Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
A Law Student's Mission to Empower the Disabled: AMA with Andrew C.
Ever wondered what drives a law student to defy traditional career paths and shake up the legal system? Meet Andrew, a first-semester law student with a fervent ambition to blend the practice of law with social entrepreneurship. In our latest episode, we're not just talking about surviving law school's rigorous demands; we're delving into Andrew's unique learning techniques and his steadfast resolve to spend Thanksgiving holed up on campus, mastering the art of legal analysis. He's not your average student—Andrew's vision extends beyond the classroom as he shares his dream of establishing a law firm that caters exclusively to the needs of disabled individuals and their families. It's a heartfelt dialogue that unveils the blueprint for a legal practice fueled by compassion and innovation.
As Andrew and I continue our conversation, we paint the picture of a decentralized foundation that acts as a beacon of hope for the disabled community across the Midwest. Imagine navigating the complexities of Individual Education Plans or the labyrinth of social security without expert guidance—this is where Andrew's foundation aims to make a difference. We dissect the strategy of offering specialized legal services at reduced rates or pro bono and the impact of strategic philanthropy on the wider community. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of law, social justice, and entrepreneurship, offering an insider's perspective on how future legal professionals like Andrew are gearing up to tackle systemic challenges and provide invaluable support to those often left behind.
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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
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Hey guys, welcome back to the show. So I'm doing a series of these interviews with law students, which is a departure from our usual content talking talking really to myself 10 or 12 or 15 years ago and trying to give people the advice that I didn't get when I was coming up through the law school system. So today I have Andrew, who just finished his first year of law school, first semester of law school, and took his first four tests at a school in the Midwest, and Andrew and I are talking about his vision of creating a law firm or a foundation that serves disabled people and their families, and I'm going to have Andrew tell us exactly what that means. But first of all, andrew, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:So, before we get to what it is that you want to build, recap for me your first year of law school.
Speaker 2:So my first year of law school. The way my school structured it is I had contracts one, we had civil procedure one, we had torts and criminal law and, of course, our legal research and writing. That standard at every law school.
Speaker 1:And what did you find easier and harder than you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2:I think that just the sheer amount of time it takes to read, especially when you're, especially when you're starting out and you're trying to give you tips and like you need to have case briefs and it's just, it's a lot overwhelming going on.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot of kind of find a system or just realizing why this is going to take time, like you can't just not read, maybe like an undergrad you got away with oh, that professor would just summarize an undergrad where you get the law school and it's you better have an idea of what's going on to the best of your ability throughout the semester. So I think just the sheer amount of work, the rigor, the amount of reading, the amount of time that reading takes and it just takes time. As the summary for anyone who's listening, who is considering law school and you're wondering what it's like. Someone created this metaphor picture and I think it's great. It's learning how to surf in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane and you're also expected to learn a foreign language by the time you land all the big waves. That's essentially how it feels for most of the semester, I would say.
Speaker 1:That's really the foreign language, and I was one of those people in college that never read anything. So I hear you on that. Let me give you the hack, and I don't know if this is something that would work for you or something that you've experienced. But the thing that I discovered my second semester was like briefs on tape, and it wasn't on tape, it was on CDs. But I would check out the tort summarizer or whatever from the library and then I would listen to that in the car on the way to and from the library.
Speaker 1:So then I had some sense of what it is that's going to be important about the next case that we read, because, for whatever reason, there's only three or four law school textbooks in each category and so there's only so many cases that you're going to go through.
Speaker 1:But when I figured out that every single case that we were reading was there for a reason to teach us some legal point one way or the other maybe one state has contributory negligence, maybe one state has comparative when I figured that piece out, everything that you just described about the foreign language and the amount of work became a lot easier. So that's what I would commend anybody is like the meta understanding of what it is that we're trying to teach us, and figuring out that first, before you read 50 pages of constitutional law and you go, what's the difference between privileges and immunities and the other thing? And I could never figure that out. And so you've just finished your first series of exams. How did you plan for and execute four exams across probably a 12 or 15 day period? How did you deal with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thankfully, the university that I go to had our exam spread out over two weeks. I thought school may be different, how they structure it, and for me I could have got home for Thanksgiving. Many students did. But I chose to stay back because I knew especially with my contact exam, it was going to be very challenging. It was just based on the professor. I knew it was going to be quite difficult and so I needed to stay back because I knew if I went home I wasn't going to study, I'd go and see my parents and I'd find a million excuses not to study and I have a million regrets afterwards but ended up chunking it along the way and broke it up over a series of days.
Speaker 2:But, to be honest with you, I think there was a little trial by fire trying to figure out how's the best way to learn this, and I quickly realized at some point made a pivot and realized that I'm more of a visual learner, and so essentially what I did is I found a study room with whiteboards, got expo markers and I started mapping everything out and just creating flow charts or different things, and then what I did after that is I take a picture, save it, and then I would also record myself on my phone with a voice recording to get that audio piece as well. So you have the tactile learning with writing, then you have the visual learning taking place, and then I would record myself walking through the concepts. And then I got the point because I realized on the test obviously you're not going to have most loss with, I think, or definitely close book for your doctrinal classes, and so I knew I wasn't going to have those visual aids. So what I would often do is I would just listen to it over and over and over again to try to have everything sink in. And so by the time I took the exam, that was my best chance to be successful.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I want to change next semester is, instead of waiting until finals time or the reading days to do all that mapping, I want to try to look into like mind mapping programs online or different websites or programs and do that throughout the semester. Once a week, I think me and someone else are thinking about doing that together and mapping stuff out. So then by the time finals week rolls around in the spring, I'm not doing this massive mapping. I can spend that time just maybe going over recordings I've made and, essentially, having more time to do more application, hypothetical practice. So then, by the time the exam rolls around, I'm even more prepared than I was the first time around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny that we make especially in first year and it gets a little better in second, third year. But you make you take these closed book tests. If you didn't know the answer, you wouldn't be able to find it in the 500 page book anyway. But you know what happens if I don't know an answer, I find the book and I find the answer. And so why do we not let first year loss? Why do we make you memorize all of these rules? I never understood that part. All right, and so you have another, a better system for you going into second semester and as your school, you must have some kind of writing competition or trial or moot court competition that you've either done or you're gearing up for in second semester. What does that look like for you To?
Speaker 2:be honest with you, I haven't heard much about what that could look like. I've heard the writing we did this semester was very technical. It's your CreAX, your IRAX, all of that the classic open and closed memos. But I've heard through the grapevine there might be more persuasive type things that maybe practicing getting what an argument could look like. That's a possibility, but I'm not really clear and haven't heard per se what that may look like at my school.
Speaker 1:Got it? And how about job search for this summer?
Speaker 2:I'm on winter break, like many law students are, and that's definitely one of my projects is spending some time just looking up different possibilities. Our school uses a simplicity app. We need to get on that, explore all that. We've had some meet the employer nights at my school. I was able to attend one of those and sent the thank you cards in the mail a little belated, but with the semester being so crazy I better figure it late than never. There's definitely going to be exploring that over break, trying to just figure out what's out there. Upper classroom was kind enough to send one my direction that relates to what I'm interested in. I'm hoping to follow up with that one and just see where it goes.
Speaker 1:Cool, let's talk about that. You, I think, unlike many law students and certainly unlike many law students when I was in school back in 2005 to you actually have a really clear vision of what it is that you want to do when you get out. So why don't you take a couple minutes and walk me through that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you might mention at the beginning. My hope is to one day it doesn't necessarily have to be right after graduation or anything like that, but over time I would like to have the resources and the ability and the connections to create a legal foundation to help people with disabilities intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities as well, and, essentially, as the way the world's moving. Have it nor a decentralized location. I plan to stay in the Midwest, so wherever Midwest state I stay in plan to create this foundation. Have it decentralized. And we are there ideally from day one to the end of the lifespan for someone with a disability. So that means helping with making sure it's called individual education plans or for families with disabilities. A lot of school districts are doing a great job out there, but every once in a while you have school districts that are not fully understanding what the laws are or what they're required or what they're mandated to do. Families are often overwhelmed. So having a lawyer or lawyers on staff to help with IP meetings to make sure needs are being met, transitioning people who are 18 with disabilities if families aren't aware they need to have their power of attorney set up medical power of attorney, financial power of attorney all that's taken care of so that when their child turns 18, they still have that oversight as a parent, as a guardian, over time.
Speaker 2:I believe everyone with a disability on some level. There's an opportunity to have a job. I've actually had previous experiences as a job coach with people with disabilities and if you have the opportunity to have those jobs, that's great. But sometimes people with disabilities get a job but then they're unjustly fired. Having attorneys on staff to handle those issues Maybe you're getting social security benefits not getting activated or there's an issue with that. Let's have someone help you with that.
Speaker 2:People with disabilities, their families they need to have stuff in place for after mom and dad pass away, or even if they have older siblings.
Speaker 2:And having those trust in these states and wills, make sure that's all figured out and taken care of and squared away, would be a service that I would like to provide. So, essentially every stage you can think of for someone with a disability, I would love to have a foundation that we're right there with you and work with the people that you go to Now. Ideally, people with disabilities and their families face a lot of costs associated with the care of their loved one and the importance of having the opportunity to provide either very discounted rates or even pro bono rates would be ideal for me and the foundation I have in mind. And having it decentralized and having attorneys throughout the state in which I would be located or anchored in to be on call and they specialize in these states or they specialize in social security or they specialize in IAP goals and we can be there and refer you in after we get a system in place to refer you to make sure that you get the right people to help you.
Speaker 1:So that's a really big vision and it's broad, and so we want to work today on okay, what could you be working on now to build a framework and to start backing your way into that? Really, the first thing that comes to mind for me is there anybody in this space who's already doing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's through LinkedIn and other locations have seen, I think disability rights advocacy or DRA, and I think they have headquarters in California and maybe even some locations in New York and I think they do. Some of the work they do is maybe different, but I think they do more like class action lawsuits and litigation. I've noticed that's more there. I think bread and butter per se, and then I think I saved like a picture of a law firm that does like special need trusts that's somewhere in the country to take a screenshot and save that to eventually try to reach out to them at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, special need trust is an interesting place, I think, to start, because the advice that I would give you from the jump is pick one area and one specialty and start there we do, and it might be as narrow as we do special needs trust for people with Down syndrome and then you can build out from there rather than I would not start with. We are the all-in-one foundation that helps disabled people do everything that they ever need to do, and I would, at least with regard to the special needs trust for people with Down syndrome, you don't have to do it for free, because it's an economic proposition of if this isn't done correctly, here's what you're going to lose, here's the benefits that you're going to lose, here's what it's going to cost you in the long run, and so that can actually be a lucrative. It's probably not the right word, but it can be a financial driver for you, or for you at the beginning, because it's a trade-off. But listen, I know that if I don't get in front of you, it's going to cost you $100,000 somewhere down the line. And so, yes, you're going to have to pay me, because that's because I've gone to school for three years and because I built this thing out, because I've become the expert in special needs trust for Down syndrome people and because I know that it's going to cost you 10x more not to do the thing that I want you to do.
Speaker 1:This is why most people don't have wills. Right, it's because the will is expensive. It's not nearly as expensive as dying without a plan in place. Right, because now your family's got to go through probate, they've got to find all your stuff. They're paying a lawyer by the hour to help them find all the stuff and take them to the courthouse. And I think many estate planning lawyers are hesitant to charge what they should be charging because people view that as a cost and not a value. Right, and that's how I would if I were starting special needs trust for specific disability. I would be focusing on the value that we deliver. Right, and pressing hard on. Here's the cost if you don't have one of these in place. And you're right, it's an underserved market.
Speaker 1:And I think the thing that you could begin to do even while you're in law school, because I suspect you have some kind of a story surrounding why this is interesting to you is start to create a presence on social media talking about these issues, talking to families and friends that have these problems and talking through the way that you've solved them in your own life, or the way that you've seen people solve them, or the way that you work to solve them at this place, that you worked before and that way now.
Speaker 1:You don't have to wait necessarily until what summer of 2025, when you graduate and you have a law license, you could talk about you can't practice law, you can't give legal advice but you could talk about solving the problem, which really is the same thing, I think and start to build your reputation and your persona within those communities all along, so that, when you graduate, you already have a following Instagram, tiktok, linkedin, whatever of tens of thousands of people have these same problems, and the thing is that there are many people who know how to solve the problem.
Speaker 1:There are not many people who raise their hand and talk, so you don't actually have to be any smarter than anybody else to start that journey for yourself, and I would. I think I would focus early in the building of this thing on something that I could charge money for, where I'm delivering fair value to people, because it strikes me that, as you build out a foundation, if it's all going to be low cost and pro bono, you've got to develop an entire network of people that are cause champions, and that's awesome. It's difficult, right? I think the more that you can build a financial machine that allows you to pay for top talent, the more people you're going to be able to serve. Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense. Yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying. I'm all for some. I'm the type of person that's give me the reality check. Let me hear the hard truth, the hard facts, because life's not easy. You need to get that reality. I'm realizing too it's to be able to help people. You got to have the money to do it at the end of the day. If it's more idealistic, yeah, but at the end of the day it's a good cause, but you got to have the financial means to do that and it's being able to make the difference. You got to have the funding to do it. Great charitable debate is okay.
Speaker 1:What if you do no charity from 25 to 65, and you amass massive wealth and you give it all away at 66. You have a greater impact or less of an impact than somebody that, from 25 to 65, devotes half of their time to charitable endeavors but never amasses the great wealth? And then, because they've been focused on giving away or doing it or reduce, rate the thing, and then which one of those two characters has the greater impact? I don't know, but that's the great, I think philanthropic and charity debate Like all right, do you do it for free or for low cost the whole time, or do you build a thing by charging people and delivering value and getting over the mental hurdle of there's some?
Speaker 1:It is difficult, as a parent of a disabled child, to afford the disabled child right. That, I think, is probably in your head, more than at least for a certain category of people, more than anything else, and I think people would, will pay for peace of mind and will pay for I'll give you 10 if it saves me 100 over the next five years. So I just I question that premise from a capitalist perspective. But that's just where I would start. And so then the question is okay. What skills can you start to build over the next two and a half years that you will need when you put it into place? And so does your school? Have horses in disability law or in philanthropic law or in charitable organizations?
Speaker 2:I don't have to do it, I don't even look I'd have to do more of a deep dive. My initial instinct is, I think, not necessarily specializing in disability law or disability law classes. I know some of our classes have taken elder law, which that might touch on it because, let's be honest, when you get older and elderly they have certain things that can pop up. So I'm sure that could might tie into the course a little bit. They definitely have an estates and trust course that I hope to take my two L year. They have that so that it might touch on that a little bit. But it could be one of those things that maybe at some point, maybe especially in three L, maybe approach a professor, my advisor, and be like hey, can I do an independent study on this? How can we structure that to get class credit? But can help me do set me up for success to move into post graduation? That might be a possibility too.
Speaker 1:And as you're talking, I'm like, okay, you probably don't need to rely on a professor for that. The easy thing to do would be just to look around in your community either in your hometown or in your school, and find the offices that are offering those services and go to them and say what kind of questions do you have that you have to take to lawyers? What's your biggest headache when you have to take those questions to lawyers? And then you build your practice around solving that headache?
Speaker 1:If you hear the same thing three, four, five times from everybody you talk to all, right now you've got a differentiator in the market. We provide these services and we solve this problem that everybody has complained about, All right, and that again, you could spend the next two and a half years and it wouldn't take you that long Just talking to everybody in your local area about what's the number one problem. I don't know how to solve it yet because I'm not a lawyer, but when you're dealing with lawyers and when I do have that subject matter expertise, how can I be hopeful to you? And what annoys you about the people that you're dealing with right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So what are you looking at for this summer?
Speaker 2:I was thinking, looking to see what firms are out there that either touch on issues with people with disabilities, like maybe social security, or I guess I have an interest in the trust stuff that we've been talking about this after this during this podcast and trying to see what firms are out there in the area that that's part of their portfolio is doing trust and estate work, and just getting a first and experience, or at least an observational viewpoint of what all goes into that. Just to get an idea of what it looks like.
Speaker 1:The social security disability system is just entirely backlogged. There's way too many cases, not enough lawyers, not enough judges, and the lawyers don't make enough money, and it's because they don't make enough money they've got to handle way too many cases. So it's like a vicious cycle, right, because there are fee caps in that area at, I think, $6,000. They've got to have these portfolios of three, four, five hundred cases and then clients get annoyed then because you can't return my calls on time, right, and of course the client is disabled and not working, and so they just they have nothing occupying the time other than why isn't the lawyer returning my call? That's a frustrating area of law. For a while we were associated with a guy who did that kind of work and we exited that area for exactly that reason. You providing good customer service at that price point is really hard, so that's an interesting problem to try to solve for. But yeah, if you can get good hands-on experience in one of those firms and see the thing for 1L and 2L Summers, is this for me. Do I like this? Do I like doing this 40 hours a week and then being really quick to make decisions about yes or no for next summer?
Speaker 1:Ok, I sampled SSDI. Let me go and try to sample a state planning, and the state planning is one of those areas where you could do both. You could then offer at a low cost, the special needs trust, but you could also, at a premium space, be serving a different clientele the millionaire, multimillionaire clientele who needs a different set of documents and a different set of expertise. You could set it up so that you have because it's important to make money, you have to make money to be able to fund the things that you want to do and have the impact that you want to have. But that gives you the leverage to operate really same subject matter two client bases and you can price them accordingly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was one of the things I thought was, if you learn how to do wills, trusting states on some level, you're always going to have clients, because ideally everybody should have that set up for their. We're all going to pass away at some point and so, having that stuff set up, you're always going to have somebody. That idea was going to need that and then, like I said, learn over time and raise a good point during the podcast about learn how to look into it even now while you're in school and, like I said, integrate in that portfolio helping people with disabilities too, and that would be hopefully a sweet spot.
Speaker 1:You would think everybody would understand that they're going to die and that they need a will. You would be shocked by the number even lawyers that I talk, lawyers and entrepreneurs that I talk to that are like oh yeah, I know that's the thing that I need and I just haven't gotten around to doing it. Yeah, that's. And again, it's the cost and the aggravation and the time of having gone through that process. Everybody wants to confront the fact they're going to die.
Speaker 1:We also don't want to leave your heirs with a big mess to clean up. So that's that if I were not doing what I do, I probably would be in that space, because that's it's interesting. It's the tax and the how do we move stuff around? And then there's the availability of doing really a subscription model where, okay, I'm going to charge you to create the document and then every year we're going to do an annual update of the plan. But yeah, that's a cool space to to play in and experiment and listen as we wrap this up. Is there any other one or two questions that's on your mind that maybe I can help you with? Or maybe we could find somebody to connect you with in the world that can help you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's podcast for guys with many listeners. If there's an attorney out there who does special needs trust, I'd love to connect, pick your brain, learn from you, even if you're not doing special needs trust, but you're doing wills trust in your states and you're someone who I would just love to connect and learn. I'm realizing it's all about who and the opportunities you get to meet with people and learn from people, and I'm definitely open to having conversations with anybody who's out there with you could point me in the right direction and and even just suggestions on how to make the most of law school. And you know how sometimes there's that disconnect between academia and what I had experienced as a new attorney in a few years. And he tips and tricks. I'm all ears.
Speaker 1:Listen. I appreciate you raising your hand and coming on and being brave to come on the podcast. So I think you're going to do great things in the years to come and I hope that vision is one that you can flesh out and create the framework for Andrew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me and it was a great opportunity. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Hey, wait up, don't go nowhere yet. If you made it this far, it means you got some value out of this episode, I hope. And if you did get some value, I would love it if you'd hit the subscribe button. It won't take you more than three seconds to find that on your phone, either in Apple or in Spotify. Hit subscribe. Make sure that this shows up in your feed the next time a new episode comes out, and thank you for listening.
