Our Episode Transcripts are produced by Descript. Some words/dialogue may not be transcribed with 100% accuracy.
Ellie Intro: In this episode of Law Talks, I'm joined by Thomas Frank, a U. S. attorney who founded his own successful firm in 2018, of which he remains partner to this day. Thomas tells me about his legal career in the U. S., from clerking in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, to his life as a commercial litigation attorney.
Ellie: And to start us off, please could you tell us about your pathway to become an attorney? Thank you for having me, Ellie.
Thomas: Pathways a little, it's a lot, it was a long road. So, when I started, you know, when I left high school and I was going into college, I was I did well in school, but not too well.
I did just enough, right. So, I like to play with, you know, hang out with my friends and, you know, high school, you want the party, [00:01:00] you're not really too academically inclined. At least me and my friends weren't. In college, when I started off, it was very much the same. It was hanging out with my friends didn't necessarily want to go to class.
So, even though I was on a scholarship, I lost the scholarship after the 1st year, my GPA was, you know, not great. So I really wasn't, I didn't have a purpose. I didn't have a drive towards anything in particular. Some people, they know they want to be a lawyer or a doctor or police officer, you know, anything far in advance and that just wasn't me.
I really didn't figure it out or decide I was going to be an attorney. Until 19/20, like, around there, that age and it was because my grades had dropped. I got basically kicked out of my 1st college, went to another college and my grades just kept going down because I just didn't really care. Right? I wasn't I wasn't someone [00:02:00] who could just do something to do it.
It had to be for something. So just going to college to go to college was not something that I was going to, you know, really thrive at, but something happened. My mother said to me, my GPA dropped to, like, 1. 5 or something horrendous. And my mother said to me, you're becoming a bum and that just really pissed me off.
And so I was driving to class 1 day, and I said to myself, what's the opposite of a bum and the word lawyer came to mind and that was that. And after that, the next year my, you know, the next semester, my GPA went up to something more respectable, like a high 2 or low 3. And then I switched to a better school that had a better pre law program.
I went to Brooklyn College and my, you know, my GPA went higher and higher. I was getting three nines. 3, 8, you know, per each semester. So I dug myself a [00:03:00] pretty deep hole, but, you know, by that time, my GPA had gone up a little bit better. And then to get into law school in the United States, you need to take the LSAT, which is an awful test.
I wouldn't take that again if you made me and did well on the LSAT and I ended up going to St. John's law, which is in Queens where I'm from. And the rest is history. It's kind of how it happened.
Ellie: Thank you. That's really interesting. Obviously, the UK, U S symptoms quite different 'cus when we finished like secondary school, high school, you can go straight into just studying law.
So it can be a little bit earlier, but I think a lot of people feel and a lot of our listeners feel that that's quite early to know. So it's nice to hear someone that wasn't necessarily like four years old and knew they wanted to be a lawyer kind more gradually.
Thomas: Lawyers are all these, you know, they're perceived as, these very driven individuals, which, you know, most of the time they are, but it's such a different path that so many people take to get there and they find their drive at different times of their [00:04:00] life. Some people who have parents who were attorneys, so it's a little bit of an easy course. They enjoy talking to their parents about their job and the interest and the drive are just kind of ingrained that way other people not where I'm from in Queens is a very blue-collar neighbourhood. So, the, my friends, dads were mechanics, policemen, engineers like my father, but they weren't necessarily in business, and they weren't necessarily in the law. So, they just wasn't really access to that world.
So, it was just wasn't something that was in my mind at the time. But it's funny a friend of mine is from, South Africa. And he studied in the UK, and he said, you know, I forget where he went to college Cambridge or Oxford or something like that. And he said, you know, I forget what he called it a junior solicitor instead of what they would call it here as an associate.
And I think he called it a solicitor [00:05:00] and he, like, I could have been a 21-year-old junior solicitor, 21-year-old attorney man. That's terrifying because. Even as a 26-year-old attorney after three more years of law school, you feel like, you know, nothing, that you don't have any real knowledge of law or business.
So, to be at 21, forget it. It's, it's definitely a different system and it has a lot of similarities as well.
Ellie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean, I'm going a similar route. I'm 23 and I'm still at school. So yeah, I'm kind of having the, the nice experience from getting a bit more experience before getting fully into the law.
Thank you, that was really interesting to hear. And could you tell us a little bit about your time clerking for the Honourable Pam Jackson Brown and Honourable Dennis Junior Butler of the Supreme Court, Queens County.
Thomas: So, it's that it was a great experience. So anytime you could clerk for a judge, especially if you're someone who wants to litigate, or try cases, there is no better experience [00:06:00] because you're seeing so much in such a truncated timeframe. It's constant exposure. There's, you know, if you're a trial attorney, you're not having trial that many trials.
Maybe you're having 3 or 4 a year and that would be a lot. But if you work for the court, you're seeing trials every day. So, it's just this overexposure of. Trial practice preparation, the steps that lead up to it. And not even just trial, just general litigation.
Right motion practice pleadings. And you see everything you see what judges like. You know, there's some things that across-the-board judges enjoy. There's some things that across the board judges despise. There are some judges that are peculiar in a certain way, and this is what they like, and this is how they like things.
And if you're going to practice before them, you need to know those things. So, most important part of it for me was, the different calibre of attorneys that I would [00:07:00] see, you would see excellent attorneys. You would see awful ones. You would see middle of the road. And if you're paying attention, you're going to see why are the excellent attorneys are excellent, and why are the middle of the road attorneys just middle of the road and why are the bad attorneys are bad? And the things that I gleaned from that was. The excellent attorneys, everything about them is planned, right? No stone was left unturned. Everything down to their presentation. What they're wearing their suit was pressed.
It wasn't pressed the outfit match. It didn't match. The way their papers were presented to the court were clean organised. The thoughts were you know organized. They weren't just throwing things at the wall, hoping something would stick. Sometimes you have a bad case. Facts and law are not on your side.
You have to do what you have to do to try to keep declining the fight so you can negotiate a decent settlement. But everything with them was [00:08:00] down to a T and they were calm. They were not a wreck. They were not screaming at the top of their lungs. They just kept themselves very composed. Those are the excellent attorneys.
The middle of the road attorneys had some of the good qualities, but also some of the bad. They were disorganised. Disorganisation is probably the most common thread. And then the bad attorneys are the ones that are flat out disingenuous. You cannot trust what they're saying, which is a concern when that person is governed by ethics rules that require them to be candid.
So, if you can't trust them to be that, you have a problem, so that was the best part of it for me. And some of the great attorneys are mentors of mine, because I would let them know that I looked up to them. I thought they were excellent for what my opinion meant at the time was, you know, next to nothing.
And, you know, to this day, I rely on them for advice because, everyone says, you know, it's the practice of law and it [00:09:00] really is that, cause you're never, you're never perfect at it. You're always just trying to get better. It's a constant struggle to get better and more polished and more knowledgeable.
It just never ends. And that's the good thing about it, 'cause it keeps you interested. But that, that was such a great time of my life because it didn't have any of the stresses of the law that you typically associate with the law because it's a nine to five. You check in at nine, you leave at five, you take an hour lunch.
And the work's not really on you, it's on the attorneys to present their case to you, and then you're writing the decisions and things like that. But you're kind of able to learn in a very stress free environment. And the judges I had were just excellent. Jackman Brown, she just retired recently, after an excellent career. She was the 1st Guyanese born judge in New York state history and just a very regal, graceful human being who, you know, she had a matrimonial calendar.
[00:10:00] So contentious, right? A lot of emotion. It's not like a business dispute where people are relatively calm and it's. You breach this contract or, you know, something along those lines where it's a little bit divorced from emotion. In matrimonial, it's almost all emotion and you're trying to manage the personalities.
So you can't have a judge who's a blow harder, you know, screaming at people or things like it wouldn't work in that environment. So she was like, this constant, this steady calm and it helped to lead to a lot of resolution because you could flip out in front of her and she would tell you that's not going to work.
This is not going to get you heard. Everyone's going to get hurt. Everyone's going to get a fair shake. We're going to apply the law to these facts. But if you think that playing games is going to get you something with me, it's not and that would bring the temperature down. So, you know, all in all, it was one of the best times of my life.
I love that time. I wouldn't change it for the world. I met so many people that I love. I [00:11:00] consider family. I still talk to the people in the court system. Every time I go back to that courthouse. I feel like I'm going home. Considering a clerkship, everyone I know who's done one, just, they all agree that it was one of the best experiences of their lives.
Ellie: Thank you. Yeah, it sounds like great exposure. Is it common that future attorneys kind of have spent time with a clerkship?
Thomas: Is it common in America? Yeah, it's a common after graduation profession. Like, it's a common step, but just not everyone gets 1, very competitive. So, especially in the federal court system for the United States. It's very, very competitive, and it's very difficult to get a federal judicial clerkship. State, which was mine is a little bit easier.
There's more judges. The federal court system has a caseload that's much less than the state court system because federal jurisdiction is limited. There's only 3 occasions where you can have. Federal court jurisdiction, whereas state court [00:12:00] jurisdiction is, original and general, right?
It applies to almost everything. So, you need more judges and like, for example, in New York state, you need a judge per 180, 000 people. So, 1 judge per capita per 180 capita, so you're just going to have more judges, especially in a state with, like, New York or California with Texas with high populations.
You're going to have. A lot of state court judges in relation to federal court judges. So, it's less competitive but it depends, you know, some people will go straight from law school to a clerkship, or they'll go straight from law school to associate position and then to a clerkship. And some people will spend years practicing and then do a clerkship.
It really could be, you know It could be a balance, but it's a common, common step in the process, but just not everyone gets one.
Ellie: Thank you. That's interesting. It seems like something that you can kind of get involved in at different points of your career. I think it's it's something that I'm starting to hear a lot more about happening in the UK as well, kind of getting involved in like the courts and things like [00:13:00] that, not just as a lawyer or solicitor or barrister.
So it's interesting to hear about . Moving on to your Career as an attorney, could you tell us about the process of founding your own firm?
Thomas: Yeah. So it, it was an interesting thing. It wasn't something I planned. At the time that the ball started rolling, I was with a firm called Greenspoon Marder. Which is a national firm.
They have offices in, I forget how many states, but a lot of states. They're based in Florida where they are number two or three in size, revenue, prestige, big firm, big cases but started off as a small firm, started with 2 guys Michael Marder and Jerry Greenspoon who, you know, shook their hands over a table and started the firm, just the 2 of them.
And now it's, massive fat practice, 250 plus attorneys, you know, top 200 law firm in the nation. So, I was in their New York office, [00:14:00] I had split time between their floor in the New York office and that was a great experience in its own right. But my mentor approached me in May of 2018. We had dinner with a mutual friend.
I hadn't seen them for years because I, I was living in Florida for a while and then I moved back. So I hadn't seen them in three or four years. So we're sitting eating dinner and he just said, Tommy, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I've been doing it 20 years and he was excellent attorney. He gave it everything he had all day.
Every day. The man was a machine but it does take its toll and you have to make time for yourself. And he was just ready to move on. He was an excellent business, he is an excellent businessman. He just understands business very well. And he started another business and it was thriving and didn't have practice time for law anymore.
Didn't want to do it anymore. And he said, why don't you take over the practice? You know, the clients, you know, the work, [00:15:00] it's a seamless transition. And that's how it started. And it did work out that way. You know, I, I started with. him in July, 2018, and it was kind of, it was supposed to be a transition of the clients from him.
From his office to mine, and it kind of worked out that way. Not exactly as planned, it's difficult to plan those things because you're dealing with a client base that knows him. Knows me from years ago, but there's got to be a transition. Some clients you don't want. They're just not your cup of tea.
They're just not, you know, fitting within your model of what you wanted to do So that's how it started, it was July, 2018. And it's terrifying, it's terrifying thing to do. And I was texting friends who had done it. I, I just got a memory on my phone and it was a text communication between me and the other guy where I didn't with and I said, am I being like a chump that I'm scared?
And he [00:16:00] goes, you would be a moron if you were not scared. I would be legitimately concerned. He goes this is single handedly, the biggest jump you'll take in your professional career, because 95 percent of the people cannot walk away from a salary.
They can't walk away from the safety of it. And the trick of it is, it's not really safe at all, because if you're working for someone, you're an at will employee, and you can be fired at any time. So, it's, it's the facade of safety. It's not actual safety. You know, safety is when you learn how to eat what you hunt.
He's like, if you could learn how to do that for yourself, you'll never be hungry. But you got to start. There's got to be necessity. You have to have that necessity. If I don't do this and do it, well, my family doesn't eat, my family doesn't have the place to stay. That's urgency. That's [00:17:00] pressure. But when you get okay with it, Its just another thing, you know, once you get used to it, it's just another thing.
It's a different type of stress, but the stress is still there. And we've been doing it ever since. Amanda, my wife is my partner. She joined the firm in January, 2019, which was funny enough, the same month we got married and we've been doing it ever since. Kids, moves, the firm is just kind of, it's like our first child, its just always with us wherever we go.
And that was how it started. That's how it continues.
Ellie: Wow, thank you. That's really interesting. And such a big change in career. I'm wondering how much did that change your sort of day to day obviously you were already working in law as an attorney, kind of the transition and having the clients move over to you.
Was it kind of just like a overall impact or did you feel like a real day to day change in what you were doing and the kind of work you were covering?
Thomas: I felt an incredible day to day [00:18:00] change, an incredible, incredible. A friend of ours was a partner at a very big firm in Florida, and we were close with their family.
And when we moved back, we remained in contact. Amanda said to him, Tommy's different. He's not the same, and he said, he's not going to be the same. This is, this is different. He is going to become a different person. He has to become a different person. And, it was, I was, you know, I'm known as a joker to my friends and family.
95 percent of what comes out of my mouth is a joke. You know, obviously not now and obviously not in a court proceeding, but it's just the way I've always been, I've always been a bit of a jokester. My 2nd grade lunch lady told me I was either going to be a comedian or an attorney. 1 of the 1 of the other.
She was right. So, I became definitely more serious, because there was real stakes at play. I was a new husband. At the same time, so the [00:19:00] responsibility of providing was their. Stress went up very, very high. It led to a lot of different, introspection occurred, it was a rough time. It's hard to describe, but the, the stress level went up and the way I dealt with stress when I was younger was, either I would ignore it, ignore the problem, or I would say, you know, I've got through everything else, I'll take care of this. Right? I did have a lot of confidence. That's one of the things my wife said she loved about me when she 1st met me. She was she was so confident, calm and cool. No matter what was happening.
The final could be in 10 minutes. Everyone's freaking out. You're sitting there drinking your coffee, talking about the Yankee game. And for a period of time, I lost it after starting the firm. I didn't recognize myself. My internal thoughts were different. I've always been a workaholic.
Not as bad as I was, but especially at that time, [00:20:00] definitely. And the thought process was if I work more, the problems will go away. And it's not the case. You have to do a lot of work as an attorney, there's no doubt, but it can't be everything. It can't be your resolution to every problem is more work.
So I ended up seeing a therapist, starting to see a therapist and that woman changed my life. It was incredible the way, the problem work presented the problem. They brought them to the forefront. And when I started to do therapy, it was incredible just to learn about yourself. If you begin very curious about yourself, why do I do certain things, the way I do them? And that was the biggest change that happened with the firm. So my day to day was just way different.
The stress wasn't really there before it was, it came in waves and, you know, you're still dealing that never goes away. But you start to learn if you're if you're doing it the right way, you start to learn healthy ways to manage it and realize that you have to divorce,[00:21:00] your success is an attorney from your identity. You can't have them be the same thing because you're going to have ups and downs in your career. That should not impact your thought of self worth. They should be completely different.
Ellie: Thank you. I think that's, helpful perspective, I think particularly that when you're, you have different, new challenges and work, it's not possible that people can just keep working and working and working, to, to solve every issue. Right. So thank you. Yeah, that's really helpful to hear. And now to focus slightly on, we've, we've talked about kind of the change in your day to day and things like that.
But to focus on your actual sort of specialisms in the law what does, and now in your own firm, what does kind of an average week look like working in commercial litigation?
Thomas: Average week is, going to court drafting motions in your case for whatever, you know, discovery, summary judgment, drafting pleadings, you know, starting a complaint or answering [00:22:00] one meetings with clients, meetings with staff which become my favourite thing because I had to learn to delegate.
It was going to drive me crazy because If you don't, if you can't figure out how to delegate, you're going to have a problem. And that's been a problem of mine that I've been working on. And now it's my favourite thing to meet with staff because you just have to let, let go of some stuff. So that's pretty much it.
You know, it's usually the same, you know, not, not too much of a difference. The fun things is when there's like an emergency hearing, something is going to happen unless the court intervenes. We have that, we had two yesterday and those are for me, they're not stressful. Because if you have a plan, and you have a thorough argument that you present to the court, you should be confident, if you're not, there's a problem.
So, you should be confident when you have when you're going into an emergency hearing, because you've got, you have to get all your ducks in a row. And if you're ready [00:23:00] to go. That's fine, but I think sometimes it makes the clients nervous that I'm so calm. They think that I don't have the urgency. This is your first time doing it. This is my thousandth. At this point, I know exactly what needs to be done when it needs to be done everything about it. I'm not trusting in myself. I'm trusting in this process that we have established over, time and time and time again, successes and failures.
So, if I'm nervous going into it, you should be, you know, that's a problem. You don't want your attorney being that way. You want them calm and confident, ready to go. And, you know, we had two this week. . I mean, wonderful people, our clients are, could not say enough nice things about them.
And they come to you very sometimes they come to you very low just in, you know, very low. And we're, you know, Amanda and I are both, we pride ourselves on the fact that we're not your standard attorneys. We're not going to just sit there and [00:24:00] give you cold heart advice with no comfort. Right? You have to manage their expectations.
You got to remove the objection. The objectivity bias, right? You have to maintain objectivity with them. You don't want to tell them everything's going to be okay because it may not be, but at the same time, you want to let them know you're there with them. This may not work, but we're still here with you and we'll figure it out, then. Or this may work, and we're still here with you. You just want to be kind of a constant which is, I enjoy that a lot. That's something that sustains me as a human. I feel like it's, I'm giving something to someone else. And it's not just the legal advice, it's comfort. But in a way that's ethically appropriate.
Ellie: Thank you, that’s really interesting, and such a, such a large part of, what I'm getting from you, like the work of attorney, that relationship with your clients and maintaining the relationship and making sure that you're providing obviously the [00:25:00] appropriate, but kind of what works with the kind of area you're working in.
Thomas: Bedside manner, you have to. A friend of mine's a cop and he's a veteran on the force and he said that he tells all the rookies, hey, man, if you're dealing with so and so treat them like a member of your family, wherever that person is treat them like a member of your family.
I don't care. If they're from Italy, Greece, Africa, it doesn't matter. Treat them like a member of your family because nobody wants to call the cops. Nobody wants to call 9 1 1. Nobody wants to call a doctor and nobody wants to call an attorney. Unless it's an investment, something fun, where it's like a good thing, which there are, but usually not so.
And by comfort, I mean, just understand that they don't want to be talking to you. There's anything else they'd rather do. And if you're cognizant of that, even if the advice you give them is not what they want to hear, they'll take it, and they'll [00:26:00] understand it because they know it's coming from someone who understands the dilemma, the personal toll, but if you're cold, kind of an asshole and you say, well, this is not going to work. They're not going to want to hear it. They're not going to be in the mindset to hear your objective, good legal advice. So, I see that as part and parcel of the job, I can't do my job effectively, if I haven't created a relationship with my client where they trust what I say.
Ellie: Thank you. I think that's really interesting. I was just wondering whether any, like any cases at any point, In your career as an attorney have been particularly memorable for you.
Thomas: Yeah, the one that happened yesterday will stay with me for a long time. Just because the, the clients were so. Again, wonderful people, successful people, but they were just at a low point and they just needed someone to say; something can be done, can't guarantee it'll [00:27:00] work, but these are the steps, and if you're okay with those steps, that's what we'll do'. And we executed it exactly as we said we would and we were successful. That one will stay with me just because. These people had done so much good for their community for years, I mean, decades. Children, other people unbelievable things, and they just needed some help and they're usually the one giving it.
So, that one will stick with me a while. There was another one it was one of my first ones that told me I wanted to be a litigator and it was a bankruptcy case. And I'm sure bankruptcy, you know, UK bankruptcy law and American bankruptcy law are very similar because we got it from you guys. But it's basically when someone goes into bankruptcy, they could get their debts discharged.
And sometimes someone will go into bankruptcy with assets. And the trustee in a bankruptcy case was to take those assets, sell them and pay creditors if it's a chapter 7, But [00:28:00] there are things called exemptions, which allows the debtor to protect those assets from the trustee. one of them is a homestead exemption.
So equity in someone's home. one of them is a car exemption equity in a car. One is called the wild card, you could apply it to a number of different asset classes. So, in New York, to claim the homestead exemption, you have to live there and own it. The lady didn't live there because of, her husband was physically abusive, right?
So the trustee in her case, objected to her homestead exemption. He didn't know the reason why he just said, you don't live there. He's not thinking of it the way I'm looking at it. He's looking at she doesn't live there. I have an obligation to the creditors. He's a fiduciary. So he did what he had to do.
This is before I'm an attorney. I was a 3L. I was in my last year of law school. I was working with my mentor, who was an excellent bankruptcy attorney. So he filed his objection to the homestead [00:29:00] and Mark goes, Mark was my mentor, he goes, you know, gets on the phone with him and the trustees really, really smart, smart attorney, extremely knowledgeable bankruptcy law.
He's a trustee, so he's been doing it longer than I'm alive. And he says, if you object to my home, to my objection, I think it's sanctionable, meaning it has no basis in law fact to object. Right and Mark could be fined. And Mark looks at me because I was the guy who was doing his research and stuff like that.
Mark goes, hold on. Let me talk to Tommy, and he goes, yeah, well, tell your little law clerk that if he, if you guys object, I'll, I'll sanction you. So, I go put him on mute. He puts them on mute. I said, tell him he'll have that objection by Monday morning and Mark goes, and I was red hot, and Mark goes, I'm not going to say that takes them off mute.
And he goes. You'll have our objection Monday morning. Thanks. [00:30:00] Hangs up the phone. So, all weekend, the lady was the sweetest lady, domestic violence survivor, and she's going to lose the only thing she has is this 120, 000, 150, 000? All weekend, just preparing the opposition, the whole weekend, going over with Mark, we filed Monday, and we ended up settling at a very, it's something she was very happy for, and she was so grateful.
And I just remember the fire that that, like, ignited in me and it's still there because of that case. And after that, I was like, this is what I want to do because it still happens. You still get, you have to control it. You can't be fire and brimstone because you lose objectivity. So, you have to, you know, it's still rises in me if someone, takes a position against one of my cases, but I'll take 20 minutes before I even look at it. Just like. Bring myself down. So I get myself to it, a calm approach, which is what you want, but that [00:31:00] case, for sure, that like that was, it still stays in my head. I think about it almost every day.
Ellie: Thank you. Yeah, so the kind of balance between obviously you're going to be involved in these cases and you really care about them, but directing that into doing like a really good job as an attorney, rather than just feeling all that.
Thomas: When someone writes angry, you can tell, and it's never persuasive. So there was one time I wrote a decision for one of my judges, and it was before Judge Butler and I'm reading it and he goes, wow, you were pissed off when he wrote this. I go, yeah, because I think it's, you know... He goes, take 20 minutes, go back, calm down and rewrite it. And he was right and you know, he was a guy, very knowledgeable in a lot of areas of law and, he was right and I, I take that lesson with me. It's calm, calm down. Don't use like inflammatory language. It's not persuasive. I think Winston Churchill said that passion is the death of oratory. I don't know if that's a direct quote but something [00:32:00] along those lines and he's right.
Ellie: Yeah, I think that's really, really helpful advice and something that's probably hard to maintain the whole way through working in the, working in the law.
So kind of linked to that, my final question is and this can apply to US aspiring lawyers or just kind of general. What advice would you give to aspiring lawyers hoping to be attorneys?
Thomas: To aspiring attorneys, if, if your goal is that you're trying to become an attorney. Really understand why it's my reason why was actually probably kind of bad.
Right? It just worked out, but I'm going to do this as a haha to my mom, probably not a good thing because it takes a lot from you. It gives a lot, but it takes a lot. Right? So if you're okay with that bargain, okay. But. Before you take on, you know, in America, especially student debt or, the burden of law school be okay with it.[00:33:00]
Right make sure that that's what you want to not with someone else want or you're doing it to prove something because there's a million other things you could do. That would maybe fit better with you and really do like an internal accounting if, you know, understand what you want out of life. Is this something that's going to help that or not?
Because if it's not, you're not going to be able to help people and that's what the job is. And if you know if you can great. That's for people thinking about becoming a lawyer. Someone who's already in law school, getting ready to become an attorney. My advice would be, be curious, be as curious as possible.
And because there are so many fields that you don't understand, but if you get to know them, it'll make you a better rounded attorney and we'll just keep the intrigue there. You'll still want, you should be wanting to be better.
If you just sit within your practice area, it's like, living in an isolated box. One it's not fun. And it's going to remove the [00:34:00] intrigue of the law. The beautiful thing about the law is no matter how hard you try, you will never know at all. Never ever ever. But if you're constantly curious, it's going to make you a more rounded, well rounded attorney.
And that's the part of the law that can sustain you is that it's an endeavour that you'll never complete. So enjoy that part about it. It's there's always something new to learn. Anytime you've learned something new, it's like it fills your cup. It doesn't take away from your cup. So stick with that, and the practice won't seem, some people are so negative about the law, but it's a beautiful thing. It's not something to be demonised. So if you look at it that way, that's what it will be for you, and you'll just be a better attorney for it, you'll be a better person for it, and you'll, you'll be able to help a lot of people if that's the way you're looking at it. That would that would be my advice.
Ellie: Thank you very much. I think that actually relates really well to something you said earlier about people say you practice law and it's [00:35:00] this idea that you're constantly working on it and trying to get better.
Thomas: Yeah, you're never going to be done.You're, you're, you're going to be 85 and practicing. So, yeah, well, maybe not maybe retired by then, but, I mean, I can't imagine that I'll retire and not be interested by the law. There's no way that's going to happen. I still, I would like to think that I'll be teaching or judge or something like that, when I don't want to necessarily be a litigator anymore, but I don't think that's, I don't think I'll be on my deathbed and have no idea what's going on in the legal field. I can't imagine that. Maybe, you know, maybe, but I just don't think so.
Ellie: Thank you very much. This been a really interesting interview and thanks so much for agreeing to come on Law Talks.
Thomas: No, it’s awesome. I really appreciate you having me, Ellie. [00:36:00]
Comentarios