Hello sun listeners. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Ryan Bankston, Founder of CIO Legal and Legal Solutions, Architect at PSM Partners.

I help attorneys manage their firm technology as a paralegal, certified consultant, administrator and trainer on platforms like Microsoft 365 Clio, net documents, logical and more if you’re listening to this episode the week it came out, then next week you still have an opportunity to join me and the wonderful Renee Thompson for a CLE through the Florida Bar. You can get your tech credit watching us compare the results of prompts in Clio Duo, NetDocuments in DMAX and 365 Copilot. It’s going to be
a lot of fun.

We’ve been working on it. We’re going to take some documents that we’ve pulled from docket, some other ones that we’ve just kind of thrown together as examples, and we’re going to hopefully get some very fun results asking these different AI tools to analyze these documents and then produce some results for us like identifying certain types of clauses in contracts, pulling all the case law the other side’s using in their brief, etc. My guest today is the third attorney from the collab to be on the
SunLeaders podcast.

We found each other when she needed to buy new laptops for her firm and we’ve worked together on several projects since she went to Barry before Cooley Law. She’s been an adjunct professor at SPC almost as long as she’s had her own practice and she’s quite well known among local attorneys that are active in our St. Pete community. Christina, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me, Ryan. I’m excited to chat and one of the first things I want to ask you about is about the St. Pete community. What is the difference between the St. Pete Bar association and the St. Pete Barr Foundation? So those organizations are kind of symbiotic.

They both are comprised of attorneys in the local St. Pete community. The St. Pete Bar association really focuses on the attorneys they help put on continuing legal education programs, socials mixers, events for the legal community. The St. Pete Barr foundation is more of the philanthropic side of our St. Pete legal community.

The St. Pete Barr foundation, through its board and its various members, fundraises and then provides grants to local organizations that carry on our mission about access to justice in the St. Pete Bar community. We do that through our fundraising efforts, including our Pillars event which celebrates local heroes, both legal and non legal, through our professionalism cle, which helps People get their professionalism credits for the bar. And then we have other community events like our Holidays in
July events which are focused on children in the foster communities.

That is wonderful. That is really cool work. And I love the mission of closing the gap.

That’s something I certainly align to. Are you active in both the association and the foundation? I was very active in the association for a while. I’ve now shifted most of my focus to the foundation.

I finished my two terms as president of the Board of Trustees, and I now have the wonderful privilege of serving as the immediate past president of the St. Pete Barr Foundation. Oh, that’s wonderful. What are you most proud of from the past two years? I always have loved our Holidays in July event.

As I said before, it’s our event that brings out children either in individual foster homes, in foster group homes, and they get to come out to a bowling alley and just be kids. Oh, that’s great. It’s difficult as a foster parent to have funding to do all of the fun things.

Right. They don’t get the privilege of taking the kids out for bowling or ice cream all the time. So the foundation has put on this event, and this is the event that actually got me started in the foundation and to see it grow year after year.

The event is so well supported, it’s so well funded, and we’ve seen these children who return year after year grow up before our eyes. So that’s probably one of my favorite things that I will take with me from my time with the foundation. That is incredible.

If somebody’s listening to the podcast and they’re hearing about this, they’re moved by it and they want to support it, but they’re not a member of the association or foundation. How could they become engaged? You can join, you can become a member. We accept all members.

You don’t have to be in the legal community. You can just be inspired by the work we do. Our annual membership is $25, and you can go to saintpetebarfoundation.

org you can sign up to be a member. You can donate. We take corporate sponsors, we take event sponsors.

So there are a lot of ways to get involved. If this is aligned with your values as well, that’s wonderful. I’m certainly convinced.

Well, thanks. I’d like to talk to you about something else that’s a passion of yours from previous conversations or just looking over your LinkedIn and other media. Why do you spend so much of your time teaching paralegals? I really have spent most of my life teaching, and so it’s kind of ingrained, and it started really early.

My parents are immigrants, and English wasn’t their first language since not my first language. So I spent a lot of time translating letters, information, things. We saw.

There was a lot of communication. I then started dance, and then as I got older, I became a teacher’s assistant. I became a teacher of my own classes, and that carried on through college when I finished law school and I went out on my own and started my own firm.

Teaching paralegals was just kind of in line with sharing my legal knowledge, helping better the paralegal community and making sure they had the skills to work for attorneys, attorneys like me, and then also kind of continue that spirit of teaching that I’ve had most of my life. That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

I’ve gotten the sense from the past year working more closely with solo attorneys, since I’ve spent so much time working with very big law firms and getting closer to the work. It seems like paralegals are in very high demand. I think they are.

I think it’s hard to find a good paralegal. I think it’s hard to find a good paralegal that has the skills you’re looking for. And I also think that it’s really difficult to find a paralegal who suits your individual needs.

I think we use that term very broadly as to what a paralegal does, Some attorneys and some law firms use a paralegal almost closer to a legal assistant. They do very little drafting. It’s a lot of proofreading.

Maybe it has client contact, maybe not. Whereas other attorneys need the paralegals to be drafting the substantive documents, researching the case law, analyzing the case law. So I think that there is a high demand because there’s so much work that could be done.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. If.

If solo attorney’s listening and they’re really feeling that pain, it’s hard for them to find the type of paralegal they need. What advice would you give them? I think reaching out to someone who’s working with paralegals, someone who teaches at a college that has paralegal studies programs, I think that’s important. And then also reaching out to other attorneys who do use paralegals.

I actually rely heavily on legal assistance that have that understanding the drafting, the basics. I feel maybe myself personally, I’m a little more type A, so I like to do the research myself. So that’s probably not something I’m going to hand off to a paralegal.

Yeah, Yeah, I noticed when I was looking at some of the courses you’ve taught, you’ve taught a lot about researching, right? Very much research and writing has really been the backbone of a lot of the courses I taught at St. Petersburg College. Really focusing on sentence structure, spelling, not talking to text, kind of language is sometimes a difficult thing to encourage students to really formalize their writing. So a lot of sentence structure, a lot of writing, active voice versus passive
voice.

I can get a really. I feel like I could step on a soapbox and talk about that till I’m blue in the face. So I really enjoy the writing part of it, as well as giving them the tools to know how to research.

That’s awesome. Would you be interested in, like, collaborating on an episode or a CLE that’s just focusing on that type of material? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I think folks could really get some value out of something as simple as maybe comparing, you know, Fastcase and Lex and Alexis and Westlaw. Definitely. And in Google Scholar, I guess.

Yes. So at spc, one of the teachers, one of the classes I teach is computerized legal research. And so not only do we look at things like Lexis, like Westlaw, like Fastcase and Google Scholar, but really understanding more the important structure of setting up your search correctly because it.

I almost analyze it very much similar to these streaming devices. Yes. I understand they have different content, but it’s.

What is the interface you like working with? Do you like Netflix? Is it easier to run hoops, Hulu? Or are you looking for something free like Tubi or Pluto? So I think legal research can be thought of that way also, if you can set up a good search, whether it’s natural language or using your Boolean connectors, I think that’s what’s more important rather than which tool am I using. Yeah. Because in all fairness, especially for solo and small firms, it’s very cost prohibitive sometimes to have
these expensive fancy tools or.

Which are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but they can be cost prohibitive. So how do we encourage and provide structure for our students or employees to be able to do it within the budgetary restraints that some of us face? That’s. That’s such valuable information.

And, you know, even with some of those tools that I use and help folks use, searching is so important. And being able to put a lot of thought into a search to know how to structure a search, whether it’s Boolean or proximity searching or some of the other types of searching you can do in certain systems and to use those systems well, you have to be familiar with that type of searching and how to use those operators, then you can save that search. So many of those tools operate on a safe search
then being shared with a team.

Right. And that’s how you’re doing your review sets or what have you so very valuable skills. And I also think understanding where you’re coming from.

Right. I think when I teach students, one of the things I talk about because I also love to cook, is how do you use a cookbook? Some people will open a cookbook, they’ll look at the table of contents and they’ll say, okay, I want to cook a poultry dish. Right.

Or I’m looking for soup. Some people flip to the index and they say, find me, you know, a carrot recipe. Yeah.

There are some people, willy nilly crazy people out there who just open the cookbook and say, this is what I’m going to make. Yeah. I think starting at that and understanding what kind of reviewer you are helps then look into what your research style is going to be like.

If you’re a table of contents person, maybe starting with the table of contents for Florida statutes or a treatise is going to be good versus if you’re an index person, you’re going to want to do the search. And so I think even stepping back, maybe taking one or two steps back before to say, what kind of person or researcher am I going to be based on other things I do in my life. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We really could dive into that one and it’s so easy. But of course we don’t have the time today because we have other things we need to talk about and some of the listeners understand this pain. You have a hearing coming up.

Yes. So we’re going to have to take a break in our recording so that you can join your hearing. And so often attorneys, especially solo attorneys, like you’re, you’re playing Tetris with that calendar and sometimes you don’t control where those pieces are going to fall, even if there’s another piece in the way.

So we’ll take a break, we’ll be back in a few minutes and hopefully that hearing will go well. And I really hope somebody shows up with a cat face. Excellent.

I really do. I just need another. I assure you I am a cat.

I am not a cat. We’ll be right back. You don’t need a studio.

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Whether you are a team of one or many from concept to production. We help you create audio that’s authentic, effective, and totally you make your business stand out and speak up@naming creative.com. and we’re back.

Christina, what inspired you to start your own solo practice? Well, I think it was a combination of things. No one’s really excited, I think, as much as scared sometimes, or that certainly was in my situation. I had been working in firms.

I had really kind of just grown tired of the making money for other people and not feeling like I was being fairly compensated. So I think that was probably the largest reason that I decided to start my own firm. Yeah.

That’s incredible. When I. When I went solo, of course, I am not an attorney, but when I went solo, I can really feel that fear side of it, you know, And I’ve talked to some people that are excited, but they have a very healthy dose to fear, and I don’t think that always goes away. Ryan, it’s so intimidating.

It’s so intimidating. You’ve had your solo practice for a while, Very successful solo practice. So I’m curious how the cases you’ve taken on have evolved over the years.

I think so. We just celebrated our 15th anniversary this year, which is really exciting. But I think in the beginning, as a lot of solos, you feel like you have to take every case that walks in the door because that’s your.

That’s how you’re going to make your money, and that’s how you’re going to, you know, decide whether you’re going to be able to eat steak or ramen this week. As the years have gone on, we’ve been really fortunate to be able to be more choosy with our cases. So now it’s almost like we’re dating.

I am interviewing you to see are you the right type of client for me. I. As much as the potential client is interviewing us to see if we’re the right attorney for them. So I think the selectiveness has been what’s really evolved over the years.

That’s. Yeah. That’s awesome.

That’s awesome. I hear that story from others, too. Now that.

How, like, as you evolve that, how did that process work out? Like, did you start just, like, kind of, like, writing down questions on paper that you were going to ask, or did you. Did you, like, envision, like, the ideal client and then, like, kind of start building processes around how you, like, find that client or identify if somebody you’re talking to is that client? Like, I think all of the above. Yeah.

Right. When you start finally deciding what kinds of cases Bring you joy. What kinds of clients are good to work with? I started looking at a handful of reasons.

Where was my referral source for that client? And so I want to make sure that I’m doing more of that. If I’m getting good clients from my attorney referrals, then I need to make sure I’m making good connections with my attorneys who are potential referral sources. I also did do the avatar concept.

What kind of client is best going to suit me is best going to suit my practice. Yeah. What I found was people who’ve probably worked with a lawyer before is helpful for maybe my bankruptcy restructuring work, maybe for my family law clients, because then they understand that we bill hourly.

They’ve seen invoices, they kind of know how it goes. And then also we do keep what we call the report card when a potential client comes in. There are certain things we’re grading them against that are important to me in divorce work.

I think it’s important to understand that maybe both people had some role. And I’m not saying that’s always the case, but I think you can learn a lot about a potential client by the way they speak about the other person. Yeah.

Or the situation. So that was important to me. Yeah.

One of the other things that’s really important to me is how many other attorneys have they consulted with? Not because that’s necessarily a make or break, but because I want to know, are you just kicking tires or are you really serious about taking this case to where it has to go? Yeah. So there are a lot of. All of those things have really affected the selectiveness process.

Yeah. Yeah. I understand that for some people, it’s sometimes hard to find an attorney for their case, and they end up having to reach out to a lot of different firms that may or may not call them back.

Sure. So how do you differentiate the people that are just having a hard time, like, getting in touch with that fit versus somebody that just really has something that’s not going to be a good spend of firm time. Sure.

So if they’ve said, hey, I’ve reached out to a lot of firms, you’re the first one to call me back. I’ve been having a hard time reaching someone. I don’t fault the potential client for that.

Right. If they have consulted maybe with five other bankruptcy attorneys, the chances of me knowing those other five bankruptcy attorneys is going to be high. So I want to know why they didn’t go with those other people.

And if the client can articulate that. I didn’t feel like they were taking me seriously. I felt like they brushed me off.

I don’t think it’s always a make or break if you consulted with five attorneys, but I want to know why. Because if you’ve consulted with five of my colleagues that I would have and respect to handle my case, why are you not going with them or why are they not working with you? Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. Think about how different cases, people have different talents or specialize in different particular cases, especially in complex litigation and all these different areas of law, I imagine that crosses somebody’s mind, like, why isn’t that attorney referring me if that’s the case, you can’t just necessarily go ask. Well, there are some people who don’t do a lot of things.

In my practice, I focus on family law and bankruptcy. So if a bankruptcy attorney refers me a case and there’s a family law component to it, then I know. Makes sense.

Why it makes sense. Exactly. But if it’s just kind of a run of the mill kind of case and they’ve consulted with five other bankruptcy attorneys, are you not being honest as a potential client? Are you being a thorn in somebody’s backside? I always worry, why haven’t those other attorneys engaged with you? Yeah.

Your report card concept, that is not something I hear often. And so it’s really cool that you have that and have operationalized something like that, because I’ve certainly heard people give the advice like, fire your worst client. Right.

Or don’t be afraid of parting ways with a bad client, things like that. But for you to have, like, taken that further and developed a report card, something, some way that you’re consistently, objectively grading your clients to try to make those decisions and, you know, smartly, logically, and then you don’t have to worry about firing them because you never took them on in the first place. Are there questions that you can ask during that initial consultation to help you better determine if this
is going to be the type of client that’s going to get on your last nerve or not? And I think for different attorneys, those what gets on your last nerve is different.

Right. For me, if I send you an email and then you call and then you don’t leave a message, and then you call back again and you don’t leave a message, and you call back again and you don’t leave a message, that is one of the things that gets on my last nerve. So you can’t always suss that out.

But can I ask questions about how do you prefer to communicate with Your attorney. Have you ever worked with an attorney before? Do you understand that our work structure is based on the time we spend on your case? So every time you call and we talk, I’m going to bill you for that. Those are some questions that can help address my pet peeves of some boundaries that I don’t like to be broken with clients.

That’s wonderful. I want to ask you about some other things because of course we could, as we’ve already demonstrated, we can talk about something and just keep going and keep going and certainly offer a lot of value to the listeners. But thinking about these systems you put together, whether it’s that scorecard or your intake process, I wonder, how does a practice management system or a case management system come into play? Do they.

Does a practice management or case management system play an important role in your operations? Very much so. Yeah, very much so. So we have a singular system that does both case management and practice management.

Also has our contacts, our notes, all of our information. And it helps us on the office side really focus on utilizing technology to the best of our ability while still keeping the client side, that front side, warm, approachable, hand holding, whatever our clients need. It’s not all clients want to feel like they’re in a firm where we just have everything done technologically, that they’re not talking to a person, that no one’s returning their calls.

So I think it helps us be efficient in the back, whereas we can still be client facing in the front of the office. Got it. So it helps you focus on that client journey and your engagement with the client, because you, what, have the time, you have the reminders, you don’t have the stress.

Right. We’re freeing up the time on the office side of things like intakes, opening files, establishing contacts to client matters. All of that is done efficiently with the technology in our case management system.

And that allows us to be able to answer those client calls, take those client calls, have those client meetings because we’re being technologically efficient. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.

So you’re able to measure and improve upon the time that you’re spending on intake and the time you save there. You’re thoughtful about how you spend that to improve your practice overall. Correct.

And our practice areas focus on those types of areas of law that need more client guidance and reassurance. Family law and bankruptcy are two of the very ugliest practice areas. And people want to feel heard.

They want to feel like you understand their problem. They want to feel like they can reach somebody when they have questions. So it’s really helpful for our practice.

Got it. When you’re building processes and systems like your scorecard or your intake, is that all in that system or somehow integrated with that system? It is, it is. Our intakes, we used to do kind of old school.

You know, we had a paper form that we would fill out and we would have a client talk through it over the phone. What we’ve now done is we moved it into the practice management software and we give the client the option. So when you call in and you speak with my assistant, my assistant will say, would you like to go over these questions now, or would you like me to email the form to you and you can fill it out at your convenience? So now we’re giving the clients the option.

If they want to talk through it, they can do that. If they want to fill it out by themselves and do it over the computer, they can do that too. And our clients like the option.

And what we found is we’re probably about 50, 50. Some people really want to talk to the assistant, explain their situation. But.

But the form helps me get the information I need before the consult. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It was important to me when I was building my intake system that the form allowed for that type of flexibility.

And I had started in one system and had put some work into it and was pretty happy with it. But I ended up moving to a different system for a couple of reasons. But one of the reasons I moved to it is because I could.

I would essentially, I would create a matter for any potential new engagement, put the form in there, and I could start filling it out. So if I had met somebody and had already started having a conversation, whether it was in person or through a phone call or through email, I have some information already. Maybe I can pull some more from either the Bar website or from Sunbiz.

Right. You don’t have to put in your address. I can put that in for you.

Sure. And I can save a form half completed and then email it to the client and be like, if you have time, finish filling this out for me. Sure.

And that way when we get together, you know, I’ll be better prepared. And then we can even, you know, they can. They can make some progress on it and save and come back later, or I can go back in and finish it at the end.

It allows for that kind of collaborative. And that was, like, huge for me. And.

And what was huge for me and what I didn’t want to miss is I didn’t want clients to feel like they weren’t getting the hands on approach, that it was all just, here, fill this out here, use this computer. And we have some clients that live busy lives. They’re working two, three jobs.

We have clients who are elderly, they don’t know how to use a computer. So we wanted to make sure whatever technology that we’re trying to implement, that we’re not missing out or forgetting about the variety of our clients and who needs what. Right, right.

Absolutely. Accessibility is so important and I, I try to put thought into the experience for the client and I base it on like my past experience when the like applicant tracking systems were getting real big or atss and I was looking for full time work. And you know, this kind of goes into another subject, but it was just a situation where you would upload your resume, then you had to fill out a form, put in everything that in your resume in there.

Right. Maybe it tries to capture some of that, but it doesn’t get it perfect. And so you’ve got to fix a bunch of stuff the format never writes.

Yeah. Then you have to answer a bunch of questions. Some of them are always the same, some of them are customized.

And in those questions there’s requirements specified on the back end. There’s knockout questions. Right.

And I may spend 30 minutes to an hour on something just for it to basically not be looked at on the back end because there’s some type of knockout question, you know. And so when I was building my system and my intake, I was like trying to be mindful about not designing that type of a trap where I think, oh, I’m being efficient, but I’m actually just like kind of treating my potential business not very kindly. Yeah.

How does that come out? In the way you engage with potential new clients and put them to a form and a system. Sure. So we try to explain what the form covers and really why it’s helpful.

So the client’s getting an understanding that this isn’t just a checklist. Right. This isn’t, you’re not just a piece of paper.

But this helps. And the way we kind of say it, my assistant says it, is this helps Christina get just an overall view of your situation so she can start the conversation during the consult. So our form really covers kind of some statutory things I need to think of.

Have you ever filed bankruptcy before? Yeah. Was it more than seven years ago? Because that’s our kind of our cutoff. But it also includes kind of some open ended questions.

How did you hear about Us, always a nice easy question. And then what does Christina need to know before your consultation? Right. That gives them the ability to kind of give me an overview of.

And then it also says, are there any concerns you have? So we try to not make it feel so formy that it loses all personality, but also to help the clients feel like this is your first initial start of what is it that you’re looking for. So we find explaining the form and the purpose of it can really help keep that understanding going. So no client, no consumer anywhere wants to feel like a checklist.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think about, as I said before, I’m not an attorney, I’m a technology person that focuses on technology attorneys use.

But with my intake process and my consults. Your intake process and your consults, something that’s coming to me that’s the same is it’s better for the client and it’s a better use of their resources too. Because in my thoughts, I’m like, all right, if I’ve got this information, I’m better prepared when we get on the phone, then I’m passing value to you the moment I turn my timer on.

Yes. Or you can pay me to ask these questions that I’ve already put on this form. Right? Yes.

And that, you know, so. And whatever. I mean, different people, everyone’s busy.

I get it. Sometimes you have to pay me to ask those questions and that’s fine. That’s what you’re paying me for.

Yes. But. But at least I feel like I’m passing value along right away.

If I’m better prepared, I’m showing up. Timer goes on, and I’m like, I’ve got a couple of clarifying questions or I want to look at this because I have a hunch or yada, yada, maybe already know what I’m going to say. Exactly.

And we’re coming away from that call. They have some takeaways, right? Very much. It’s not like they have to wait for me to get back to them.

Whereas if I’m showing up, I’m not prepared. You’re going to have to wait. And I’m busy.

We’re busy. Right. Sometimes that might be a couple of days.

Very much so, yeah. Yeah. That’s wonderful.

So, yeah, if you have to fill out a form so that your attorney or your technology professional is well prepared, just know we’re trying to save you some money and we’re not just doing it because we love reading forms. It is really actually helpful for us. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And that consistency. Consistency is so important to our efficiency.

Yes. If you were talking with somebody that’s new to law, maybe they just gotten through school, they’ve gotten through the bar. Now they’re making their decision, if they haven’t already from their summer associate or intern experience.

Now they’re making the decision to go solo. What advice would you give to that solo attorney that’s hesitant to pick up this type of technology in their first year? So I will share the advice I got when I thought about it. Take every solo attorney you can find out to coffee or lunch and ask them those questions.

That’s great. What technology do you use? How are you using it? Because I found when I went out on my own 15 years ago, we weren’t talking about extensive technology like we are now, but those pieces of nuggets of information from all the lawyers who were willing to be honest with me were so helpful and so invaluable. And so that was probably the best advice I receive, and that’s the best advice I would give forward.

That’s wonderful advice. That’s wonderful advice. And I think about how it also connects to referrals.

Right. Asking for referrals, building some trust in your community and building a referral network when there’s a bit more to it than just taking someone out to coffee. But you gotta start somewhere.

And how are those clients gonna start if you don’t have a referral network, if you don’t have that built up and if people don’t know who you are or what you’re doing? Yeah, yeah. I feel like that’s important in so many different, like, professional services based businesses, because in my. It’s so important because in tech and even legal tech, and this is something I’ve talked about with other guests that have pointed out, like, oh, there’s not very many people that are focused on legal
technology.

And. Well, there is. There’s.

I think Adriana said there’s a couple of hundred. Right. But we don’t know.

And a lot of us know each other. Right. Like if I say Adriana or Debbie, like, we generally know who we’re talking about.

Once you’re in, it’s kind of a small world. Even though there’s different groups. Right.

There’s a bit of a division between those that serve small firms and large firms. Typically, some of us do a little bit of both. But even among us, there’s so many different technology solutions.

Yes. So if somebody’s working in there and they see a system and it’s not one, they’re super familiar with, but they know that somebody else in the network is familiar with. Then boom, there’s a referral or a connection or we come together on a project.

Right. Because they don’t know Net documents, but they know I’m certified to training on netdocuments. So they’re like, hey, can you come teach my Mac user how to use netdocuments on their Mac? Or maybe I know that I’m not the best on center base.

I know what center base is, but I don’t really work on it, but I know somebody else is. Sure. And I need a center base.

You know, problem challenge, you know, quickly addressed. Then of course, I’ll go to that expert. Yeah.

I imagine it’s pretty much identical when it comes to the referral network with attorneys, right? Very much so. And that’s the thing, too, is I don’t look at my other family law practitioners or bankruptcy petitioners as my competition. Right.

They’re people that I can actually go ask a question to. Or. Hey, Jonathan, when was the last time you raised your rates? Caitlin, this weird situation came up in one of my cases.

You know, can I run it by you? Right. So having those colleagues could be referral systems. Now that I’ve gotten further in my practice, a lot of my colleagues are conflicted out of certain cases.

So that means they need to refer it to someone they trust. So staying in communication and having good relationships with practitioners in my same practice area, I never look at it as competition. And I think maybe sometimes younger attorneys or newer attorneys feel like they can’t make those relationships because they view other practitioners as competition.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, boy. It’s so refreshing to hear you say that, because that’s something that.

The stories I tell myself in my head that sometimes rattles around in there where I’m like, oh, you know, I have no business going in there because that’s Jim and Lisa’s space, you know? But the truth is, is there’s plenty of business out here for all of us. Very. And when to tie something back to what we were talking about before, when it comes to, like, the access to justice gap.

Sure. Or the technology gap, which is something I’ve talked about before, the disparity in technology investment between very large firms and very small firms sure contributes to that access to justice gap. I mean, we’ve got a mission that we’re passionate about that means something that is for the good, Right? Yes.

It’s not just about trying to put food on the table, but sometimes it’s about that too. Sometimes it’s about that, too. But it’s nice when they’re aligned.

It’s nice when they’re aligned because our work has an impact. Awesome. I know that we’re running short on time, so I’m gonna have to cut a couple of our questions out.

Maybe we’ll save it for the next time we come together for that. Sounds like a great plan. I love good stories.

Yes. Are there any wins that you’re proud of from the past few months that you can share? There are so many good wins, but the one that’s standing out right now is I have a tough family law case, and I think most people who do family law have a lot of those tough cases. And there are a lot of instances in family law that are very one side said, the other side said, and it really makes it difficult as attorneys to figure out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.

Yeah. And so in family law, you can often bring in professionals, a guardian ad litem, a social investigator, a parent coordinator who can help get to the root and the answer. And to finally see my client be believed and be at the point where all of the evidence was in their favor and then the judge had no other choice but to agree with these reports really was.

I don’t think the word is vindication. Yeah. But just a breath of fresh air for work that is hard to get to a good place where a parent who did all the things that was asked of them got the result that was the right result.

Gosh, I feel like if I’d have been there, the hardest part would have been trying not to cry. Yes. It was definitely a difficult day, both because of apprehension and fear and the length of time it took to get here.

But it felt like everybody could finally take a deep breath and just a weight was lifted off shoulders. And I think a lot of family law practitioners, if you’re listening, you can definitely empathize with that feeling of we carry our clients burdens on our shoulder, and sometimes it stays there, and sometimes we get to actually lift it off and breathe a little bit. So I think that was good not only for our firm staff, for the family, for the parent we represented, and personally for me, it was
definitely a good win all around.

That’s incredible. I’m not an attorney, but I can feel that breath of, you know, letting that out. Just.

Yeah. Oh, boy. That’s incredible.

Was there anything coming up that you’re excited about? Well, I’m always excited about doing fun podcasts like this. I’m very involved in the Florida Bar. So I’ll be chairing the professional.

The Standing Committee on Professionalism’s Artificial Intelligence Committee this year. So I’m really excited to bring different levels of AI understanding and intelligence to practitioners. Oh, that’s so fun.

I think it’s something we need to be talking about. I know that we get a lot of bad press for how lawyers sometimes use AI or use it incorrectly. And I’m just really excited to bring good information to our practitioners to get them not being fearful of technology like we talked about before.

Of course. Using it right and using it correctly. Yeah.

And using the right ones. You were involved in the guidelines that the Bar released. Right? We have.

So I also sit on the Code and Rules of Evidence Committee. And we’ve talked about how to really define artificial intelligence or how to encompass everything that is going to be considered artificial intelligence, as well as how do we notify people that we are using artificial intelligence? If I have a medical malpractice case and my doctor is using artificial intelligence to summarize his reports, who has the duty to notify? Does the doctor need to tell me? Do I need to tell the court? Do I need
to tell opposing counsel? At what stage? So there’s a lot of work to be done. Not only on just are we using AI, but how do we use AI in practice? Yeah.

That’s incredible. We should. If we come back and do another episode to dive in on a topic or we collaborate on a cle, I would love to bring that intersection of research and AI tools together.

You know, maybe we could dive into Co Counsel and its competitors. Excellent. Would love that.

That’s wonderful. How could our listeners find you? Wonderful. So we would love for you to follow us.

We are on social media. We’re on Facebook, LinkedIn. We’re on Pinterest.

We have a YouTube channel. Most everything you can find is on Fayher Law. F like Frank E H E R L A W.

We’ve got a website with a blog. Lots of great resources, free information on family law, bankruptcy, handling your case yourself. So please connect with us however you can.

We’d love to answer your questions. Certainly. You can give us a call for a consult at 7:27 or 359-0367.

That’s awesome. And if you want to find me, you can look on LinkedIn. Ryan Bankston, B A N K S T O N.

You can also go to my website, cio.legal. there’s no.com or.

net, it is CIO legal, and I have other podcast episodes posted there. If you’d like to go back through some of the legal, specific and service management episodes that I have hosted, of course I co host this podcast with other hosts that talk about other topics usually near and dear to our hearts here in St. Petersburg or about entrepreneurship in business. So do go to sunleaderspodcast.com jordan is at is it sunleaderspodcast.com and then sunleaders.

org sunleaders.org is our organization for local networking here in St. Petersburg. SunLeadersPodcast.com, that’s where you can find our podcast episodes.

We’ve had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people listening. There’s lots of episodes there. You can find some good ones.

So please keep an eye, subscribe like all those fun things, and you can find me back here next month. Sam.