This week on the Legally Speaking Podcast, our host Robert Hanna speaks to Francesca Witzburg.
Francesca is a top Intellectual Property lawyer and Partner at Loza & Loza LLP. Prior to this she was a Managing Associate at Dentons. She's also worked in-house and has advised an array of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, on intellectual property law. In 2020 she was recognised in the 'Best Lawyers: Ones To Watch' list and the 'Super Lawyers: Rising Stars 2017-2020' ranking.
Based in New York, she shares her expertise through her @thetrademarkattorney Instagram platform, where she provides advice on all aspects of trademark and brand protection. Having previously mentored students at the Cardozo School of Law, she's now creating an online course to further help the next generation of lawyers.
In this episode, she discusses:
Out now on the Legally Speaking Podcast website and all major audio platforms.
This week on the Legally Speaking Podcast, our host Robert Hanna speaks to Francesca Witzburg.
Francesca is a top Intellectual Property lawyer and Partner at Loza & Loza LLP. Prior to this she was a Managing Associate at Dentons. She's also worked in-house and has advised an array of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, on intellectual property law. In 2020 she was recognised in the 'Best Lawyers: Ones To Watch' list and the 'Super Lawyers: Rising Stars 2017-2020' ranking.
Based in New York, she shares her expertise through her @thetrademarkattorney Instagram platform, where she provides advice on all aspects of trademark and brand protection. Having previously mentored students at the Cardozo School of Law, she's now creating an online course to further help the next generation of lawyers.
In this episode, she discusses:
Out now on the Legally Speaking Podcast website and all major audio platforms.
Robert Hanna (00:00):
Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast. I’m your host, Rob Hanna today, I’m delighted to be joined by Francesca Witzburg in September, 2020. Francesca became partner at Loza and Loza LLP, where she specializes in all aspects of trademark, copyright and brand protection matters. Francesca has previous experience at one of the world’s largest law firms, Dentons, where she worked as a managing associate up until last year. She also has in-house experience allowing her to advise clients both wholistically and practically last year, Francesca set up her own platform, the trademark attorney to educate and empower individuals to protect their company’s IP Francesca has received much recognition for her work. So a very warm welcome Francesca.
Francesca Witzburg (00:49):
Thank you so, much Rob, that was a great introduction. Great, welcome. Thank you. And I’m so excited to be here today.
Robert Hanna (00:57):
Thank you for giving us your time today. And before we deep dive into all your amazing achievements and legal experiences to date, we must start with our customary icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking Podcast, which is on the scale of one to 10, 10 being very real. How real would you rate the reality hit series suits in terms of it’s reality
Francesca Witzburg (01:19):
That’s so funny? I mean the premise and everything, clearly I would rate that as like a two to a three, but the visual aesthetics, like I’m pretty sure one of the scenes was filmed in the lobby of my former law firm that was in rock center. So some of these firms are just so decked out and have gorgeous offices and views. And of course, you know, everyone looks nice and wears nice outfits a lot of the time. So I would say that aspect is probably like about a seven,
Robert Hanna (01:54):
So we can average it out about maybe like a four or five. Yeah,
Francesca Witzburg (01:58):
Exactly somewhere in between.
Robert Hanna (02:00):
Okay. So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s tell our listeners a little bit about your family background and upbringing first.
Francesca Witzburg (02:07):
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. Um, it’s a great place to start Rob, because a lot of lawyers either become lawyers because their parents are lawyers or they have someone in their family who encouraged them to law school. I did not. I was a first-generation student in general and going to law school was something that was very contrary. My grandfather was an Italian immigrant. He built a construction company and then my whole family worked for that, for that business over the years. So it was really the first time I was venturing out to, to do my own career. And it was major culture shock, which we didn’t talk about my first day of law school or really, uh, you know, going from college to law school was a huge, huge jump. And I wish I had someone in my family to explain to me what an outline was or how to prep for exams, because that was a big thing that I had to deal with over time.
Francesca Witzburg (03:13):
But in general, my family always encouraged me to, to study and to seek higher education. I went to Villanova university undergrad. For those of you who like follow us sports in March madness, they’ve been the champions, you know, this year and out so well, but I love, I love our Wildcats. And from there, I really just was super passionate about becoming a lawyer and having the opportunity to work in New York city. Like I really wanted to work in New York. I grew up outside of New York in New Jersey, which I realized like your audience may have never even set foot in New Jersey. So I must preface that no New Jersey is not all like that show the Jersey shore it is actually really nice, but I wanted to, to really build a career in that city that always, you know, I could see out from my, from my home for, for decades. And I went to law school. I did it graduated and I’m, I’m still working there today. So that’s just a little bit of background. Yeah.
Robert Hanna (04:23):
Thanks so much for sharing that. And it’s interesting, you mentioned New York because obviously in the UK, there’s a big pull for people wanting to go to London straight out of law school or whatever it might be. So, okay. You mentioned you didn’t come from a family of lawyers. So when did that moment sort of clicked for you? Okay. Now I do want to go to law school and I do want to become a lawyer. What, when was that moment for you?
Francesca Witzburg (04:43):
There was an exact moment. Um, it was when I was studying abroad in Madrid. I did a three month semester. So I lived in Spain for three months and it was during a crisis. It was a very bad economic crisis. And I was having a conversation with a Spaniard who, you know, we met going out and he said to me, you know, if you can study New York, if you’re from New York, ‘por que estas aqui’. Like, why are you here? And it just clicked for me because, you know, I got that travel bug and I love Europe, but I realized like I have this incredible opportunity to go and to study in one of the epicenters of the world. And, um, because for a moment I thought maybe doing, maybe doing public interest work, like non legally, maybe spending a year, just traveling again in Europe because I fell in love with it. But I realized that I had this super unique opportunity to be a lawyer, establish myself, make money and save so that I can travel in the, and before COVID my husband and I, we made it a mission to go back at least once a year to Spain because we both live in the city. So hopefully now once things get better, we’ll be back there.
Robert Hanna (06:10):
Yeah. I’m a massive fan of Spain tapas the whole lot. So we’re going to have to do a trip together. Right. I’m gate crashing Okay. So fast forward a little bit. You now present day, you’re currently a partner at Loza and Loza. So can you tell us a bit more about what your role as a partner entails?
Francesca Witzburg (06:28):
Yeah. I think it’s worth mentioning the difference between going from an associate to partner, because that, for me was the hardest transition. And I’m very close to a lot of my colleagues who are either, whether it’s, in-house like there were a lawyer for a company and they’re trying to get from that, you know, mid to senior level role to, to the, really, to the next level. And that I’ve realized across whatever legal job is very challenging. It’s not just, are you performing? Are you checking? You know, are you, are you hitting each milestone? There’s politics involved. There are maybe people above you that there’s just no room for you. And maybe they, the people who are pulling for you or have to pull for you, maybe they don’t want to because they’re threatened. It’s a lot. And I’m just speaking generally. I’m sure everyone has had these types of experiences.
Francesca Witzburg (07:27):
For me personally, I made a decision to not stay in big law and try to ride that out to become partner. I thought that that was my original plan. Like if you were to tell me a year ago, I mean, I, I had my partnership meeting like planned out. I just envisioned this whole thing that I will be a think law partner and, you know, rule the legal world. And I realized that it, I could take a different path and still, and still meet all of my personal and career goals. So I decided to move as a partner to a boutique firm. For those of you that maybe don’t know, I don’t know if this terms used in the UK, but a boutique firm really means it’s a specialty firm. So my firm only, my firm only does IP and I moved to a firm that is a hundred percent remote.
Francesca Witzburg (08:29):
So we have the ability to work from wherever and pre COVID. This was big now, like it’s, you know, the norm, um, or could be the norm. And also there are no billable hours like across the board. And for me, that was just fantastic. So I took this job and going from an associate to a partner when you’re an associate, the things that matter the most are billable hours, um, at a certain level it’s whether you’re bringing in business, but really when it comes down to it, all the firms really most important factor and measure is whether you are hitting your billables. And, you know, I tried to explain this to non lawyers just because, you know, you have to average maybe eight billable hours a day that doesn’t equate eight hours of work. Well, you can take an hour line. Sure. You could take, I don’t know, you could working on a project that isn’t billable.
Francesca Witzburg (09:27):
So you have to make up that eight hours some, some way it could take you days to actually hit those, those, those hours. So it’s really, um, it’s exhausting and it’s a lot. And it’s one of the things that I think people industry is going to see a lot of disruption on. I’m convinced. I know I talked to this, I talked about Alex Sue about this topic, but so I would say being an associate, it’s really focused on your output and those billable hours. And then as a partner, it depends on the model, but a lot of firms, you only make whatever you work on or whatever you bring in. And that was huge. I came to a firm as a partner with zero clients and I had to build it from scratch. And I’ve been able to do that since September using, you know, our networking and, and clubhouse and just the power of social media has been unreal. And it’s a skill that I love. Um, I know a lot of lawyers may not love it as much, but my mission is to try to get all lawyers, no matter if they’re, they’re not comfortable with video or audio to start using social in whatever communication way that works for them.
Robert Hanna (10:40):
Yeah. And we’re definitely going to deep dive more into some of your social media for sure. Cause I think you’re doing a fantastic job of that and a great role model for other lawyers to, to follow. But in terms of loads and loads of you made the move and you became a partner there in the middle of a pandemic. So, you know, how have you found the process handling cases remotely? I’m sure when you first thought about that type of role, you’d be going out, meeting clients, et cetera, et cetera. So just give us a sort of insight into all of that.
Francesca Witzburg (11:08):
Yeah. You know, I, I made a pivot, Rob. I pivoted, I didn’t even overthink it. I just did it like most of us. Right? I mean, law schools, colleges, they had to pivot overnight. These are institutions that may have never used webinars. I mean, I remember I asked my law school to record a class because I was going to a funeral and they were like, Oh, we cant do okay. Well now you have no choice. They didn’t have the time to interview companies to do the software. They just had to do it. And similarly like us, all, you either freaked out and did nothing or did something and you flourished and you took it as a silver lining. And I really did that. I, I applied, I found the firm. I had a great conversation with the woman who runs it or Peloton. I can get into that story later. I put Peloton on my resume and she pulled it out of like a hundred resumes. And then she hired me, but I knew, and I told her, I said, look, I’m coming here with no clients, but I’m the head of my law school’s fashion law committee. I am super active in the community. I have a great network of friends and colleagues in the industry. Like just give me a shot. And I, I promise you, I will show you that I can bring in work. Like, okay, I’m sold.
Francesca Witzburg (12:40):
And that’s what I did. I started on Instagram. Right. Because personally, I just thought, where am I spending all of my time? Where am I spending all my time? And it’s on Instagram. So I created that account as my foundation. And it’s led to so much work.
Robert Hanna (12:59):
Let’s break that down then, because I think that’s a really important, valuable thing for a new partner sort of, you know, being creative forward thinking, right. Saying, I need to switch to digital. I need to go to socials. So you set up September last year, the trademark attorney. So when was that moment? You decided to do that and then, yeah. Just tell us more about the platform and some of your successes.
Francesca Witzburg (13:20):
Sure. I decided to do that very early on because I needed to establish myself and I realized I was going after a different client. Now I went from only working for fortune 500 companies, you know, top, top businesses, institutional corporations. Right. So a lot of people in my network were no general counsels or in-house lawyers. And that was my funnel. That was my funnel for awhile thinking like, Hey, my friends are good. Clearly. Like they’re going to hire me when, when they’re up for promotions. You know, that was just like my, always my thinking. And now I was like, like, yes, of course I want them to hire me, but I have so much flexibility when it comes to pricing and fixed ease that I actually saw a different end consumer, a different client, uh, realized that there’s so many entrepreneurs and online businesses that have either been doing this for years and excelling, or they they’ve started it during COVID.
Francesca Witzburg (14:31):
So I wanted to go somewhere where I thought my client was and that wasn’t just, and that’s all to say that, that wasn’t just LinkedIn primarily anymore because my institutional clients were mostly on that. So I created a new platform on Instagram to get attention from that, that has led to me making actual friends connections with people like you, Rob, Alex, a lot of people in italy, lawyer Brit, uh, you know, and through that network, that’s gotten the promotion that the recognition, the connections, the second part. And notice, I start with that. I start with the relationships and everyone should, because that’s, what’s important. You can’t just go and start with end clients. I need to get clients. If you’re thinking that way, it’s a finite lack mentality. Like you have to think, how do I build relationships? How do I meet people? You know, my, my goal is just to get in front of people and show them what I’m about and what I represent. And either they like me and you want to be on my team and I will reciprocate. Or if you don’t then like, that’s fine. I will move on. And then helping my contacts be better and making, just making them better. And how can I help them as a resource? The second group is that client and base, and that’s, that’s kind of the twofold people. I would say that I’ve been able to meet through building this Instagram platform.
Robert Hanna (16:12):
Yeah. And I think you’re doing a fantastic job. And it’s interesting that you said the word attention that you’re trying to get attention. So I do think that is so important. And you know, when I speak to my mentors and a lot of people say, when you start a business or you do something, what’s the most important thing. And most people say, well, cash flow or profit or whatever, but in the modern world is it’s visibility, right? It’s getting that attention. It’s being visible. It’s being top of mind is forming those relationships. And then over time, if you’re relationship minded, rather than just deal focused on, I need to get a client. Now I need to do a spot deal. You will do well because you’re pouring tons of value into the community. And on the topic of value, one thing that you do through your platform is you offer free short 15, 20 minute consultations, considering many lawyers shy away from giving free advice. What was your motivation for doing that?
Francesca Witzburg (17:00):
I think it’s twofold. Again, I would say one it’s to educate and empower because now I do have a voice I’m not at a bigger firm. So like I’m allowed to really just kind of take the wheel and do whatever I want pretty much within compliance of what Tina Loza thinks, but she’s awesome and super encouraging. So one it’s really to educate and empower because it bothers me that there are so many business coaches and experts and everyone on the house talking about how to, how to build a brand, how to, how to grow your brand. And none of them talk about the importance of even checking to see if you own your brand or trademarking, your brand, it should be a vital part of the business process. And so I’m trying to educate and empower brands and businesses to really integrate that as part of their business foundations process.
Francesca Witzburg (17:57):
And if it hasn’t been done already how to do it now, so it’s the empowerment and the education. And then also yes, of course. But again, that second part, which I’m about to say is, is the client building that comes second because I’ve been able to get in front of so many top. I mean, I worked for two of the top online coaches right now that you brought me, probably know you’ve probably seen them all over clubhouse, but because of my speaking engagements and me just talking and giving free advice, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I want to work with her. She’s awesome. And she understands what she’s talking about. And I just trust her because now I know who she is. And I feel like lawyers are missing that they’re just waiting for the phone to ring. And they think that their, their bio on the website speaks. It doesn’t speak. You need to show people, get online, do podcasts. People need to build an actual relationship and trust in you before they can ever hire you. I think it’s like a statistic. Like it takes eight points of contact for someone to actually execute and either hire you or make a sale. So same thing applies, same rules apply on the digital platforms.
Robert Hanna (19:18):
Yeah. And I just love what you’re doing. And I think, you know, the, the thing you kind of touched on there, which creates that trust is, is consistency, right. Is continually showing up and being visible, visible with the right form of content and you’re developing your IP niche. And it’s just great to see. So we’ve talked a little bit about clubhouse because you have been active on the likes of tik tok and clubhouse, which is great. So can you tell our listeners, um, the type of things you tend to talk about in a bit more detail and any sort of natural questions you get all the time that it’s like, do you know what I just want to sort of say, these are the types of things I get, and this is what I usually do.
Francesca Witzburg (19:53):
I am on clubhouse too. Either. I do my own rooms. I used to do them more frequently. I need to, I need to, again, I need to get back into it, just be busy, but it’s important to always keep up with it. Like you said, be consistent. I at least do one or two a week now, but when I do my rooms, I talk about just trademarks 101. What’s a trademark. What’s different between trademarks and copyrights. When should I file? What’s the filing process. I give very high level information, educational information. I know you probably have a lot of lawyers listening to this too. It’s tricky because you know, there’s ethics rules, at least in the United States. And you really need to be careful about not creating a client attorney relationship. So I’m very careful at the beginning of each, I intro that this is not legal advice and that if they want to have a free private call with me, they can click on the link in my bio on Instagram. And I asked them to not give any confidential information because it’s a public realm. I want to talk about trademark law.
Robert Hanna (20:56):
Good idea. I like that. That’s a super smart idea. And I’ve been in some of your rooms and I’ve really enjoyed them. And I’m, I just love learning. You know, you want to get the point, the point about educating you. You definitely do that. And you’re educating business owners. People like myself, you know, others I’m really important topics. So, you know, I’m glad that platforms like that exist. So maybe it’s a tik tok a little bit then. So considering that some more fun, playful nature type platform, do you think that’s a powerful marketing tool was for lawyers? Cause I can imagine some lawyers would jump on clubhouse and do the audio thing, but switching to tik tok, what have you seen from that?
Francesca Witzburg (21:30):
You know, what’s funny. I use tik tok for its videos and it’s editing really. I do have a tik tok. You could go on, I’m @IPlawyerFrancesca there, but I only have like 400 followers. I’m not like trying to go viral. And my purpose is really, I make the videos on tik tik because I just, I love tik tok. And I think like the trends and everything are just super fun. And if you really think of creative ways to apply the trend, like that’s the secret to anyone who wants to get started is just scroll, find some funny videos that are trending then like hit, like, and then, you know, think about it, think about it in the shower. Why are you making your coffee? Like how can I apply that to my industry or my job? And I do this all the time where I have like a notepad in my phone where I’ll write it down. And then when I have the time to make the tik tok, all I need to do is just open up my phone and I have the idea and I record. So that’s what I do. I make the videos and then I share them on Instagram. That’s pretty much like very important to me. I use the tik tok and then I reshare them on Instagram. And sometimes LinkedIn, like I know Alex does this really well.
Robert Hanna (22:46):
I think that’s a great example of repurposing your content and getting more bang for your time. And we had, um, Shay Rowbottom, uh, who is a LinkedInpreneur, uh, on the show a while ago. And she says, you know, shoot on the fly or make a note on a fly. And that’s exactly what you do when the idea comes into your head. It’s like, right, well just shoot it there and that’ll write it down. Cause you don’t want to lose that thought because typically things will just come to you and that’s the real organic, authentic content that people relate to. So I love that. Okay. So as we previously mentioned, in your introduction, you have received many accolades. So the New York super lawyers rising stars, 2017 to 2020, and the Jacob Burns medal recipient at the Cardozo law and for outstanding contributions to the law school. And you’re also a working mother. So people listening and thinking, how the heck do you do it? So yeah. Tell us what the secret is.
Francesca Witzburg (23:37):
There is a quote, I forgot who said it, but it’s, if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person, busy people, no time management, know how to prioritize things. And I’ve realized like when I heard that quote the other day, I was like, that’s me. Like I, I flourish when I’m busy and then when I’m not busy, things like go on and I’ll just be like, Ooh, shiny ball. I should follow that. Or do like, I need structure in my life, my daily calendar, I have a daily routine. And that to me has been, that has driven my success since the fifth grade, I was the president of my class grade in fifth grade. I was the president of my school. I was president of my sorority. And then I would sound ridiculous. Then I was editor-in-chief of my law school. And I started thinking like, what was it?
Francesca Witzburg (24:32):
And I swear, Rob, it’s one my passions, but to having really good time management has been able to allow me to prioritize school, which now I’ve replaced with work and everything else that is super important to me because I really was in a position where I was not doing activities only focusing on work in 2019. And it literally almost crushed me. Um, and so for me, I couldn’t let that, you know, that work sector take up all of my time and it was getting there. So I really got out figured out a new, a new system that worked. And now I balance work with being a mom, all my social media, I’m super active with my law school. I’m about to launch a course, which we’ll talk about. I just feel that the ability to manage your time and say no to things is critical.
Robert Hanna (25:37):
Yeah. I love that. And I think it’s being efficient with your time is something I can really resonate with as well. So you touched on it there. So following on from that, what do you think is the biggest challenge faced by mothers working in workplace law practice?
Francesca Witzburg (25:51):
I think that the environment that you are in is number one, like look around you. Are you in a firm where there are no mother partners, not just women partners, partners who are mothers and that in itself is telling that if you are going to thrive there or if you’re not, because if you’re not in an environment where you have flexibility and allows for partial remote working, you’re not going to do well as a mom. And as, as a lawyer, you’re going to have to, you know, unfortunately there’s going to be things that are going to give and that’s just what I realized. So you need to be, the environment is important. And if it’s not, then find an environment where you can flourish because it will be an uphill battle. It’s easier to, for you to change your environment and walk away than it is for you to change your environment.
Robert Hanna (26:56):
Well said. Yeah, I love that perspective. Okay. So you touched on it previously as well about new and exciting things coming out or things that you’re doing. So your course, so tell us a bit more about what’s in the pipeline and what you’ve got coming up.
Francesca Witzburg (27:09):
Okay. So I have been mentoring law students since I was a two L. Well, I guess since I could mentor someone right. And law school, and I’ve just been giving the same advice over and over, over again, because it was stuff that I had to learn on my own. I didn’t do well my first semester I did. Okay. But I was used to getting top scores in college and high school. So the big issue for me coming in as a one L was the lack of knowledge. I had no idea what a law school exam was or what an outline was. And if I had known that, I know that I would’ve done, I would’ve done better. Luckily I figured it out quick. And then my grades, you know, just exponentially went up and I graduated. Um, I graduated with good scores, but I realized I need to put this down on paper.
Francesca Witzburg (28:01):
It’s not enough anymore for me just to take 15 minute phone calls with law students, I’ve created a course that outlines how to do well as a one L of two L, a three L, very specifically broken down. Um, and then I supplement that with my method on success and, and how to learn. And that is, is really threefold. It’s one knowledge. So having knowledge about whatever it is that you are doing, you want to do. And then the second thing is personal branding. So I’m going to talk about personal branding, how, how you communicate writing skills, everything. And the third is your mindset. And I feel like without that mindset, like my course, I’m going to prime people on, on how to have that mentality of abundance and really adapting, like growth mindset and understanding that failure is part of the process and just embracing failure and getting excited about failure because it means you did something new and like you survived. So that’s, I’m putting that all into a course. It’s almost done and I’m going to launch it under what I call the law school mastermind program.
Robert Hanna (29:19):
Very exciting. Well, I’ll be looking out for that. Okay. And then I want to talk a little bit about IP because you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a complicated area of law. So how do you kind of keep up to date because you’ve got a broad practice, you do a lot within IP. What would you, what are some of your recommends for people who might be in IP or thinking of getting into IP about how you can keep up with everything that’s happening with, you know, all things, trademarks, copyrights.
Francesca Witzburg (29:45):
Yeah. I hear you. You’re right. And it gets overwhelming. Like there’s just UK is a common law country. So I hate case law. Like it’s just, it’s it stresses me out. It’s just not the way my brain works. I like knowing exactly where I can find something. And of course I understand that I just I’ve had to get used to that. So it’s, it’s very stressful because of lthe aw or a judge or a court could issue a decision that just changed the law completely. So if you’re not aware of that, you know, you could be talking about the wrong law or giving people the wrong advice. So my recommendation is to follow one of the main law sources like for IP, I follow Bloomberg law and they have an IP specific one that my firm gets a subscription to. So I’m, I’m notified of that. Check it every day, I’ll read very high level. And then you’ll start seeing if it’s the same thing over and over again, if people start writing about something, then that’s important. That’s something to know. And then you need to be doing your CLA courses. That’s for us lawyers, Rob, I’m sure there’s some equivalent where like lawyers have to do things to get credit as a lawyer, every year,
Robert Hanna (31:01):
That is something to do over here as well. Okay. And then I, I know you do a lot of work with helping, um, aspiring and current sort of, you know, junior practicing lawyers as well. What advice would you give to junior aspiring lawyers that you know now that you said you didn’t know back then, what’s the kind of, you know, key piece of advice you would, you would give them
Francesca Witzburg (31:24):
Embrace failure, embrace putting yourself out there. Being uncomfortable means it’s working and you’re growing. And I feel that most junior lawyers think this myth that they’re going to graduate and they’re going to get their dream jobs and they’re gonna be making a ton of money and they’re going to be able to buy all these nice things. And it’s gonna, it’s gonna be beautiful. The realities doesn’t happen all the time. And it’s very rare to get your full dream job out of law school. And even the ones that say they get their dream jobs, they may have different priorities. And a couple of years that maybe it’s no longer their dream job. So I tell people, junior lawyers not to focus on that, focus on whether you are going to learn from whatever job it is because law school doesn’t necessarily teach us to be lawyers.
Francesca Witzburg (32:30):
I didn’t learn how to draft a contract. I didn’t learn how to file a complaint in law school. These are the things that you learned through your internships and your experience. So if you are applying for a job and you get an offer from a place that tells you, that they are going to train you, they are going to teach you everything that they, that they know they’re going to teach you how to run a firm, whatever it is. If they’re going to teach you that, don’t worry about the money, the money will come. Eventually someone will pay you for your value, but right now you need to learn it.
Robert Hanna (33:09):
Great advice. I think so many people want it now, but you got to earn it, right? So I just love what you’re sharing that and then share it and pay it back, which is what you’re doing. Um, which is great. And you mentioned before, earlier on, there was a story about the Peloton, right. Picked up from the CV. So let’s hear that quick story before we talk about your future girls and wrap. So tell us that story.
Francesca Witzburg (33:30):
Yeah. Okay. So Peloton, I, I’m going to tell you, I’m going to tell you the real story. Okay. So I applied for a job with how Peleton and under my interests, I wrote Peloton, avid Peloton member marathoner. I didn’t take it off the rest of my resumes and sent it out. And so I sent it to my law firm, to the woman who runs the firm. Tina Loza read it. And she was in a group on Facebook called Peloton law moms. Okay. She had no idea. I was a mother. I was, I think my baby. He was like five or six months. And I was just a random piece of paper that happened to write Peloton avid member on it. Okay. And she pulled the group asking, I just saw this. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen this before.
Francesca Witzburg (34:32):
I feel like I have to interview this girl. Right. And then everyone write back absolutely. So she emails me. She asked me what my handle was and we kind of took it from there. And, you know, to this day, I mean, I’m going to tell her to watch this because I never admitted it, that it was a mistake, but I think it’s important for two reasons. One that mistake got me my job. Right. And so while lawyers law students were so, I mean, I was at a point where I was so paranoid about making a mistake. I would, I would be up in the middle of the night. I feel like we’ve all been there where it’s like, Oh my gosh, did I make a typo in that document? Or did I include the right party name? You know bit it’s okay. And making mistakes may, may work out in your favor. And so I did that and now I tell students, add that, add something. That’s interesting. That’s that stands out. I feel like we have this pressure to kind of be not as, I don’t know, like to be kind of typical and not really be too edgy, but the edges are what make you stand out.
Robert Hanna (35:46):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And such great advice. And it just comes down to owning your mistakes sometimes as well. And yeah, that’s such a great story. I never knew that. Okay. So finally, future goals, you’re at the top of the tree already. You’re a partner you’ve risen super quickly. You’ve achieved so much. You’re growing your practice. You’re everywhere online. You know, what are your future goals? How do you keep yourself motivated?
Francesca Witzburg (36:10):
I love people. I love meeting new people. I like helping businesses. I really see myself still being a lawyer, but also doing more of the coaching. I love taking big ideas and consolidating them into actual concrete steps on, on how to execute and how to do things. And like, in my course that law school mastermind course, I’ve been able to articulate actual, tangible steps that I attribute to my success from the fifth grade on literally
Robert Hanna (36:47):
Amazing people always say to me, even from my career, some of the basics that I was taught from day one, are, fundamentally some of the most important things that I need still to be good at the job. So some people just think just because you’ve got lots and lots of experience, sometimes with more experiences, you forget some of the things like the basics of a lot of things are so, so important. So I would just like to say, if people want to follow you online or get in touch about anything we’ve discussed today, what’s the best way platform for them to do that. Feel free to shout out your web links or relevant social media handles. And we’re going to share them with this episode for you. So go for it.
Francesca Witzburg (37:25):
Thank you, Rob. Best way is on Instagram. I am @thetrademarkattorney. You can DM me or click on the link in my bio and set up a 15 minute call. I would love to connect.
Robert Hanna (37:39):
Thanks an absolute million Francesca. It’s been a real pleasure having you on the show and learning more about your journey. It’s truly inspiring. I’m sure our listeners are going to come away inspired as well. So I just want to wish you lots of continued success, but from all of us on the legally speaking podcast team over and out.
Francesca Witzburg (37:56):
Thank you Rob.
Robert Hanna (37:58):
This week’s review comes from Andy Thompson. Andy says really insightful. There’s so much you can learn from these talks. It’s the best out there. Thank you so much for this fantastic review, Andy, and for your kind kind words, we really appreciate those words. It means a lot to all of us who work on the show
Robert Hanna (38:20):
for listening to this episode of the legally speaking podcast, if you enjoyed the show and want to help support us, remember to leave us a rating and review on Apple iTunes, you can also support the show and gain exclusive benefits, bonus content, and much more by signing up to our Patreon page, which is www.patreon.com/Legallyspeakingpodcast. Thanks for listening.