the firm on the other side is getting paid by the word and it is. Trying to put as many words into the agreement as possible. And my client says, I don't want to stand half of this, and I said, you don't have to. It's just legally stuff. But here's the main point. I go through and I look at the main points, like again, where's the money going when you get the money? What is your responsibilities? What you know? It's a firm, a buyer and seller. They're different standpoints. You know, from a seller, you want to make sure once you sell that company, that's it. You don't have any more responsibility. And if something happens afterwards, you want indemnification. You want to make sure that if you get that company gets sued six months from. Now, you're not getting dragged into it.

45:39 And from the buyer you don't want you don't want to get stuck with any of the issues. From the prior owner, you want to make sure that you come with a clean slate. You get the assets you're supposed to get. You get them free and clear. You know, there's nothing worse than you're trying to do a closing and oh, we can't transfer this truck because there's a loan on it. I said, what we discussed this? You said there was no loan. Oh yeah there is, Oh that truck. That's right. So this is the collection of things you refer to as risk assessment, risk management. Really right, Doing the work up front so if the worst happens, were prepared. My litigation background has helped me because I look at I've seen how litigation works. I've seen the trials and tribulations and just it's ugly.

46:20 No one wants to do litigation. So I tell my clients, if we do things correctly upfront, you avoid the litigation, You save money on me, you're not spending tens of. Thousands of dollars on me, and then you sleep better at night. You don't have to worry about it because you know, Kevin, I think I told you the other day I got a trial date of twenty twenty six in one of my litigation cases. Yeah, like, what how does that work? Yeah? He's like, I think I'm free that day, He's like, how do I know what I'm doing two years from now? I said, well, well, I. Said, put it in your calendar now and then you won't have anything. So it's it's yes, the risk management, risk assessment. I look at things, you know, I see I see a company with employees, a good amount of employees.

47:00 I tell them, look, you need to get an HR outsourced person because you need employees. Will be your pain point. You mess up once, you're gonna pay for it. Get a good handbook. You know, if you have to reprimand somebody or hire and fire them, then you're gonna do everything by the book. Make sure you shout out to Patty Lyons. She will be a guest on August twenty six. That's what I refer to because she does the right thing. And make sure that that pain point is resolved. And I have three questions left for you. You can be general or specific in your professional life. What are you most proud of? Honestly being a solo practitioner for six and a half years and running a successful, successful business, and not only that more and so is just making my clients businesses run more smoothly.

47:51 As you said they can sleep at night. That's a that's a real thing, all right. Second, how did you get into Spartan races? Years ago? I got an email from Mount Snow. I used to ski up there, and it was this thing called Tough Mutter, which is similar to Spartan, and they said, we're doing this thing. I said, I told my wife and said, this sounds amazing. That's sound. It sounds like fun. Let's go up there playing the mud and crawling stuff. And it was a blast, running up and down the mountain, jumping through stuff. It was just it was a blast. But unfortunately it was cold. And my wife doesn't like cold water. So she says, yep, that's it. I'm never doing this again. And twelve years later, I'm still doing them.

48:32 And she's your she's your crew, as you said, my crew. She sits and watches me and I don't know how she doesn't just laugh at me just covered in mud or you know, it's but she's she's supportive and she's there. She's like, let's go and. Okay, that's awesome, all right. Last one, who in the listening and viewing audiences should reach out to you? And why it's any business owner with about fifty employees or less. It doesn't matter what field you're in, it doesn't matter what kind of work you do. If you don't have a part time general counsel, any legal counsel that you reach out on a regular basis, you should have me. I say. It's it's you know, it's you should have a bookkeeper and accountant, you know, an attorney. You know, we're the people that are going to keep you out of trouble.

49:16 And again, it's you. The great thing about me is you don't need me every day. You need me whenever you need me. And some clients I talk to once a year and those are I'm happy for those clients because that means their issues are really tiny and they come. It's those clients that I deal with on a monthly basis that I have to say, all. Right, maybe we need to do some different things. But yeah, it's it's I'm there as your resources whenever you need me, as much as you need me. And lastly, what's the best way for people to connect with you? Uh? Either email or phone? Either one either call or email. I'll get back to you within a day or so. I'm okay. We put the information along there what's the website. Bombard is right there. There's the phone. If you punch in Bombard a lot any search engine you I'll pop right up.

49:59 It's it's pretty unique. Beautiful. Jay Bombard at Bombard Law Bombard Law dot com. Jeremy, this is great. Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time anytime. Kevin, I loved it. This is great. Thank you so much. You're more than welcome and thanks everybody for watching, watching and listening. This is a show about business and business challenges. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, you can reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio. Drop me a note. One of my many email addresses would be Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our company, Winning Incorporated, lost you there. We specialize in helping in developing sales teams into high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. Hey, we're not right for everybody, but maybe we should chat.

50:49 Stay with us Next week August twelfth, at four pm Eastern. My guests will be Scott McGregor. He is the founder of Something New LLC, as well as the Outline Project. We'll see you next week. You have been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Halenan. If you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio w four cy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Halenan and Winning Business Radio