Connecting the Dots
Welcome to "Connecting the Dots," a podcast where each episode is a journey through the weeks of our lives. Last year, I embarked on a personal project, "My Life in Weeks," documenting weekly milestones with a simple dot on a wall planner. This year, I'm diving deeper into the world of podcasting by connecting with intriguing people who also prioritise infusing their lives with positive experiences. Each week, I chat with a guest about their "week" or "dot," sharing stories, challenges, and triumphs. We explore how these moments shape our paths and discover the power of connecting the dots together. Join us to find inspiration in everyday lives and perhaps add more good things to your own life along the way.
Connecting the Dots
Connecting the Dots...with criminal lawyer (James Torcetti)
This episode features James, a criminal defense solicitor with a remarkable story of overcoming educational and professional hurdles to achieve success. Listen as James shares his experiences from dropping out of high school to leading one of Brisbane's most highly rated defense law firms
And we're back. It's week 26 since I turned 29. And I chat to people about what makes them, them and what they do. And last week I had a pause cause COVID. So it's good to be back chatting to people. and this week I get to check to somebody that's got to where they are in their career and took a very different road than normal to what others that do what they do. How they get there. So it was really good to hear their story and how they operate and what they love about what they do. So let's go meet a criminal lawyer.
Speaker 3:This is James. Let's start with you telling me what do you do now?
Speaker 4:You're in a
Speaker 3:suit. Tell me about that. Which is a bit of a lie
Speaker 4:because I usually get out of a suit the moment. So I'm a criminal defense solicitor. I've got a practicing kibbutzer. Okay. We are the highest and most rated five star Google defense lawyers in at least Brisbane. Yeah, wow. We have a running tally, where I check every Friday at my competition to see where they're at. We're in the lead by about 30, and our closest competitor in our market. Been there, been the director of that practice for about four years. After COVID, we worked out that no one cares. If I'm in a suit or not, it has zero impact on the legal advice. So usually I would go to court in a suit, come back to work, jeans and t shirt on, see the rest of my clients in the jeans and t shirts on the matter. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3:A lawyer lots of study. Must've been bright, did well at school I imagine.
Speaker 4:Not at all. I am a high school dropout. I finished, I think I got to the last. Last semester of year 11, where I was failing out, it was all D's and E's, and it was in the time where my parents were, you either study or you get a trade. And so I saw an opportunity for an apprenticeship as a chef and followed that to get out of school. I was a terrible, terrible chef.
Speaker 3:It was,
Speaker 4:it was a terrible job or you were a terrible, you're a terrible addict. I am probably terrible at it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:What type of chefing, is that the right term? What type of chefing the end of it,
Speaker 4:it was pub grub. Right. At the end it was pub grub. You might recall JoJo's in the City. Yeah, yeah. I did most of my apprenticeship, well, I did two thirds of it before I quit it. I did most of that at JoJo's in the City, where it was the main kitchen, where they did steaks behind there. I never really got to leave that like first station because I was never good enough to go run pizza or go burn pasta. I wasn't very good at it, but that's, that's fine. Then everything changed for me when I got sacked from being a bad cook at a cafe and to needed a job. So I ended up telemarketing. As a real estate agent, you might be familiar with John McGrath. He wrote a book called You Inc. Oh, a long, long time ago. So I was on my lunch break when I was just on a telemarketing job trying to set appointments for direct salespeople. Went to one of those discount bookshops where you just pick up a 2 book. I picked up You Inc by John McGrath and that completely changed my mind shift.
Speaker 5:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 4:It's geared towards real estate agents, but it talks about how, well, there's a plan you've got in your mind for you. That's not in stone. You do what you want. You can build something. You can do something. If you have goals, if you have a plan, if you have aspirations, goal setting, work it back, work out what it is. So, we put that in practice and I was very good on the phones as a telemarketer. Then I got put on the road where I was selling mathematics computer software. It was a rort. And to what we, to end users? To end users, to mum and, John and Jenny Smith sitting down in one of their kids to have the best maths grades in the class decided, discovered I had an aptitude for sales. and thought if I'm going to sell something, I might as well sell something worth money. I fell into real estate at Century 21, Ferny Grove. Was a property bust where the property fell apart as I was finishing my 12 month cadetship as a real estate agent. I was knocking on doors because I was getting the most appraisals in the office. The state made me to a state meeting or one of the conventions. They got me to stand up and talk about how I was getting so many appraisals every single day. Just knocking on doors. It was just grinding the numbers. But one of the doors I knocked on was a mortgage broker from Aussie Home Loans at the time where they were then moving into franchises. So they were these online brokers. Aussie was building up and they were having storefronts and so these brokers that were very successful were then giving themselves an office space and branding that way. I knocked on one of the first mortgage first franchisees of Aussie and he offered me a job, said yes. So anyone who knows me really well would be terrified because I'm not good with numbers with mortgages. Both myself and my old boss breathed like that deep sigh of relief and like the seven year mark for My ability for negligence was expired because it wasn't good at it But thankfully and mercifully the GFC happened. So mortgages up close to where they are now at 70 percent Yeah, then at this point, I'm 20 2021, decided maybe go to uni. People at my ages were starting to finish university and they were starting to, the, the cohort that I was with were graduating out and they were feeling very full of themselves. I remember being at a party where these people who were my age were talking down to the owners of that franchise who were Objectively, wildly successful people in their own right, on their own baton, in their own steam. But these snot nosed 20 year olds were talking down to them because they didn't have a degree. And it was offensive. And I thought to myself, I'm going to get a degree so no one talks down to me like that. Not smart enough to be a doctor. Thought, given the combination of real estate and mortgage, that I would be a great conveyancing lawyer. Thank you. So I went to law school, fell into a couple of different things. Don't do conveyancing myself. It's not my jam. Fell into criminal law when I was a clerk and loved it. It's been almost a decade now. I still get excited to go to work. Yeah, awesome. It's still fun.
Speaker 3:And what makes crime fun?
Speaker 4:There is this moment when you're, say you've got a client that you know, you know, and you've crammed all the lore in your head, so you know all the different things and factors, and you know the clients inside out backwards, and you know the sob story in the violins, and how you're going to have your orchestra of sadness playing for you. And you've got all these arguments. You're not reading the script, but you're standing up, you have it all in your head. It falls away, you're just an advocate, you're reading the court, you're responding to the prosecution submissions, and you're just in this flow state where things are hitting the right marks and then you get a really good result
Speaker 3:is it like chess, but in your language, is it a, it's odd because a puzzle. It's a puzzle. But one
Speaker 4:that takes strategic It all depends. Different matters. Different things. Different clients and different matters require different things from you. Sometimes it's just pure client care. Sometimes it is just holding their hand, whispering sweet nothings and giving them a hug the whole way through because they are absolutely right for the charge, but they are terrified and your job is to guide them through with as much gentleness as you can. Other times, there's that strategy. It's a complicated case. Maybe the crown. It's And you have to play a game of strategy with the crown, and that's fun too. And sometimes it's just a bit of everything all at once in one moment. And having closed really, really big deals, right? You get that adrenaline rush. Like when you close a big sale, or if you jump out of the plane, you get that adrenaline rush. Doing well in court or having all those things happening at the same time is the same adrenaline, probably just chasing dopamine.
Speaker 3:So tell me about where some of the different places you, as a lawyer, you've been practicing for 10 years. What do they call it, practice? Because it's never something you can perfect. Ooh, I like that.
Speaker 4:So I've thought about that with my office, with some of my team members. You can never nail it. You can never master it. You can never be, never have it perfected. So it's always, you're always doing better.
Speaker 5:Yep. It's really
Speaker 4:unusual because the better you get because you practice, you get better matters or you see more in the matters and so you get better at practicing. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, awesome. And so where, where have you spent some of this 10 years? Almost
Speaker 4:entirely in caboolture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:Which is fertile ground for
Speaker 3:Predominantly crime?
Speaker 4:Well, there was that 30 seconds that I practiced in family law. Mm hmm. How was,
Speaker 3:how was that?
Speaker 4:I remember going into my boss's office and saying, Thank you, but no thank you.
Speaker 3:I'm going back across the road to work in crime. What what are some of the challenges you find in the crime practice area?
Speaker 4:One of the biggest challenges is that crime is the lowest area of practice of law. Which makes sense because if you think about it, by and large, our client base is socially disadvantaged. Yep. And so they can't afford the legal fees. But, defense lawyers tend to love what we do, and so we do it because it's an enjoyable way to I have colleagues now who work in commercial law, work family law, work in the big offices on Eagle Street, and they hate their jobs.
Speaker 5:Mmm.
Speaker 4:They, they are proper miserable, but they're trapped because they are making bank. Yep. But they're not happy. Yep. Defence lawyers tend to be bitter, funny, but they don't hate what they do. Yep. Most of us tend to enjoy it.
Speaker 3:When when you say crime, what type of things does that mean? What type of, what, you know, more specifically, what type of clients are coming to you, with what type of problems are they walking into your door with?
Speaker 4:Anything that will bring them before a court, really. So, it depends on what they want to do. So, anything from your traffic matter, your public nuisance, occasionally a peace and good behaviour order, which are never worth it. What's that? So, if you've got a terrible, terrible neighbour, and you're having a real problem with them, and you think, I know, I'll go to court, and I'll get a peace and good behaviour order, and he can't talk to me, or she can't talk to me, that'll definitely fix it. If there is merit in it and you serve them nine times out of ten, that just turns up the volume on the crazy neighbor relationship. So, sometimes they work,
Speaker 3:often not. And is all of your stuff in front of the magistrate's court or is there different courts that you do some of the things in? So,
Speaker 4:as a solicitor, my job is predominantly before the magistrate's court or instructing barristers in the district supreme courts. Okay. So, I am in court most mornings in the magistrate's court doing matters for my Summary clients, the magistrate's court, a couple times a month or depending on the week or sometimes weeks at a time I might be in the district and Supreme Court instructing counsel on trials or sentences. Yeah, depends on the week, depends on the day, depends on the matter, depends on the team.
Speaker 3:And you own your own firm these days? Yep. Tell us about it. Tell us about your firm and you know, who's in it? How big is it?
Speaker 4:So I'm really proud of my team. I am super proud of my team. At the moment we've got two, I've got an associate who's a full time solicitor, a junior who's a full time solicitor. She started with me as a receptionist, moved up, became a clerk, and then became, stayed with us as a solicitor. I'm so proud of both of them. I've got a full time clerk, and I've got two admin team. Awesome. So, in five years we went from having, it was just Victor, my old, my old business partner, we had one part time receptionist, to a happy little team.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Is this your first time you know, as a business owner employing people? Absolutely. Yeah, wow. Welcome, welcome to that that circus.
Speaker 4:It's a circus, but it's a circus you'd never try. It's good fun. You could
Speaker 3:never go back to being self employed though. And the moment, the moment you get it's all on you in terms of if you don't like the culture, that's on you. If you do like the culture, that's also on you. And when you grab that concept that you, you're ultimately in control of the good and the bad, it can be, it can be fun.
Speaker 4:It's
Speaker 3:great.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's the learning curves you make. You're like, the first time you have to get someone off the bus doing that. It's being the one that says, this is not working. The first time I did it, I felt so bad By and large, it's Good, because especially if you've got a good team and you can create a team and a culture that you don't groan getting up and going to work. Yep. So being responsible for that, it's a blessing.
Speaker 3:But I believe you've got a whole bunch of that are they millennials? What are they called now? So I'm a millennial. Right. What's the next one? X. Gen Z, Z, Z.
Speaker 4:So the associate who's the other general, the other lawyer at my office, he's a gen, he's a millennial as well, but the rest of them are Gen Z. And they are brutal. They, they bully up like the receptionist bullying the solicitors. The clerks bullied the lawyers as well. I made a faux pas. I didn't give criticism in a certain way. And so I received an email that informed me that I did not do that correctly. And then linked me on a how to wiki guide. Right. On how to give criticism. And it was a lesson learned. They were absolutely right. And they, I learned a lesson. But that was coming from a junior member of the team.
Speaker 3:So, some of the, that generation you've done well You're never in the dark about where you stand with it. You're really not. No. You know. You know. And it takes that learning curve as an employer first where you go, that feels blunt. And then you start to really appreciate the efficiency of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I don't know. I've never known otherwise because I've got a, I don't know. Because we're a small team, there is not a lot of formality. So there's never been a big gap between me answering the phone or the receptionist answering the phone and them coming into my office. It's. It's. There's never been that structural difference. It's all been quite the team. I had one of the clerks put into my diary and the rest of the team's diary a team meeting. I found that shocking that I was being informed and summoned to my own team meeting for my office and I wouldn't, what they were, they were not going to give me the agenda.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:I was to attend and be surprised and that was fair because they had some issues they wanted to address. They wanted to have some clarity around their practice areas. They wanted clarity around why they weren't like, I bought their love a little bit. They all wanted Macs and we gave them Macs.
Speaker 3:What's your favorite thing about running a small business?
Speaker 4:I think my favourite thing is that I have some control over and guidance in a successful team that works in an area of law that is interesting and fulfilling. That's my favourite part. It's got little to do with running the business. It has more to do with the team and what we do and how we do it. Because we get some pretty good results, and we work hard, but we also work well together. And that's enjoyable. Yep. Like, going back to working in telemarketing rooms, or chopping the onions, I have a really good baseline for what a shit job is. Yes. So if I'm having a bad day, I don't have to mop a floor before I go home.
Speaker 5:Yep.
Speaker 4:It's interesting work that's always varied with a good team. That's my favorite part of what we do.
Speaker 3:You and I have something in common. And, and, and it's not crime. It's not law. It's not that we, there's only How many degrees do you have? Just the two. Okay. So there's only two here. But what we do have in common is we've been on fitness journeys and weight loss journeys.
Speaker 4:I've been watching you and yours and it's always sort of, if I'm having a couple bad days where I don't want to run, I see you pop up with your run 2, 500 and something, put it
Speaker 3:on, we'll go for a run. And you found running as one of your tools to, you know, Tell us about your weight loss journey.
Speaker 4:Well, as a gay man, I can be bald or fat. Can't be both. Right. So, otherwise you just cease to exist. And I can't, I'm not wealthy enough to go get hair plugs. So it was, well, clearly something about the weight. Counter to 5K is the app that I started using to get on to it. And that propelled me forward. And then I discovered I enjoy it. And then I, I don't know. Do you suffer and struggle to get up and get in the shoes and go for a run or is it just so automatic for you?
Speaker 3:No, I think, I think for me I made the decision that it was the one thing in my life that was non negotiable. So, tomorrow I'm running and everything today is about that priority tomorrow.
Speaker 4:I'm in that place now where I'm getting up at 5. I'm, I'm very proud of myself for getting up for a month now and it still sucks.
Speaker 3:So, how much weight did you lose? 30 kilos. Yeah, awesome. So, what's the future got in store
Speaker 4:I'm at this crossroads with practice, right? So when I started, I thought I wanted to have like multiple offices, a lot of team members and spend my time managing and growing something like that. But now, I get interesting work. Yeah. I can join my clients. I have fun with my colleagues, I have a good team. I don't want to mess with it, I don't feel the need. I need to grow organically because I would like my team to be able to grow. So my admin girls, they're law students and the law is predominantly female. Most graduate students, over 50 percent of law graduates are female now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 4:So, If I don't, I need to grow enough so that they have somewhere if they want to stay, stick around, that they have a place to be and enjoy and grow and be successful in their own right. I'm always looking at how my, both my solicitors can stay on and become successful and wealthy themselves at the practice. I'm trying to find it in a way that everyone who is there, if we're selective about who is in our team, that they can grow and become a part of it and be happy. Versus trying to create an empire of something. I don't think I want an empire anymore. I just want to be happy and be successful.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for chatting to me. Cheers, mate. Thank you. Got yourself a Merc?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. It's all smoke and mirrors. I was driving this bombed out Mazda 2.
Speaker 3:You can't turn up to court.
Speaker 4:in a bombed out Mazda 2. There were times where I had to park around the corner from the court and like, constantly walk so no one saw what I was driving because that shattered the illusion and so much of my job is smoking marijuana.
