Episode 238: Look Before You Leap

"The path to being in business is a lot easier if you do it correctly now, than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago."

When Matthew became a lawyer, he directly witnessed clients being underserved by law firms locally, in the suburbs and larger ones worldwide. On top of that his father owned a business and also faced similar issues.

As a result, Matthew decided to place his focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups with various legal issues.

For all those who are located in Florida, New York or Washington D.C. - look no further, help has arrived.

Tune in to episode 238 as Matthew explains the difference in reciprocity amongst various states, discusses some things to avoid as a business owner and much more!

For more information:

Website: https://fornarolegal.com/
Instagram: @fornaro_legal
LinkedIn: Matthew Fornaro, P.A.
YouTube: @matthewfornarop.a.7953

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What better way to spend my 30th birthday than with a down to business podcast episode drop? So, more exciting, moreover, we sat down with Matthew Fernaro today, somebody who has been practicing law for 20 plus years. Told us the three places that he's licensed in, even told us the motivation as to why he got into helping small business owners, entrepreneurs, and startups. Truly felt like it was an underserved community, watched it firsthand with his dad being a small business owner, and definitely wanted to change the narrative behind it. So you'll hear today really what an experience is like working with him, his law firm, what he can do for you, and even some tips and tricks for getting into business for starting and even when it comes to lawsuits. So look, happy birthday to me, but more importantly, without further ado, enjoy episode 238. Look before you leap. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner. Look, it's mid-July. Y'all know how excited I have been to be here. The birthday is around the corner, as I'm going to keep saying until the birthday gets here. I might even have to drop an episode on my birthday. So who knows? Matthew may be that lucky person. I guess we'll see how the cars play. But you know, I'm very just excited to sit down with him today because I love when we get into, I don't want to spoil it, but I love when we get into this industry a little bit. We talked to one of these not too long ago, but he was kind of focused on one specific niche. But I love this industry, one because it's not my wheelhouse, it's not something that I wouldn't know. I grew up watching, you know, various different shows and various different people. And can y'all tell I'm walking on eggshells, not trying to spoil it. But essentially, I feel like, you know, with Matthew, with his background, with even when he kind of came into the industry, he'll be able to kind of tell us what things were like back then, and not to say back then as if he's ancient, but back then because it's it was a different time and place. He called himself old prior to us getting on here. So I don't want to, I don't want to do that as well. But I think he too can speak to what kind of how things have evolved and then even a futuristic perspective. But before we get into all things, Matthew, how you doing today? How's everything on your end? Well, it's mid-July. We know who won the World Cup, but we're not gonna tell. Come on now. I love that. And and shout out to all my shout out to all my hockey fans right there. I was actually able to attend an amazing Phillies game uh and watch them come back against the Nationals. That was probably one of the most exciting sports outings that I've had. So I can I can definitely appreciate being in DC right now. I got to heckle some people, they weren't necessarily happy with me on their way out, but I enjoyed myself. So before we get into all things, I know that we are going to have a few different types of people probably tapping into this interview. I know we're gonna have some people coming in from your side, I know we're gonna have some people coming in from my side, but I also know we're gonna have some newbies, arguably my favorite type of people, those who probably know nothing about either one of us, but somehow, some way this episode came across their docket. So to bring every up to bring everybody, excuse me, up to speed to even the play and field for everybody out there, can you just do two things for me? Can you one just tell me a little bit about yourself, and then can you two just tell me what brings you on the Down at Business Podcast today? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

So I am 20 plus year business law attorney, Matthew Fennero, based in uh Coral Springs in South Florida. But I have clients all over the country and all over the world. Licensed to practice in Florida, New York, and DC, and I focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups with their various legal issues. And what brings me to the podcast is you know, I'm here for the business talk and to get down to business with my friend Tamar.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Absolutely love that. And you actually just made me miss Florida. I was in Tampa for four years from 2020 to 2024. So when when Tom Brady was making his was making his run and the lightning were were doing their thing and even the raids. It was it was a crazy sports time when I was there. So I was very excited for that. I love to hear that. Yeah, Tampa. Um so I actually I've never even I don't think I've been that south to Coral Springs now that I think about it. I feel like I've I've seen people out there, I know a lot of snowbirds that kind of move back and forth around that area, but I don't necessarily think I've I've visited myself, so I might have to add that to the list. But I do love that you are not only licensed in Florida, but you also said DC, and then you said New York, where I was actually born. So that's amazing. So when it came off the bat, when it came to getting your licensure, when it came to kind of you thinking about where you wanted to be, why though, addition to Florida, obviously you were you were there, you were living there, but why did DC in New York kind of come on come into mind for you? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

So, you know, I'm I've lived in Florida since I was six. I'm gonna die here, so I'm uh pretty almost native as possible. So I'm Florida through and through. So I went to law school in Florida, went to undergrad in Florida, I went to high school, middle school, elementary school in Florida, so that's why I'm a member of the Florida bar, because I'm here. Um I became a member of the DC bar because Florida is very uh, they don't like outsiders from the Florida bar perspective. So they have no reciprocity. So the only way you can become an attorney in Florida is you have to sit for the Florida bar, and Florida is not reciprocal with anyone else except one place, and that one place is Washington, DC. So what happened was when I took the bar exam and I passed the bar exam, I scored high enough on my multi-state section that I could uh be considered like for the DC bar. So I was sworn into DC in 2004 for the sole purpose of if I ever had to relocate or do anything outside of Florida, that would be my gateway to then become an attorney in another state if I ever wound up in another state, because DC has reciprocity with everyone who has reciprocity. So Florida has reciprocity with no one, DC has reciprocity with everyone, so I always held that in my back pocket, and then what happened was you know, I, you know, I I like New York just as much as everyone else. I go there, do stuff, whatever. Um, you know, COVID was interesting because it has brought us all uh closer together rather than farther apart because here we are on Riverside right now, but sometimes we're on Zoom, sometimes we're on Meet, sometimes we're on Teams, and we can go anywhere and do anything. So during the pandemic, I decided, you know what, a lot of court is moving online, and a lot of uh places are getting closer together, and there's a huge influx of people from New York who moved to South, well, in Florida, and in particular South Florida where I am. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna become a member of the New York Bar because now, based on technology, a lot of the stuff is online. I can go practice law in New York online for the most part for court appearances and stuff. And there's New Yorkers everywhere around me, so they're still doing business in New York, even though they live in Florida. So I'm like, all right, I'll be a member of the New York Bar. So I used my DC bar to wave into New York, and it took about a year to do, and now I'm a member of the New York bar. Now I have clients in New York, and I do court in New York, and I have clients here in Florida who still work in New York and own businesses in New York. So I'm in New York, I'm in DC, I'm in Florida, even though I'm physically in Florida. And that's the long answer to your story, Tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

No, I like that though, but because we love because one, you obviously you just taught me something with the reciprocity thing, which I even have a follow-up for. But two, we love when the business doesn't always necessarily have to operate where you are. I I talked to so many different business owners and entrepreneurs who they may be based West Coast, but the East Coast, West, it doesn't stop the clientele. So I love when things are just able to come full circle and you don't even necessarily always have to leave your home or your state for that matter. Because I'm not gonna lie, like I never really pictured myself in Tampa, but when I got there, I definitely did not want to leave. And it was something where people were even saying, like, and like I said, I moved back in 2020. So kind of on the back half, I guess, of the pandemic. But as you could imagine, I was coming from Philadelphia where we were on curfew, we were on lockdowns. It was just a very interesting time. But you go to Florida and they definitely felt like they had bigger fish to fry. COVID was definitely not on the top of their the top of their food chain right there. So, but it was interesting because a lot of my friends, a lot of even family are like, hey, what are you like, what are you doing in Tampa? Like, why Tampa? And I really just told them, you know, if it wasn't really for my college roommate moving out there after we graduated and me going to get my master's in New York, I would have never really even looked at that. It would it just became hard for me to find a job in my field. I wanted a fresh start, and I said, you know, why not Florida, still along the East Coast, and even buy some water, which I love. But I'll say time and time again, when people came to visit me, they loved it. And they definitely were just like, you know, I got to get back out here. I called it a hidden gem of a city. So, but now I'm curious about the reciprocity. So is Florida the, well, I guess for what you know, is Florida the only state that really operates that, would operates that way? Would you say that a lot of other states pretty much have full reciprocity? So no matter where you go, you would you would still be able to have clientele, or does it really depend on where you are within the United States?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

It depends on where you are. A lot of states have reciprocity, particularly like states that people like interact with other states, like in the tri-state area where people are you know going back and forth from you know New Jersey to New York to Connecticut, you know, vice versa, and then like New England with people like doing stuff in like Massachusetts and then Rhode Island, whatever. But Florida is you know, has no reciprocity, but the biggest legal market of them all, California, also has no reciprocity. So California, you gotta show up and take the bar exam in California, you're not waving in. Okay, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Honestly, when you said if if I could probably have taken a guess that there was another place that didn't have reciprocity, I would have even thought Texas or California. Those two places would have definitely come to my mind first, just for I don't know, I guess just for maybe population, just for size, just for maybe even popularity. But okay, so let's take it all the way back a little bit to when to when schooling was was happening for you. What sparked the idea and the motivation to want to become an attorney? Was this something that were were you growing up around family and friends that were like that? Was it just kind of something when you got there, it was a did anything pique your interest in particular that made you want to study this?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Sure. So growing up, uh, I'm the first person in my family to go to college, let alone law school. So I didn't come around, I wasn't hanging out with any lawyers or anything. But I was a big fan of the people's court growing up. I love the people's court. So that kind of got me into like liking, like, you know, conceptually like liking law stuff, like dispute resolution and stuff like that, but not like criminal law and not like family law and not like you know other stuff. I like like civil disputes between people, like particularly like business type disputes and contract disputes, a lot of stuff that was like on the people's court. So like I credit that with piquing my interest in the law from an early age. And like I didn't really like like other stuff growing up, like LA law or you know, like the practice or like you know, like law and order, which was kind of like when I was like in high school, it started coming out. Actually, I think it started when I was in middle school, but it was like high school. Wasn't into that, I was like into the civil stuff. So I went to undergrad, I was a political science major, which means like I can either live in Washington, DC, or be an attorney. So I chose to be an attorney, and then I went to law school, and then I came out and I wound up getting into commercial litigation and business litigation, and I worked for two large law firms and represented like big companies, banks, insurance companies. And then I had the opportunity to go work for an even bigger law firm about 11 years ago, which I was ready to do, accepted, or I was offered the job, I was ready to go, and then I was like, well, you know, time out like what am I doing? Like, am I cogging the wheel? Like, you know, I had this whole metaphysical thing, and then I decided, well, I'll go start my own law firm, but I want to focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups because I thought that they were underserved by law firms out in the suburbs and local law firms because that's not really their thing, or by big law firms because they think that they're not big enough clients or whatever. And growing up, while I was watching the People's Court, my dad had his own small business. Well, I think he's retired now, he did pretty well, but I saw the issues that he dealt with, and I saw how like you know, his accountant was nice, but like she wasn't really attuned to like business stuff. She was like busy doing his W-2 and my mom's W-2, and like his attorney is a nice guy, but like he, you know, was representing my dad, and then like if a slip and fall would show up, he'd be a PI attorney, or someone needed a will, he'd do a will. So I didn't really think he was like to attuned to like small business representation. So I had that in the back of my mind. I was like, you know what? I want to go represent like small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups, because I don't really think that level of not necessarily expertise, but focus was where it should be. And that's kind of what I've been focusing on for the last 11 years was bringing a big firm style like repertoire, whatever you want to call it, skill set to small businesses out in the suburbs?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Well, first, we love the first generation college students, so shout out to you for that. That's definitely not an easy step to take. I'll ask this question, and I would say two parts maybe. So, did you feel as though with stepping into the lane of helping business owners, specifically small businesses, did you feel like you yourself needed to be a business owner? Did you feel like you yourself needed to? And so, or because I and I'll and I'm and I asked this question almost making the assumption that you became a lawyer prior to being a business owner. So if that's not the case, please correct me if I'm wrong. But do you feel like, did you kind of feel like it was an expectation of you to in order to really serve these people or be able to resonate with these people that you kind of have needed to once be in their shoes, or did you just want to just do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Well, it's interesting because I was a lawyer before I was ever a business owner. So um, you know, it's you know, it's interesting because I always, you know, I knew I wanted to when I wanted to start my own business owner, focus on helping, you know, small business owners, like, you know, not big companies, even though I still represent some big companies, whatever. But it's interesting because like I knew in theory what it was to like own a business and what's required to do a business, but in practicum and actually doing it, I don't know anything. So I think over the last 11 years, because I didn't really have any business education, I was a political science major and I went to law school, and they don't teach you like how to run a business or do anything in law school. So over the last 11 years, particularly the first probably two to three, when I was really learning about business and how to run a business and how to, you know, what it takes to do various business things, like it's made me more attuned, you know, now that we're 11 years into it, of being able to not just be like the law guy and tell you like legal stuff and be your attorney, but also to be like a you know counselor and business uh knowledgeable advocate who helps my clients from a business perspective too, which I think I didn't watch on I don't think I know I didn't have when I didn't work for myself at my own law firm that I own and run, because like I knew theoretically, like, oh, you have an accountant or you have payroll or you have you know like health insurance or whatever, but I didn't know what it takes to like go get it and do it. So I think having that knowledge is a lot more valuable and adds a lot more to the equation for my clients because I can draw upon my own experiences and my own personal knowledge and own personal, I don't want to say struggles or whatever, but like I can present a much more effective, like I said, business counselor than just a legal mind because I know about the business stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Most definitely that so that's interesting, and I still I I think that I I like that though, but I think that that's also important too because it it gives you, as you said, more of that personal aspect when you're talking to people, when you're talking to clients. And it almost could, too, if I'm if I'm thinking about this from the outside looking in, if I'm already feeling like, you know, as a small business owner, I can definitely agree with you and attest to the fact that I do feel like it's an underserved community. I do feel like a lot of times there are just certain resources and and but also too, I'll say it with the caveat of and I'll speak for myself in this case, I too also need to do a better job with utilizing my resources and sometimes even learning what's out there because sometimes if it's it's just a thing of like ignorance is bliss. If if I don't really kind of look into it or if I don't really kind of find out what it is, or if it's not something mainstream that may just come across my my doctor or or just my social media or news or whatever, I may not even know. But it's not until sometimes I join these cohorts or I join these accelerators, or I even talk to people or other business owners that have scaled or that are in the process of scaling that I really realize there are things out there. But I would say, you know, for me hearing that, knowing that, you know, hey, if I'm looking for a lawyer, if I'm or if I just want to keep that in my back pocket because people have always said if it's one thing that you should have, business or personal, it's a great lawyer. I would always want to look to someone too, who if I'm if I'm looking to get the best, not only bank for my buck, but just the benefit to my business, I also want to talk to somebody who's in that realm, who is in that field, who has some sort of experience versus somebody who is just an attorney or just a lawyer. And it's not to say that, you know, people out there who are practicing who have never been business owners but are helping business owners, it's not to say it's anything to you, but I would just feel like I could resonate and I could relate more to somebody who's been in that field, who, as you said, sometimes have gone through those hills and those valleys just to kind of get to what business ownership is. So do you do you feel like, with knowing that business owners are underserved, with knowing that that community definitely could be using more, do you feel like there is a particular pain point or a particular commonality when you're working with clients? Like a lot of times when you're talking to these business owners, do you obviously they could be in different niches and different industries altogether, but they could experience similar challenges and similar trials and tribulations. Have you noticed anything that's been a common issue for people who you've worked with or who you've helped or even had conversations with?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Well, there's a lot of common, you know, if you want to call it pain points or things that affect a lot of, you know, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and whatever. First, I think that, you know, they're really eager, particularly first-time business people are really eager to get started and they kind of don't uh look before they leap, and they just get started in business and don't do the due diligence, the preparation, and the uh preventative and preemptive stuff that needs to be done before they start a business. So that's probably one of the biggest issues because you know they just go on their state secretary, state website and register a business and go. And they don't take time to think conceptually about, okay, I need a written business plan. Okay, I need to figure out, you know, like I need a group of professionals who I can call upon not just once or once a year, but I can have as like trusted advisors. So they don't have like an accountant, they don't have an attorney, they don't have a banker, they don't have a commercial insurance agent. They just use them when needed and think that they're like a luxury that shouldn't be part of their business. And then they go and they form their business, and they don't have governing documents, or they don't have articles of a corporation, or they don't have bylaws, or they don't have an operating agreement, they just go, and they don't have contracts for when they enter into relationships with other people or other businesses, and they just go. And, you know, sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it fails, but sooner or later the steps that they overstep, or the steps they didn't take, or the due diligence they didn't do, or the people they didn't speak to, they wind up having to go speak to those people. They have to put in those documents, they have to, you know, do all that stuff that they skipped over to begin with. And instead of starting off on the right track, now we're retroactively trying to fix things that should have been fixed to begin with. And that's probably the most common issue that I see with all small businesses, all entrepreneurs and all startups is that they just, you know, they don't have the mindset that they don't have to do it all by themselves. They can have like trusted professionals who they bring in and help, and they don't do the due diligence or the steps, they just get involved in business and go. And, you know, sometimes it's okay, and you just kind of have to retroactively fix some stuff, and you know, the thing doesn't come off the tracks, and sometimes the thing comes off the tracks and it's a disaster. So it's all somewhere in that spectrum, I would say, is what the most common issue that I see with everyone is.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Look, before you leap, I do feel like there is a big just do it culture, and I do feel like a lot of time, even as some of the things that you were naming myself, like I was thinking like, wow, it wasn't until I probably had to be a few years in at this, or no, two at least two years in, when I really realized that I'm a business owner. Like this pot, like because I I mean when I first started the podcast, I was genuinely just having. Conversations with people. Yes, I was branding myself on social media and putting myself out there and sharing to my different resources and what have you and publishing a website and doing everything. But I never really thought about myself as like a business owner, as like, you know, as a retail brand or like as a product or service based. I was just like, you know, I'm talking to friends and family. That's how a lot of my interviews really started. But when I really sat down and I talked to other podcasters and they were kind of just telling me as to what they did and how they branded themselves and what they had in place, I was just like, well, whoa, wow. Like I why don't I have this? Or like why haven't I done this? But I was just so, you know, I I and I think too, why I felt like I just needed to go, go, go was because I felt like I procrastinated on this for so long. It took me forever to buy a microphone. It took me forever to make an announcement. I sat on this, I sat on a notepad of ideas and just equipment and software for quite some time until one day I just, you know, got tired of getting email rejections and got tired of COVID just for sending my offers. And I was just like, okay, I want to do something to brand myself. But I never really truly thought myself as like, oh, down the business, this can be a trademark. This can be something where, you know, I put this into play and I get my EINs and I and I do my due diligence to be able to file taxes and have a business credit card and business accounts and everything like that. So that took me a while, and I and I almost kind of felt like I was behind the eight ball in some cases. And as I started to kind of do more legally to protect my name and protect my brand, I was just like, well, wow, I could have had this in place for a while. And it also could have jeopardized me had I, you know, like you said, even with one of my biggest goals, I would say, is to get a month-over-month sponsor and not just, you know, I don't mind working with people contractually or I don't mind working with people like here and there, but I want something where I know it's solidified and we keep going. But I was there was a point in time where I was signing contracts, and it was just a thing of like, I it was just trust on my and I wasn't really, you know, how you you get an update on your iPhone or your Apple or your laptop, and like, oh well, in order for me to keep using my phone, I know I have to hit accept. So I'm I'm just gonna quickly scroll through this, say that I checked the box and I'm gonna do it. So I felt like I was doing that with my business in some cases, and that could have come back to bit me, and I really didn't think about like the legalities behind everything, or even have people review it, or even myself, like I didn't understand certain language. And I was going back to certain people, and I was just like, well, you know, obviously they're gonna tell me what they want to tell me. And they're not, I don't really have a trusted person or a trusted advisor, even somebody who I can consult with to make sure that I'm kind of moving in the right direction. So I love that point that you make. And obviously that that pain point is so common that it was even something that I felt like was was hurting me in a sense. And I still feel like, you know, after having this conversation now, up to this point, I do feel like there are some things that I could be doing more diligently to just make if I want down the business to be where it goes, if I'm if I'm thinking about, you know, I'll be seven years soon, if I want to get to 10 years and 15 years and 20 years, I want to make sure that I'm got in my I's and crossing my T's for sure. Now, to speak more to your process a little bit, when it comes to a lawsuit, and I guess it doesn't have to be anything specifically, but feel free to to go as in depth or provide any examples that you want. How do you handle it? When something comes across your table when you're working with a client, when um whether it be a first time or whether it be a return, somebody who you know came as a referral or anything like that, what is your process like? What can somebody expect when adopting you as their attorney?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Sure. So you want to talk about you said lawsuit, you want to talk about like someone sued and they come see me, or someone uh starting a business and they come see me, or um yeah, let's let's talk about someone.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Well, honestly, can we do both? Can we talk about if somebody was to come to you and start a business, how do you would go about that? But then I also want to kind of if somebody that you're already working with a client of yours, if they were to come to you with a problem or an issue, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Sure. So someone wants to start a business or has started a business and wants to, you know, improve the business or do kind of the things that they should have done or whatever. I mean, you know, I'm uh, you know, I think I'm nice, I'm very interactive, uh, I'm not like an authoritarian figure who's always right, you know. So I try to engage with them and find out, you know, from them from the business standpoint. Okay, well, what are your goals? What is it you want to see do? Like, tell me about yourself, tell me about your business, tell me about, you know, how do you want to grow or you know, are you cool being like a solopreneur? Do you want to scale up or whatever? And then tell me about your business. Like, what does it do? What do you do? That kind of thing. And then kind of get a feel for you know, not just the person but the business or whatever, and then figure out well, what do we need to do as far as you know, if you haven't even started your business yet, okay. Well, do you have an accountant? Okay, who's your accountant? I want to, you know, I'm gonna you know, reach out to them and talk to them or email them or whatever. And who's your banker? Do you have a banker? You know, do you have a commercial insurance agent? And if they don't know any of these people, I will give them a list of people who I know and trust to introduce them to so that they can have a team of people who will help them, who will put their interests, the client's interests, that is speaking, first ahead of their own interests, as far as whatever, to make sure that they get a business set up correctly, or if they're in business, that they make sure that you know, whatever stuff isn't working, or whatever it gets remedied and is working. So that's kind of like my holistic process before we even do anything, is I get a feel for what's going on and get a feel for who the players are or who the players should be or whatever. And then, you know, if you haven't started your business yet, I'll be like, okay, well, you know, I got all your information, give me all your content, well, contact information, all your stuff, everything, yada yada yada. All right, I'm not gonna do anything. I want you to go speak to the accountant, either your accountant or one of the accountants I recommend to you. I don't want you to talk and have the same conversation you just had with me, with your accountant, and I want the accountant to tell me what the best business organization is for you from an accounting perspective, because I'll defer completely to the accountant. Like I said, I'm not like an authoritarian, I'm not my way or the highway. We can do things legally from a lot of different angles. You can have an S-corp, you can have a C Corp, you can have an LLC, you can have an LLP, whatever. If you do things wrong from a tax standpoint, you're gonna get killed financially, and it's hard to fix that, particularly in retrospect. So I'll always defer to the accountant. So then hypothetically, let's say you meet with the accountant, the account says do X, Y, and Z. Okay, well, come back to me. We'll put together, you know, your business, we'll put together your written business plan, we'll put together your governing documents, we'll register your business, we'll get your EIN. If you have employees, we'll put together like an employee handbook, we'll put together employment contracts or independent uh independent uh contractor contracts. If you have a website, we'll put together terms of service, or if you have an app, we'll put together terms of service. If you're buying or selling stuff, we'll put together your contracts, we'll review whatever contracts people give you. If you're leasing a space, we'll review your commercial lease. If you're leasing vehicles, review your leases, all that stuff before you even sign or do anything. And then we'll just kind of go from there and have an interactive relationship where anytime you have a question or anytime you do something that changes to your business, you can feel free to call me or email me. I'm here for you. And the same thing with your accountant, your banker, your insurance agent, whatever, reach out to them, whatever. Let me know who they are so I know who's on the team. So if case there's ever an issue, we can reach out to them and get them on board and do whatever. And it's kind of like that is the genesis of how things go forward from there. And then let's bring it to there's you know, red alert, you know, lawsuit filed. You get a lawsuit filed against you, or whatever. Okay, so that's a let's say an ongoing client or even a new client. Bring me the lawsuit. So the first thing we're gonna do is not address whatever, whatever, whatever. Obviously, we're gonna take it very seriously, we're gonna calendar everything. It's very serious matter, no matter how trivial or stupid you think the lawsuit is or how frivolous it is. First thing we're gonna do is contact your insurance agent because the whole reason you have insurance is to cover issues when there's coverable issues or coverable events, and one of them is when you get sued. So I always reach out to my client's insurance agent or agents. I mean, we'll call your commercial agent, we'll call your homeowner's insurance agent, we'll call your auto, whoever the hell it takes, to see if there's insurance coverage for the lawsuit, because I got plenty of stuff to do. I don't need to go work on your lawsuit. If you have insurance coverage, give it to your insurance agent, they'll assign insurance defense counsel, they'll take care of it. You don't have to worry about anything, we're done. However, if there's no insurance coverage and I have to actually do it, then we'll go through the whole strategy of you know, you're in the business of whatever, you know, tomorrow's in the business of, you know, making podcasts, doing social media, you know, being a media figure, etc. Okay. You're not in the business of being in lawsuits. So anytime you're out of that and you're in my world of being in lawsuits, you're not making money. So my goal ultimately is to get you out of your lawsuit and get you back to your business, okay? Sometimes, easy to do. We can procedurally take care of it, whatever. Sometimes we have to go through litigation and we'll settle the case when it makes a good business sense and you make a good business decision. And sometimes we can't do that and we have to have a prolonged litigation, which I don't really like, but sometimes it has to happen. So I always, you know, go at it from a perspective when it's a lawsuit of and when there's no insurance coverage, of you know, my clients don't make money by being involved in lawsuits, they make money by you know running their app or running their business or running their franchise or whatever. So I want to get them back to that as soon as possible and out of this lawsuit. So sometimes it involves, you know, coming up with a good settlement early on, sometimes procedurally getting rid of a case, whether it's on like a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment. And sometimes, you know, the other side isn't reasonable, and you know, you can't get blood from a stone, and sometimes you can't give blood to a stone if they don't want it, and you gotta go through the litigation. So I want to make sure that we're in the best possible, you know, scenario to if we can prevail in the case and we can't settle it, we can't do mediation, it's not gonna settle, and we gotta go all the way to have the best possible shot at you know, quote unquote winning the case. And you know, that's kind of my uh you know, holistic view of litigation when it comes to that. And again, you know, I'm not some warmonger who's out there who, like, oh, we gotta go to jury trial and take it all the way. No, no, no, okay. I don't want to go to court. I go to court all the time. I'm fine going to court, you know, I know what to do. I want you to go back to doing your business, and I'll go back to handling the next thing because there's a next thing, trust me. Got lots of stuff coming in all the time. I don't need to work on your file respectfully. I want you to go work on your business. And that's kind of my perspective on you know, when I get a lawsuit and when litigation.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Attention to detail. I I I love it. I I love that because it can ease the mind of anyone. Nobody likes court from a business perspective, from a personal perspective. Nobody likes losses, nobody likes not making money as a business owner, nobody likes having that jeopardized, having that delayed or stalled. But I feel like when you have somebody that you know, one is in your corner, one that's on your side, but two is is willing to take all the necessary steps and procedures, not rush anything. Hey, I've been here before, but I treat each person in each case as its own. And I don't just I recognize that while I have a strategy, while I have, you know, what I what I know and and what may work, I have to adjust that and I have to tailor that to you in this situation right now. And even as you said again, no matter how frivolous or no matter how foolish you may think that this is, we're we're gonna address this head on, we're gonna take it as serious as possible because yes, this can this can be one and done. This can be very easy, this can be very simple, but I don't want to, you know, hop, skip, and jump too. I don't want to look, I don't want to leap without looking first. I want to make sure that we are dotting every eye crossing every T, being as precise as possible. But I also like your earlier answer just about how when somebody is coming to you, just making sure that they have that, you spoke to that T-word, team. Making sure that you have the necessary pieces to the puzzle to be okay. And I think that it's even more conducive that you reach out to these people. I think it's nothing better than having a working relationship with everybody because that the success is gonna, it's not just gonna depend on one person. Yes, you are the business, yes, you are the product or the service, but at the end of the day, you you need to make sure that you can still get your products. You need to make sure that your products are still up to code, up to standard, and you still make sure that you know your books are looking right. Money is such an important thing. Taxes, taxes. I'm scared to do personal taxes sometimes, and I have to make sure that I'm doing everything correctly, and I I know that I'm copying this for a fact from box 12B, but I still double check it and triple check it because I don't want a cent to be off or a number to be off, and then I'm getting a knock on my door or a letter in the mail. So I know with business it's a totally different ball game. So I love just how I love the authenticity behind the answer, and I love just how genuine it can be. I'm always interested to hear people's process, and I'm always interested to just hear the mindset of like what people are thinking when, yes, you're obviously an expert in your industry, you went to school for this, you've done this for many years, you've taken the test, you've gotten the licenses, but at the end of the day, it's nothing like hearing what you really do when it's time to work and when it's time to put a plan to action. So, and I even love that insight for people out there, you know, who may be listening, who, you know, may not necessarily who may have come onto this episode or maybe listening to this and thinking, well, I never really considered having a having a lawyer, having an attorney on my side, but now you're kind of thinking after listening to Matthew, you're kind of just like, wow, well, he's he's naming some things that I know I can't do by myself, or he's naming even some situations that I may have been in and didn't necessarily know how to handle or what to do. So thank you for that. Now, also too, I think about the future. I think about how, you know, when you came into this, it probably looked totally different. Granted, there's still small business being developed every day, every week, and there's still an underserved community no matter how plentiful it becomes. When you think about the direction that we're moving in from a business perspective, from the development of things, from you even made a great point about how COVID brought people closer together rather than keeping us apart, despite what really the whole mantra around COVID was six feet social distance. And I feel like if anything, people became more close-knit, more communities were developed, more time was spent. When you look at kind of what you're doing, who you're helping, who you're serving, are you excited for the future? Do you feel like businesses will continue to develop? Do you feel like we're kind of on a decline when it comes to that? Do you feel like we're kind of just we're we're staying level, we're making lateral moves? What do you, when you think about maybe like five to ten years from now, with even with the implementation of just artificial intelligence and just so many things just being automated and CRMs and things being in place, what does that look like from an attorney's perspective with helping an underserved community?

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Well, you know, I'm old, but I'm not that old, but I am old enough to tell you, and I was thinking about this to myself yesterday when I was uh listening to a uh a uh this uh Buddhist uh app that I have now that I listen to at night to like calm down and go to sleep. And I was just like, you know, what I do now in 2026, being an attorney running my own business or whatever, is like like I couldn't even explain to me in 2003 what the hell it is I do all day. Like, you know, not just from the attorney standpoint, but from the business standpoint, and it's like night and day, and I'm like I said, I'm old, but I'm not even that old, man. Like I, you know, I started my career in a generation where there was online legal research and books were like already kind of phased out, and like you know, I had email and you know, I had texting and I had a cell phone and whatever, and like that stuff is like ancient compared to where you are now and where you're going. And I can only imagine like people who are older where you know, like the fax machine was cutting edge, or like, you know, a wireless phone, or like you know, just stuff that like you know, take for granted. So, what I'll say is I think you know, look, being serious in in business is always not going to be super easy. And when I say serious, I mean it's not a side hustle, it's not some you know social media crap or some something that you know you just kind of do on you when you're not doing your real job or whatever. Like if you're serious about running a business and being successful, it's always gonna be not easy. However, I will say that since I started professionally in 2003, due to the proliferation of technology, the access of information, the innovation of like AI apps, you know, outsourcing things, near-shoring things, offshoring things, it is a lot, well, I won't say a lot easier. I would say the path to being in business is a lot easier if you do it correctly now than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, just because of, like I said, technology access to information, whatever. Okay. Like, we don't have to go, you don't have to drive downtown to see your attorney in the big box in the sky in the office. You can see them on Zoom or whatever. Or, you know, you don't have to go to the library to get information regarding anything. You can get it off the internet, you can get it off AI. You don't know if it's right or wrong, and that's probably that's another whole nother conversation of why you need, you know, ex expert humans to review the information or whatever. But, you know, you can go online and start a business, like I said, even though you still got to do the due diligence stuff, where previously you had to go to an office somewhere and register and do whatever, and you know, whatever. So I think the trend is that the access or the road to being able to do business is getting easier to do if you do it, you know, correctly and know how to do it. It's still you have to do all the right steps, you have to do everything diligently, you have to comply with all the laws, you have to comply with all the rules, you have to uniformly and objectively do things and use you know correct business judgment and make good business decisions. But the access and the ability to do stuff is a lot easier than it was, like I said, even 23 years ago when I started out. I mean, you can, you know, everything's a lot more democratized because you have access to things that you didn't have access before. I mean, you can, you know, you can access, like I said, you can access the information. You don't know if it's right or wrong, but you have access to information you didn't have before. But, you know, just like with apps and outsourcing things, I mean, you can, you know, like for me, okay, for my business, right? I switched over, and this is all stuff that is way beyond the scope of whatever, but you know, like you know, like retirement-wise, okay. Like I have my own 401k that I started by using an app online, okay. That's like try to explain that to someone 30 years ago, where you know, I'm a solo business owner and I'm able to buy into a 401k based on a 401k app that's out there that makes it like competitive, where I have like the same 401k that someone on a huge corporation has, okay? Unheard of, okay. And that's the kind of stuff where as a business owner, you have access to things like that. You can outsource your human resources, you can outsource your payroll, you can outsource your taxes, you can outsource your legal, you can outsource your actual employees or independent contractors to either offshore humans or virtual humans like AI bots and stuff like that. And I think, you know, that's the future. It's just you're able to, you know, solopreneurs now can compete with Fortune 500 companies because of technology and the ability to use technology correctly to compete and to be able to do stuff that you couldn't do before.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Accessibility, yeah, it definitely looks a lot different now than it did then. You've literally been practicing law longer than my little brother has been alive, he's 22. So that's just I I say that to say too. No, it's just crazy sometimes to think about some of the things that even I've done, and I'll be 30 this month, but it's to think about some of the things that I've done that he would look at as a foreign concept or as something that he it just doesn't make sense to him. I feel like even from a phone perspective, my little brother's first first phone was easily an iPhone. I remember having to to beg for like an iPhone or have to be a certain age, or even to and never really realizing our phones used to close, like and they used to just have number and you have to hit the if you wanted the letter F, you had to hit three. Three times to get to that. So it's just it's so just different to think about, yeah. But from an app perspective, now there's literally, I was scrolling the other day, and sometimes I even feel like I consider myself very tech savvy, and then I learn about another app that does this or does that, and I'm just like, wow, I would have never even guessed that you could do that. Or I'm I'm very much a pencil and paper person. I love to write stuff down. I'm I'm I'm like a I'm a visual person. But when you have ever when you have automation, just things that can do it can transcribe an entire meeting for you. If I wanted to just put this interview in some software and just tell them, hey, give me the important bullet points, it would just do all of that for me. And I had never, I, you know, I would have never guessed that seven years ago when I started this. I was transcribing, I was using Audacity and Final Cut to edit and take out all the ums and the odds. So it is very interesting to see. It is almost scary a little bit too, because it's just like, you know, sometimes too, where does the where's the line drawn on authenticity? And and we speak a lot to these AI models and these chatbots and these programs, and it's just like, you know, there can be a lot of misinformation out there. I was even reading where there was a a court case that got shut down immediately because the lawyer pretty much transcribed his notes from AI and they gave him several false cases that that were not even, they didn't even exist. And he was given, you know, he just spat it out as if it was just truth. So it is very interesting too how people kind of use it and in a sense almost lose it as a result of artificial intelligence. But I do love that perspective because it also kind of shows just where things can go, just how time, you know, we we think about 20 years ago what things looked like, and now we're we're here. Well, being in 2026 now, well, what does 2050 look like? What does 2060 look like? So who knows just where we'll be from a technological standpoint, but who knows what that'll do to certain industries as well. So, no, you've you've uh yeah, you've as I as I spoke in the beginning, y'all. I I just knew that this was gonna be a very insightful episode because I in in no form or fashion do I practice law. It's always been something that's been interesting to me. And the shows that I was referencing were more so like, yes, I watched the People's Court for Short, but it was just like your Judge Judy's and your Judge Mathes', and it was just like, you know, those those and almost almost satire in nature, a lot of those, but you learn a lot just about proceedings and just why I don't like being in the courtroom myself. I do enjoy, and even one of the shows that really caught my eye, like recently, was The Lincoln Lawyer. That was just a very interesting just show to me, just about how just about proceedings. And while, you know, things are dramatized and things may not necessarily appear as they are, it's just sometimes about the intent and just about the precision behind what you're doing when it comes to just law and just abiding. And law is something that's ever changing just the same. I'm sure as a lawyer, you have to remain forever a student. There are things that you have to, you know, with practicing in Florida, with practicing in DC, with practicing in New York, there's things that you have to stay up to date on. There are things with small businesses that you also make have to make sure that your clients are in the know about, that their accountants and their other team members are in the know about just the same. So I can definitely appreciate that. Now, before we oh, random question. If somebody is listening to this episode right now and they heard pretty much that you're only in Florida, DC, and New York, but they were interested, let's just say they're in North Carolina where I did my undergrad studies, and they're interested in working with you in some capacity, what does that look like? Do you just kind of shoot them like a recommendation? Are you done with kind of getting your are you done with kind of taking any more or getting like certified in any other places? I know I I I would imagine obviously you have a a a network of people that you could refer them to, but as far as kind of even your future outlook, if if I had somebody, because a lot of my audience I feel like is North Carolina or even Pennsylvania based, what does that look like with wanting to work with you specifically?

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Depends on what you need done. I mean, I have clients all over the country, and I have clients, you know, in Canada, our friends to the north and uh England and a couple other countries. So it depends, but if you need something like state-specific, like I, you know, I have a network of people where if I don't know the answer, I can't do it. I know someone who does who like I actually know, not just someone who I pulled off of Google or whatever, and I can refer them out to whoever.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah, because I do like to ask that question because sometimes I feel like people kind of they heard in the big once they heard those three states in the beginning, um, they may just kind of tap out, or they may just kind of, okay, well, you know, this, but little do you know, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Obviously, I would I would make that assumption that you you have a plethora of people personally, not just, you know, as you said, somebody who these aren't yeah, these are all people like I know from you know being out and about for 23 plus years. So these aren't like uh, you know, some dude I pulled off of uh Google says he's five star rated, he's gotta be good.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

A seasoned veteran, as they say. I love that. Now, before we officially tell people where they can find you, the website, check you out, learn more, ask questions. Do you feel like there's anything that we have not talked about or touched on today um that you want to get into or even any last words out there for whether it be small business owners, entrepreneurs, creatives, or anybody listening to the episode?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Well, I'll tell you a quick AI caveat, okay? Because we're talking about AI, we touch on a little bit, okay. I love AI. I use AI in my law practice, I use AI in my business, I use AI in my social media. However, the first and last thing I'll always say about AI is that I take ownership over it. I always fact check it, I always legal citation check it when it's legal stuff, I always content check it or whatever. And I take ownership of it because if I'm putting it out there, it better be right. And AI is great. It's like we're talking about you know, the democratization of information or whatever, AI is probably the tip of the spear on that. But at the same time, too, you don't know if it's right, you don't know if it's wrong. So if you're putting it out there, you gotta make sure it's right before you put it out there. And like I said, I have no problem with anyone who uses AI in their business as long as they take ownership over it and they make sure it's correct and accurate. And if they don't know how to make sure it's correct or accurate, they A shouldn't be using it, or B, they should show it to someone who knows if it's correct or accurate to review it before they put it out. And, you know, that's my thing on AI. It's great, I love it. You know, can't get enough of it, but like I said, I take ownership of it, and you know, I'm fully responsible for it. And like we were saying, that example of the attorneys, the legal profession probably took the biggest hit on AI efficacy and AI ethics because it started out with a lot of lazy attorneys, a lot of stupid attorneys who threw a lot of slop out there and they got caught and they had hallucinated cases, they had fake things or whatever, they didn't do any due diligence, they just threw it out there and they give it a bad name for everyone. And now, you know, legitimate people and people who are ethically using or whatever are now having to dick themselves out in our industry because of it, and you know, other industries too. But like I said, if you use it the right way, you fact-check it, you proof check it, it's gonna do wonders for your business. You just gotta make sure you're in control of it.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

My name is Tamar Turner, and I 100% support that message. Uh, I support everything that Matt really said today, too, but I am big on that. On I'm not just whatever prompt that I'm putting in or whatever answer that I'm getting back for me to just simply copy and paste that would be absurd to me. And I don't even dramatize that. I would just say you could literally, it could be wrong. It's not foolproof. It is literally learning from us. We are I had a at one point I was even doing a part-time job where you were teaching AI models, where you were doing different voice recordings or giving them sentences or taking out obscene language or or things that didn't make sense or punctuation and crap. So you have to recognize that these why do you think there's so many Gemini models, cloud models, chat GPT models? Like they have to continue to advance. The same way your phone updates, the same way your laptop has to do security checks and your game systems and everything like that. AI is going to be the same way. For you to just think just because of how fast and efficient it can be, it can still make mistakes. So, as and especially in this industry, you'd hate to be in a courtroom saying something that's just off the wall or that never happened, all because you you didn't you didn't check something. It looks very happy. But on top of that, it also messes with, like you said, one bad apple quickly spoils the bunch. And you could be an amazing lawyer, but now all of a sudden, because one person just just didn't really, you know, just tried to cut corners. Now all of a sudden now we're all kind of under the ringer for that. So I definitely do appreciate that. And I and I and I think that that goes beyond just law and just being an attorney, just being a lawyer, and and I think that goes for everybody business owner, entrepreneur, creative, non-corporate, anything, just life in general. You know, just be careful, one with what you're doing, but also if you're gonna use it, and not to say we're not against it. We both clearly said that we love it, we support it, but we're gonna make sure that when it's on our platforms, when it's something that is representative of us and especially somebody else, it has to be correct, it has to be authentic. So now, Matt, people are interested. We we have a we have a play, we have quite the audience here, and I feel like you definitely provided some value, some insight. You even gave some people some things to think about. So when it comes to tapping in with you, finding out more about you, even finding, even you know, coming along the journey with you, when it comes to social media, everything of the sort like that, can you just uh give us everything you got?

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Sure. I mean, the easiest thing is to go to Fenarolegal.com, which is my website. It's got all my contact information, it's got all my social media, it's got all my blogs, all my videos, all my posts. I'm on every social media platform. That's cool. Um, although there's some stuff, there's some stuff I keep seeing now, some new stuff, where I'm like, what the hell is that? I'm like, should I get on that? I'm like, do people use that? So I'm not gonna say what they are because some people may be on them already. So I may be adding more stuff, but get a hold of me. Glad to answer any question you have wherever you are. And if I can't answer your question, I know someone who can, and I'll refer you to them, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Look, as somebody who was who was shying away from certain social media, my my down-to-business vets know that I promised on as many episodes I was never gonna get on TikTok, and here I am on TikTok, learning the live and just figuring things out. So things are ever changing, things are ever adjusting and adapting. But as Matthew said, look, just get in contact with him in some capacity. If he can't do it, he'll certainly find somebody who can. And that's really the beauty of this podcast. That's the beauty of these conversations that these people are really willing to help. These are real people, real conversations, and real results. So I pray that everybody continues to just tap in and get what you can from it. So to everybody who continues to support us, to everybody who has a July birthday, this one's for you. We appreciate you. We love you. This has been another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner.