The Whole Lawyer Podcast

AE (00:00.116)
You ever done a podcast before?

NicTheLawyer (00:01.794)
Yeah, yeah. I don't do as many as p as I used to, but like that's still kinda p podcasts are kinda my main podcasts and social media is my main way of marketing, so I do a good amount. Yeah.

AE (00:03.358)
Okay.

AE (00:10.708)
Nice. Got you, cuckoo. Yeah, we're going to get into that. We're going to get into that. It's all that. All right.

NicTheLawyer (00:16.226)
Yeah, okay.

AE (00:22.932)
Alright.

AE (00:27.732)
All right, cool. Let me get started. All right. Welcome back to another episode of The Whole Lawyer. And we have a very special guest for you guys, as always. But before we get started, please like, share, and subscribe to The Whole Lawyer podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, all those platforms that you get your favorite podcast from. We are there. Please leave a comment, leave a review, and a rating on Apple Podcasts. helps us grow.

the pod and allows us to bring you great episodes like the one we have here for you today. Now, our guest on today's episode hails from Inglewood, California. He is the founding attorney at Polymath Legal PC, where he handles transactional matters in the area of syndication, real estate, business, and entertainment. This

A attorney received his bachelor's degree in American Ethics Studies from the University of Washington. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. At Pepperdine, he was a journal editor, a student government officer, and a Moot Court Board officer. He focused his studies on business, entrepreneurship, and real estate. He also holds an LLM in taxation and financial services with a certificate in US tax.

He is admitted to practice law in California and Washington state. He holds a California real estate brokers license at polymath legal Nick assist developers, syndicators, investors, and entrepreneurs in areas ranging from syndication, business formation, real estate, and business transactions and contracts. In aggregate, he has created syndications, allowing his clients to raise capital or sell more than $2.5 billion.

in assets. In addition to working on various entrepreneurial ventures and running his own law practice, he's a tenured professor of business law and teaches businesses and real estate classes for undergraduate, graduate, MBA, and law school students. In his free time, he enjoys playing saxophone, hiking, gardening, practicing card magic. We're going to into that. Traveling and learning about new topics that pique his curiosity.

AE (02:52.926)
Whole Lawyer Pod, please welcome Mr. McGrew. to the pod, Nick. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. So the opening question for the Whole Lawyer Podcast is, if I was not an attorney, I would be a what?

NicTheLawyer (02:59.8)
You thank you, thank you. Happy to be here.

NicTheLawyer (03:14.99)
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say if it's not an attorney and I wasn't worried about money, I would be because that's the difference.

AE (03:18.868)
That's a good distinction. Is it as a good as a good caveat? It makes it a battery. So about it. Yeah, go ahead.

NicTheLawyer (03:26.272)
I would be a true bread and breakfast host. Like I like cooking, I like hosting. as you mentioned, I started gardening. So I'd like to bring people over and just have like a whole experience. I also have like a I'm very much into like the wellness stuff. So I have one room. I call it the wellness room, and I have like red light therapy and massage mats and magnetic mats, I have a cold plunge, a hot tub. So I'd want somebody to come over and be like, get the Nick experience. I'm gonna cook for you the food for my garden.

AE (03:42.643)
Yeah.

AE (03:46.878)
Cold plunges? What?

NicTheLawyer (03:54.414)
And I'll get you taken care of with all the wellness stuff.

AE (03:57.877)
And having that in California, feel like that would just be perfect, right? It's a perfect setting for that. What would you name the bed and breakfast? What would it call? What would it be called?

NicTheLawyer (04:07.512)
You know, I don't have a name for the bed and breakfast 'cause I've I've I've I've altered this answer. It used to be I'd s I would open up a restaurant. And the restaurant would have been called Nick's Kitchen and I would just kind of cook what I'm feeling. There might not be any standard stuff, it'd just be kind of what's grown in the garden, what is on my mind. so the the bread and breakfast is kind of a newer take on it.

AE (04:15.796)
Mmm

AE (04:20.996)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's fresh. Yeah. That's real. People don't appreciate how much of a gift and a skill it is to host, to curate, to bring people together. People just think like it just happens. I feel like people need to be skilled in this thing and have the heart to actually do it. So that's fire. That's fire. Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (04:38.839)
Yeah.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah, my wife says the same thing. She's like, I thought hostum was just like write people over, but then you do it and you like got the music different in the bathroom and you got the things set out just right. I'm like, I'm trying to make sure my people have a good time.

AE (04:48.042)
No.

Mm-hmm.

Nah, facts. My wife is the same way. Her and my mother-in-law, they're very skilled in like, they will have like a tea party on a Saturday just because they'll get dressed. They'll make the sandwich. They'll cut the sandwiches in different shapes. do just because like the detail they put into it just for this event. it's just them two. It's like, they care about the details and the details matter. And people think the details don't matter or people overlook them, but people notice it. People...

NicTheLawyer (05:08.29)
Love it.

AE (05:23.224)
see the detail you put into it. that's, that's fire. So speaking of details, you're a whole business lawyer. So you get into the details, you get into the knicks and crannies. so you didn't open a bed at breakfast yet. What made you get into business law?

NicTheLawyer (05:41.773)
I've kind of always had the entrepreneurial bug in me. even when I was little, I'd kind of would like try to make things and sell them. I'm like, we'd make candy at school, and then I'd come home like, Mom, let's make some more candy. And then I'd wrap it up and you sell it to family members or people at church. and then in high school, I I'm I'm gonna say hypothetically, this didn't actually happen, but hypothetically.

AE (05:44.788)
Mm-hmm.

AE (05:50.868)
Mm-hmm.

AE (05:54.798)
That's right.

AE (06:03.181)
Mm-hmm. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (06:05.164)
When if people like needed, you know, a new CD, I'm I'm a little bit older. So this is when like CDs ripping stuff was kind of new, but I was the plug, hypothetically. And then in college, one of my real good friends, he had like a even bigger hustle than me. And so he like I was a little bit more risk averse and he helped me become a little bit more able to take on risk because I'm entrepreneurship, you definitely gotta be able to take on risk. And so

AE (06:12.552)
Bootleggin' Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

No, that's real.

AE (06:23.156)
Mm-hmm.

AE (06:32.05)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (06:32.93)
When we'd be in high school or sorry, in college, working on little business ideas, we couldn't afford lawyers. Lawyers were way too expensive. and so I when I got into law school, I was like, yeah, I want to learn this stuff so I can use it for our businesses and obviously for clients and stuff too. and part of what made me go into it as well is that my first year of law school, I loved I I like learning. I love how the law changes how you think and how you address problems, stuff like that. But I was like,

AE (06:36.264)
Mm.

AE (06:40.755)
Yeah.

AE (06:56.628)
Mm.

Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (07:01.196)
I don't see myself in court fighting all the time. I'm not I I was like, I don't see myself being a litigator. but I had already finished the first year and I'm like, I can't quit now, I got all this debt. And I brought home things I'm gonna be a lawyer, and I also like this stuff, you know? and so I took a class my first semester, second year called Entrepreneurship in the Law. And that professor, she had worked for the SEC, she was an angel investor, and then advised startup companies.

AE (07:06.74)
Yeah.

I gotta keep going.

NicTheLawyer (07:28.352)
And so she kind of taught us a law from the viewpoint of a transactional business lawyer that's guiding startups. And I was like, yes, I like this stuff. And so that's why I kind of focused the rest of my of my electives on business and real estate type type stuff, because that's I that just kinda spoke to me quite a bit.

AE (07:33.917)
Nice.

Yeah

AE (07:45.556)
So you went to law school thinking that you had to be a litigator or did you not know that it could get into the business side of

NicTheLawyer (07:53.875)
I didn't, yeah, I didn't really know much about the transactional side. and I still think that law school, especially your first year, is geared towards litigation. I mean, you do take contract property kind of transactional, but it's focused on litigation. so I I knew that there was like non-litigating lawyers, but didn't really know how that avenue worked or anything. I actually went to law school wanting to be a professor. I was like, I like because I'd taken a few c law classes in undergrad, and I was like, I like this.

AE (07:58.613)
Mm-hmm.

AE (08:03.268)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

AE (08:13.79)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (08:21.734)
I'm a very logical person and like order and rules and so it kind of fits with how my brain works. And so I was like, I like this topic, I wanna study it more. but I also I originally I was like, I wanna be a professor.

AE (08:22.131)
Yeah.

AE (08:34.081)
Mm, that's fire. So what was your first job at a law school?

NicTheLawyer (08:39.746)
First job out of law school, I was a tax consultant. So I graduated in two thousand nine, which was not a great time to graduate. I was what'd you say?

AE (08:47.422)
Really, why? Why? Why was it not a good time to graduate?

NicTheLawyer (08:51.192)
That was right after the real estate crash and we were in the recession. And so when I got out, I was competing for jobs against the people that had graduated a year and two before me that had gotten laid off from their jobs. and so it was it was tough. And my original goal, even after being in law school, I was like, I want to work for a firm two or three years and then start my own firm. And so I

AE (08:53.812)
Crash. Yes. Fags.

AE (09:03.604)
Jeez. Yeah.

AE (09:12.564)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (09:16.13)
Had a summer job in my second year and they said, Yeah, you know, we like you, we'd love to have you back when you graduate, reach out to us in the wintertime and we'll you'll figure out get that going. well that was in August of 2008, and like a month later, everything went crazy. And so when I reached back out to them in January, they're like, Yeah, sorry, like we had to let people off. We're consolidating offices, so we don't got nothing for ya. so didn't have a job coming out of law school.

AE (09:19.22)
Mm.

AE (09:24.136)
Mmm.

AE (09:33.716)
very easy.

AE (09:42.204)
Man.

NicTheLawyer (09:45.099)
And so I'm applying for jobs and and at least my experience, most of the jobs that I'd see available were litigation focused, which I didn't want to do, but I was like, I gotta have a job. so I'm applying for these jobs. Just some of them were offering like forty thousand dollars, which you know, money's money, but at least back then, like I could have gotten out of college without a lot degree, without the debt, making forty thousand dollars. So I'm like, I didn't go through all this to just be right where I was at. Yeah.

AE (09:52.476)
Hmm... Yeah.

AE (10:05.956)
Yeah. Fact, just to make 40k. Nah, fact. Facts, no, that's real.

NicTheLawyer (10:12.14)
So I was I was like, man, I'm applying to all these jobs, don't really like them. But I gotta I need to have some money. And so thankfully, one of my law school friends, she was working for a tax consulting firm and she was like, Hey, we need some extra coverage. We have a project in LA. We need some help. Like, we can train you for a week and then you can do this project. This project's three weeks, and then we might bring you on occasionally. And so that was my job for the first year. And it wasn't full time, it was like a three week project here.

AE (10:16.361)
Yeah.

AE (10:35.016)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (10:40.024)
Two week project there, one week here, but it's enough to at least keep the lights on and the bills paid and whatnot.

AE (10:40.308)
Wow.

AE (10:44.616)
Yeah. Man, that's so dope. it intimidating once you got exposed to law school, to the entrepreneur track, the transaction track, even the fact that you ended up in tax, feels like when we talk about business law, it feels like it's so vast. And like, do tax, do you do transactional work, do you do entertainment work? How were you able to hone in and zero in, I guess specifically in law school?

what your interests were in this vast area of business law.

NicTheLawyer (11:19.212)
I probably didn't hone in in more on the niche until afterward. I knew I liked a lot of the transactional stuff I was I was learning. I liked, you know, working with startup companies and I liked real estate. That's something that I always kind of just liked as well. And so that's what the classes that I took or that I for electives. And then it was kind of in practice. part of it while you know, I I had that that tax consulting gig, it wasn't full time.

AE (11:23.764)
Mm-hmm.

AE (11:29.662)
Mmm.

AE (11:33.491)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (11:45.255)
And so I told myself, I said, Listen, you still gotta work at least 40 hours a week for yourself. And so my my Westlaw law school password hadn't expired yet. So I'm like looking at all So I'm reading through all the practice guides and trying to like teach myself and learn stuff. and then had friends that would need occasional things here and there. So I'd use them, I'd Hey, I don't really know this, but I can spend 10 hours on this thing, it should take like an hour or two.

AE (11:45.628)
Mm-hmm.

AE (11:50.504)
Mmm.

AE (11:55.569)
fact yo fact yeah yeah i did the same thing yeah

AE (12:11.252)
Hmm.

NicTheLawyer (12:12.131)
And dive in and learn it. And I'm getting practical experience that way as well. And then and then also clients, as I got more seasoned in my career, like syndication's probably my main niche if I had to focus in on one thing. syndication's the our our primary bread maker in the firm. And that was mainly because of clients. I had a few clients early on. We did one or two one-offs, and then in 2015, I had a real estate client that started expanding.

AE (12:30.548)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (12:40.923)
And she needed to do much bigger deals. And she did I did one. She's like, Have you done this before? I was like, Yeah, I've done a couple. I did one for a winery and one for a movie. So I know the general layout. And she's like, Cool, I have a real estate project. And so we did one. And then like three months later, she's Cool, I got another one. And then I got another one. And so she is doing two or three deals a a year. And then she started getting pretty big in that industry and and started passing my name along.

AE (12:59.892)
Cheese.

NicTheLawyer (13:07.213)
And so yeah, I kinda fell into it. I wasn't going out. I didn't start out saying, I wanna do syndication, but I had a client, had a need, figured it out, kinda liked it as well, and then it kinda grew from there.

AE (13:07.7)
Mm.

AE (13:17.96)
Man, that's amazing. It just came from reps. It just came from you just trying stuff and doing it over and over again. Until you got the confidence within yourself to know that I could even say yes to this real estate client. Because I don't know, for me, I would have been like, listen, I'm not trying to mess up your stuff. I don't know enough yet. But no, that's dope. Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (13:37.271)
It was it was definitely nerve. So part of it, like I said, I'd spend, you know, 10 hours on something that now takes me twenty-five minutes because I'm reading and double checking and triple checking and looking at this example and reading this practice management guide and this practice guide, and then hitting up my friends who have jobs and saying, Hey, ask your partner about this thing, and getting kind of tips from that, and then hitting up mentors like, Hey, what about this? And so yeah, it was a lot of lot of different angles taking it on.

AE (13:46.27)
Fire.

AE (13:50.503)
Yeah.

AE (13:56.179)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (14:02.636)
And so I got to the point I was like, okay, I've, you know, read everything I can read. I've asked all the questions. I feel like I know what it is. Every time I ask a question and I think I know the answer, I talk to my mentor and they're like, yeah, that's the answer. So I was like, Yeah, it's the practice of law. You don't know everything. And even I will still even say today, you know, there's things that I had early on in documents that weren't necessarily bad. But because now I've got almost 16 years of experience, I've seen a whole lot more. So I'm like, you know what?

AE (14:16.798)
you

NicTheLawyer (14:28.12)
We need to add this thing in there because this little random thing happened one time, but it was really bad. And I don't want a client to have to deal with that anymore. So let's add this in just in case. And usually that just in case don't happen, but that's kinda why, especially with transaction lawyers, that's why you have us anyway for that just in case.

AE (14:33.33)
Yeah, do it again. Yeah. Yeah.

AE (14:43.102)
That's real. What is syndication? When I think of syndication, I'm thinking about radio and like the breakfast club and how they're syndicated in like every state. Is that, is it different? Like what is syndication?

NicTheLawyer (14:49.422)
Ha ha ha.

NicTheLawyer (14:55.244)
Yeah, so when I'm when I'm using the word syndication, I'm talking more about securities law. So my clients, the the typical use case clients, like, hey, I want to buy an apartment building. Most apartment buildings you that you see are not owned by one person. There might be a person who says they're the owner. They're really the manager. And then there's a lot of other people who have invested money into that as well. And so when you're taking other people's money and they're passive, typically that means you're selling a security. And so if you're selling a s security, you either have to register that, like go in public, or you have to find an exemption.

AE (15:00.308)
Mm.

NicTheLawyer (15:25.068)
And so I work with clients find exemption so they can do private offerings. They can raise capital from investors. The investors are passive. They take the money, they manage it, they invest it, they operate it, and then they split the returns with the investors.

AE (15:39.518)
So in the apartment example, selling those individual apartments counts as securities? I probably missed that. Why does an apartment make it security? Sorry, go ahead.

NicTheLawyer (15:49.006)
No.

NicTheLawyer (15:52.889)
This the apartment itself is not the security. Just I use apartment as an example because if you're buying they're buying apartment buildings. And so so even if they have the money, they're like, I don't want to spend all of my own five million dollars on this if they have it. instead let me, you know, diversify. I'll maybe put a million of my own in and then get four million from investors. So it it it doesn't necessarily have to be apartments. We've done, like I told you my first one was for a winery. I did one for a movie. They need to raise capital for a movie.

AE (15:55.452)
Right.

AE (15:59.839)
Bill, okay.

AE (16:05.588)
Right.

AE (16:11.824)
Yeah, OPM, yeah, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (16:20.608)
apartments is kind of the main one I do. some developers where they're just building homes, neighborhoods, commercial spaces. but anytime where you're saying, Hey, I need I need capital and I want to pool money multiple people together and pull this money and we're gonna split the profits, however, I've told you, that's what I mean by syndicate.

AE (16:23.089)
Okay.

AE (16:32.807)
Mmm.

AE (16:38.887)
Yeah.

So are you part of finding other investors? What part of the process do you step in? Are you just reviewing the contracts? What part of the process are you mainly operating in?

NicTheLawyer (16:53.398)
Yeah, so I'm I'm not finding the deals or the investors or anything like that. I when the the client comes to me, they say, Hey, I have a deal, I'm under contract, I need to close in 90 days, and I need four million dollars from people that I'm about to go ask. How can I do that lawfully and not get in trouble? And so as I mentioned before, if you're selling a security, you have to either register or have an exemption with real estate. There's not time to register. And it's also just very expensive, very expensive, very long process.

AE (16:56.432)
Yeah.

AE (17:09.671)
Mmmmm

NicTheLawyer (17:22.326)
And so instead I help them figure out, okay, which exemptions could can you can you fit? And then once we figure out which ones that you actually can comply with, which one is gonna be best to serve you in your deal. And then I make sure that you have the documentation, the filing and everything else to comply with that exemption.

AE (17:22.76)
Yeah.

AE (17:34.408)
Mmm.

AE (17:40.405)
Jeez, that's so far. So I'm sure this allows you where you don't have to work with like 15 clients. I'm sure like three clients is enough to give you a full workload and get a good payday or that's not the case. You tend to take on a lot more clients.

NicTheLawyer (18:00.067)
Well definitely I definitely want more than three clients and as many as they can. but yeah, it's kinda more like a a rolling basis. You know, I have a a roster of a couple hundred clients, but they're not all doing deals at the same time. So yeah, you know, a good if we're doing like if we have three or four clients in a just a month doing a syndication, we're firms doing great. And we have some months we're doing way more than that, so we're doing even better.

AE (18:02.404)
Yeah, that's real. Mmm.

Nice. Got you. Okay.

AE (18:19.86)
Mmm. Yeah.

AE (18:25.32)
Man, that's fire. So.

What is a typical day for you look like? Because you say you're also a professor. I've met you on TikTok. We won't get to TikTok. You're a content creator. You're doing all this indication. You're doing different businesses. What is a typical day for Nick the lawyer look like?

NicTheLawyer (18:47.084)
They they somewhat vary because when school's about to start back, so the summer's been great. It's been way more chill, but now school's about to start back. So it's about to get a little bit busier. but let's say it's a day that I have class. I typically do my classes in the morning. And so I typically I'll get up. if it's not a early early class, I might go for a walk or workout and then be on campus. usually I'm home by campus by by one at the latest. then have a little break and then

AE (18:49.426)
Mm.

AE (18:52.924)
Yeah. Yeah.

AE (19:00.862)
Nice.

AE (19:05.94)
Mm.

AE (19:11.375)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (19:14.102)
don't I don't think I don't take client meetings until like 2 30. So I have a little bit of time. And so depending on what's going on that day, I might have client meetings, whether it might be you know, a potential client or a client where we're working on the matter and they have questions. Wednesdays is the day I have no client meetings and I use that for my internal meetings. So I meet with my team members, I meet with, you know, my marketing person and the the meetings that I need are on Wednesday. and then it kind of just varies on what the workload is. thankfully.

AE (19:18.813)
Mmm.

AE (19:33.434)
Nice. Nice.

NicTheLawyer (19:43.949)
I've been doing the I've probably since I'd say 2020 is when I feel like I got into the real groove of the work and the firm. And and with that I was building out a lot of good systems as well. And so now it's set up to where my team can handle a lot of the work, which is makes my life so much better.

AE (19:49.684)
Mmm.

AE (19:54.888)
Yeah.

AE (20:02.376)
Man, systems has been like my keyword for the past two years. It clicked for me. Like, if I just need good systems in place where things just run without you having to be the bottleneck and you doing every little thing, it's so much weight off your shoulders. So when you find a good system, like finding gold, like, this works. I don't have to touch it. That's perfect. Is entrepreneurship all that it's cracked up to be? I feel like this has been like the age-old.

NicTheLawyer (20:06.21)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (20:14.797)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (20:18.798)
Yeah. Yeah.

AE (20:28.98)
question of debate, entrepreneurship versus working a nine to five, being an entrepreneur, you don't have any vacations, it's all on you, but you don't have a boss and yada, yada, yada. Like you've been doing this for a long time. Is entrepreneurship all propaganda or it is actually fire? What's your entrepreneurship take?

NicTheLawyer (20:48.066)
I will say it is not for everybody. I think that people hype it up like gotta be entrepreneur, gotta be entrepreneur. I'm like, I need employees too, you know. So, like, everybody don't need to be entrepreneur, and also with that, too, there's no shame in having a job or an employee. and sometimes people feel like that, and actually, it actually makes me think of a story. I actually had that. So when I started my firm, I was like 25, 26, and so that's one thing I don't let anybody ever tell you you can't do something, but I would not recommend that. And here's my main reason why.

AE (20:50.428)
Mmm.

Yeah. Right, Yeah.

AE (21:01.619)
Yeah.

AE (21:13.544)
I don't recommend it.

NicTheLawyer (21:16.972)
I'm looking at myself now, and a lot of my clients are my colleagues and peers. I'm 42. 42 year olds typically can afford a lawyer. 26-year-olds can't. So it was much harder starting out because again, a lot of my clients were my colleagues and peers, or sometimes they would get me to their bosses, which was more helpful. but yeah, very, very difficult. And so when I started the firm, I got lucked out and had one client like the first week that kind of helped me stay alive the first year.

AE (21:25.778)
Mmm.

Hmm.

AE (21:34.269)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (21:46.029)
but it still was kind of a constant struggle and not knowing, you know, what's gonna be there or not. And so I ended up also getting a job with a another more seasoned older solo practitioner to kind of have some steady work. And I remember when I did that, I felt like I was a failure. I was like, man, I'm supposed to be this entrepreneur and now I'm having to, you know, get this job and not being my own man and all that sort of stuff. And I still remember this. My cousin told me this because he was also on the entrepreneur entrepreneurial hustle.

AE (21:46.068)
Wow.

Yeah.

AE (21:52.179)
Hmm.

AE (22:00.088)
Mm-hmm.

AE (22:03.86)
Wow.

NicTheLawyer (22:15.926)
And he he was like, how's the business going? How's like he was asking me about it? And I was like, you know, I I had to get a job with this, you know, it's another attorney. I think he could see the kind of the feeling of failure in my in my face. And he was like, Listen, don't let anybody ever shame you for having a job. Like a job is you need it, everybody's gotta work somehow. So don't feel any shame for having a job. so yeah, I think entrepreneurship is great, but it's not for everybody, and that's perfectly okay.

AE (22:16.02)
Mm.

AE (22:38.42)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (22:45.28)
and even if you are an entrepreneur entrepreneur and you have to get a job at some point, that's okay as well. I didn't come, I don't know who told me this, but I like this quote is that for entrepreneurs, your W-2 is your first investor. You know, you gotta have money, you gotta have a job to start that venture, and that's or you gotta have money to start that venture, and usually that comes from a job. So don't ever let anybody shame you for having a job. Now, to the crux of your your question.

AE (22:45.779)
Yeah.

AE (22:51.859)
Yeah.

AE (23:03.058)
Yeah.

AE (23:07.016)
Yeah.

AE (23:10.58)
Thanks.

Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (23:13.624)
For me, entrepreneurship is the way. even and granted, I do have a W two, teaching is a W two, but even with that, I have so much autonomy. and maybe it's because I'm a control freak or I don't know. But I like I like the especially now that I've like you said, I have systems and I've kind of figured out, I like the hunt. I like the fact that I'm not unlimit or yeah, I'm not limited in, you know, my income. If I wanna, you know, turn some levers on marketing and hustling, I can

AE (23:16.369)
Yeah.

AE (23:23.038)
Mm-hmm. Hell no, it's real.

AE (23:32.5)
Mmm.

AE (23:40.382)
diversify, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (23:41.687)
ramp those numbers up if I want to. and then similarly, if I am like, you know, I'm kind of burned out. I don't feel like doing that much, I can turn it down a little bit. And thankfully I have systems in place. I told my team this this summer actually, I was like, listen guys, I'm burnt out. because normally with summer, I'll work a full 40 hours a week in the firm when I'm not teaching. but I was like, listen guys, the time that I have blocked out for school, I'm just not doing anything during that time. Or I'm doing what I want to. And so I like the entrepreneurship allows me to do that.

AE (23:43.988)
you

AE (23:50.676)
you

AE (23:59.895)
Mmm, yeah.

AE (24:05.741)
This man... Man!

That freedom is so enticing. I'm not going to hold you. I think that's what a lot of people are striving for is just like the freedom for your time back. people are trying to work to get their time back where it's like, you get to tell your team, I'm not coming today. A lot of people to the nine to five again, this is not the nine to five is like, unless you got PTO saved up, you got to show up to work. So I think that's, that's really, really dope. So speaking of your other ventures, the way I found you was on TikTok Nick, Nick, the lawyer.

NicTheLawyer (24:15.998)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (24:31.694)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (24:41.678)
Yeah.

AE (24:41.732)
and you're on TikTok breaking down Kavya, MTOR, business terms and terminology and other legal terms, what made you start a TikTok page?

NicTheLawyer (24:53.98)
one of my friends, she actually that friend, the the real estate person, good friend is actually it's her birthday today. Yeah. She was actually so yeah, she was so actually let me tell you so her name is Vina Jetty. I'm gonna drop her name because number one, it's actually randomly it's her birthday today. but also yeah, happy birthday, Vina. But also, when I talked about how I had a friend's boss that was my first client, that was her.

AE (24:59.848)
Yeah, she been setting you up. She been hooking you up. You gotta throw her a little bag.

Yeah. Wow. Happy birthday, Vina. Shout out

AE (25:19.646)
Two, one.

NicTheLawyer (25:20.044)
So I pressed publish on my website on a Monday. And she called me on a Wednesday and was like, Hey, you do real estate, don't you? And I'm like, Yeah. And she's like, Great, we just fired our attorney. I'm gonna have you come in and meet with my boss. And that was my first client that like kept me fed for the first year of doing it. And then fast forward five or six years, she left that company and did a couple moves and now was doing her own real estate deals. and she was that first syndication

AE (25:44.306)
Wow, that's crazy.

NicTheLawyer (25:48.193)
syndication deal that I the real estate one that I did. And then she's the one who told me she's like, listen, you gotta get on social media. You gotta, you know, promote yourself. You're doing good stuff. You have a lot of knowledge and people need to know this. and at first I was like, nah, cause like all my stuff was private. I was like, you were my actual friend, you didn't know nothing about me, wasn't seeing nothing. and it felt still kind of feels, but definitely felt very cringy at first. but I was just like, you know what? I'm trying to build this business and I gotta market some way. And this is kind of at least a

AE (25:59.891)
Hmm.

AE (26:05.776)
Yeah, yeah. Thanks.

NicTheLawyer (26:17.964)
dollar wise, this is the free way to do it. it takes some time, but it's doesn't cost dollars. and so yeah, it mainly is for marketing. But then now it kind of serves two purposes. It still helps marketing the firm, but then also it helps break down, I try to break down complex topics very simply. Obviously I'm not going deep in it's not for lawyers, it's for the the general public. And so it's helpful for my actual students as well. Cause we're talking about this stuff in class. And if I can give them, you know, like a two minute clip that's a you cliff note of it.

AE (26:20.627)
Yeah.

Yeah.

AE (26:36.702)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

AE (26:43.54)
Mmm.

Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (26:46.648)
That helps kinda bring it home as well.

AE (26:49.236)
That's so far. We try to hone in on the whole lawyer all the time, the importance of relationships. Even the last pod, I said, every step in this process of becoming a lawyer, it was because somebody helped me. Especially as lawyers were very type A and we want to think that we just do it on our own or even to the outside, because being a lawyer is so prestigious, it seems like, that guy's a go-getter.

NicTheLawyer (27:06.49)
Mm-hmm.

AE (27:19.316)
got out the mud and did it on his own. Like, no, man. Like even my first job out of college, it was an attorney in the office I was interning at. And she came to me and she was like, yo, a paralegal job just opened up, apply. And she helped me with my application, stuff like that. It's like, those are the moments that help you, that helps catapult your career. You just cannot do this alone. So shout out to Vina, man. That's amazing.

NicTheLawyer (27:40.919)
Yeah. Yeah. And so so you hit on something very important about relationships. And I I agree with you. I agree with you so much that I actually have the trademark of relationships first. That's my firm's tagline. Because when I was starting the firm, I was thinking about like how have I gotten here? What are the things that have like helped me get here? And you know, what do I want to foster? And I was like, relationships is what has got me here, hands down. That that tax insulting gig that was from a relationship with my law school classmate.

AE (27:52.444)
Whoa!

AE (28:05.31)
Man.

NicTheLawyer (28:09.89)
My first client that was from a relationship. And then also with my clients, I want to build relationships within. So yeah, I cannot emphasize the importance of relationships. So we say relationships first.

AE (28:10.664)
Man.

AE (28:18.356)
That's fine, man. That's a dope trademark. I'm surprised you got to it first. I feel like somebody would have had that trademark already.

NicTheLawyer (28:25.676)
Yeah, me too. Me too.

AE (28:29.47)
So I did also see that you do trademarks as well. Where do you have time to do that? How big of a business are you? How often do you do trademarks?

NicTheLawyer (28:39.166)
Not a ton. We might do maybe 20 a year. that started using myself as a guinea pig. some of the entrepreneurial ventures that me and one of my college friends were working on. that's one of the things that I really liked about entrepreneurship as well, that it let me actually practice as a lawyer, like get in deep because I'm like, if I mess something up, it's just me. I ain't gonna sue myself and it's we'll figure it out. so yeah, I started the first trademarks I did were for adventures of my own.

AE (28:47.732)
Mm.

AE (29:01.17)
Right, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (29:08.48)
And it's something we don't necessarily push a whole lot. we do well, we get a lot of trademarks in. I'm not gonna say I'm the absolute top expert, but it's something that you know clients started needing. And I was like, listen, we can do this. I've you know done a whole bunch of them. I have taken additional classes to like make sure I'm honing my skill and whatnot. so yeah, a lot of the stuff that we do has been influenced by what clients are need. And with that, we don't do everything clients need. There's some stuff where I'm just like, no.

AE (29:08.947)
Mmm.

AE (29:16.628)
Mm.

AE (29:27.038)
Mm-hmm.

AE (29:33.3)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (29:36.01)
I I could do it, I could figure it out, I don't want to. Especially now. I now I've been in the game for a bit. I'm like, yeah, I have I have a good I have a good you know, spread of services we offer and not really trying at least as of right now, not trying to offer a whole lot more, but that could change just.

AE (29:36.264)
We don't, not gonna touch it.

AE (29:53.205)
That's real. How do you handle failure in your business, especially as an entrepreneur? Like you said, if something goes wrong, it all lands on you. But as your firm gets bigger, I'm assuming that mistakes start to cost a little more if you make them. How do you handle, and everybody fails, how do you handle failure now with all your experience? Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (30:15.788)
Yeah, so I'm gonna re-emphasize what you just said. Everybody fails. Everybody fails a good amount. and that's what I tell my team too. I'm like, listen, you guys are gonna mess up. I've messed up plenty of times, you're gonna mess up a bunch of times. Our biggest thing is we don't we try our best not to do the same mistake twice. so with with me, I look at failure as just I try to look at it as an opportunity to learn. and we figure out, okay, how did this go wrong? What systems do we need to put in place so that doesn't this doesn't happen again? What training do I need to give?

AE (30:27.347)
Mm.

AE (30:31.495)
Yeah.

AE (30:37.076)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (30:44.268)
My team, so that we can make sure to avoid this, to avoid this. I tell my team this, and also even sometimes my students, I say, listen again, you're gonna mess up. At least in my experience, and I could be wrong with this, but I really think deadlines is really the only bell that you can't unring in law. Like missing deadlines is very hard to unring. But outside of that, it's gonna take you more time and might be annoying. But most other things you can usually fix.

AE (30:47.145)
Mm.

AE (31:03.922)
Yeah.

AE (31:10.29)
Yeah, no, that's real. So speaking, I want to go back to law school. We have a segment on the whole podcast called Bar Exam Horror Story. You're barred in California, which is one of the hardest bars in the country. Do you have any bar exam horror stories? Anything that went wrong before the test, while on the test, even after the test? Any horror stories?

NicTheLawyer (31:36.687)
not a crazy horror story, but a a heart stop stop moment for a a bit. So this for with a Washington bar. So I was born and raised in Washington State and then came to LA for law school. And I originally thought I was gonna go back to Washington and then I started enjoying the sun too much. And I was like, you what, I'm gonna stay down in LA for a little bit. I still thought I might eventually go back to to Washington, but after about two or three years after law school, I was like, yeah, if if I go back, it's I I'm not taking another bar. So if I go back.

AE (31:43.497)
Mm.

AE (31:46.92)
Okay.

Yeah.

AE (31:59.669)
Mm.

NicTheLawyer (32:05.974)
It's just gonna be, I'll be doing something else. because originally my plan was I'll take the California bar in the summer and then the Washington bar in February, and then I'll have them squared away. So I'd be good. I took the California bar and summer was horrible. Didn't like that experience at all. Thankfully I passed it first time, but just you know, the bar, just that two and a half months or whatever is just not a fun time. And so basically for us in California, we get our results like

AE (32:07.732)
Yeah.

AE (32:16.86)
Mmm.

AE (32:28.732)
Yeah. Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (32:34.146)
mid November, at least back then anyway. And so got the revolts results passed, thankfully. and then I would have had to start studying like two weeks later for the Washington bar. And I was like, nah, I need a break. And so then May comes around. So I'm like a year out of law school now. Where and now I should start studying for Washington for the July one. And I'm like, nah, still don't wanna do it. And so then the next December comes around, my grandma, I'm talking with my grandma

AE (32:36.564)
Mm.

AE (32:44.436)
Mmmmm

AE (32:53.086)
July. Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (32:59.648)
And she's like, Yeah, so when are you gonna take the bar? You need to take that so that when you when you move back here, you'll be able to get a job. And at the I had kind of decided I was like, Yeah, I'm not moving back, but didn't want to break grandma's heart. And so I was like, Well, you know, grandma, it's really expensive. And you know, I just started the firm, I just can't afford it right now. so I can't take and I thought that's gonna be my little white light to get out of taking the other bar exam. And she was just like, well, just let me and grandpa know how much it is, we'll write you a check for it. So

AE (33:05.118)
Jeez.

AE (33:11.813)
Right.

AE (33:18.452)
you

Yeah.

AE (33:27.028)
lord, no excuse.

NicTheLawyer (33:27.628)
It's a blessing, but also got hustled in to the Washington bar. But definitely, definitely for sure a blessing for sure. And so I I didn't study as hard for that one because the stakes weren't as high. Oddly enough though, that two and a half months that I had spent, like a year and a half before, a lot of that stuff was still in there. and so I didn't study as much, but I studied, I felt comfortable.

AE (33:32.35)
No whiskey's. man.

AE (33:39.806)
Hmm. Right.

NicTheLawyer (33:52.853)
And so I fly up to Washington, getting going to take the exam. It's snowing, so I gotta and it's like an hour away from where from my grandma's house. So as I had to get up at like five in the morning to get there extra early. And in the California bar, you basically for the essays, you have three hours to write three essays and you gotta just knowledge vomit. You gotta get everything in there that you can, as much as you can. So you're just typing in, typing and typing and going as much as you can.

AE (34:02.036)
Mm.

Jeez.

AE (34:15.4)
Mm-hmm

NicTheLawyer (34:21.154)
For the Washington bar, I read that there was I didn't realize it. I read that there was a 10,000 character limit, but in my mind, that was 10,000 it was 10,000 word limit. And so I'm typing on the exam and going do what'd you say?

AE (34:34.452)
Sorry, give me one.

AE (34:39.08)
So you hear me? Yeah, give me one second. My camera just cut off for some reason.

NicTheLawyer (34:43.512)
Okay.

AE (35:24.882)
All right, sorry about that. You go ahead.

NicTheLawyer (35:30.038)
All right. So yeah, so the California bar, you gotta get as much out in that three hours as you can. I read Washington Bar had a 10,000 character limit. In my mind, that was 10,000 words. Now 10,000 words, that's like a couple of pages. So again, yeah, I'm thinking mad typing. So I get on the first essay and you know, spot the issue, start typing out the rule, and I and I had like or I'd outlined it. And so I had like maybe like a couple of issues and the rules and all that sort of stuff.

AE (35:46.258)
You

AE (35:52.635)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (36:00.193)
And I I think I had like maybe like eight or nine issues that I had to address. And so I'm on issue number one, going through my IRAC, and my computer's not typing anymore. And I'm like, my gosh, am I gonna have to write this? Like, no. And then I look and I can see it's 10,000 characters that I had already hit on the first the first issue. And so I was like, this is way more service. So it really is like issue, one sentence, rule, one sentence, analysis, two or three sentences, conclusion, we're done on the net.

AE (36:27.716)
Right, let's get in and out in and out. Yeah

NicTheLawyer (36:30.688)
And so for yeah, I had a moment I was like, Man, am I gonna have to write this? What's going on? So that was like my little heart drop moment. didn't have n thankfully didn't have anything too crazy.

AE (36:34.866)
You

Duh.

man, no, that's real. Yeah, I was about to say it's hard, but you already passed the bar. So you're, you're just like relieved like, to get back into bar mode. Like you said, I don't feel like I need to have it. It's hard to jump back in there. That's tough. That's tough.

NicTheLawyer (36:47.554)
Yeah. Yeah.

'Cause I will say that fear was a big motivator for the first one. Like I did all this work, I have all this debt, I have to pass.

AE (36:59.361)
Mm, right, right.

Right, right. No, man, that's fine. And then so you also went to law school at Pepperdine. How was it going to law school at Pepperdine in California? Pepperdine is like right near the water too, right? If I'm not mistaken. How were you able to focus? How does one focus in Malibu at the beach in law school?

NicTheLawyer (37:15.37)
Malibu, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As as as crazy it is, I was like literally looking out over the beach every day afterward, but probably went to the beach 10 times that year, maybe. but I liked it a lot, you know. It was a great community that I felt there. some of my other friends they were at different schools, like we didn't have the competitiveness. You had like

AE (37:30.32)
Bye.

AE (37:37.052)
Hmm.

NicTheLawyer (37:41.901)
The the top ten people of the class, they were competitive, but everybody else was like super collaborative. I really got to know my professors very well. I remember first year one of them was like, Hey, a lot of you got from out of town. If it's Thanksgiving, if you don't have family to go to, you're welcome to come. But you've got spouses, kids, significant others, just let me know so we have enough people or enough food for everybody. so I think I've been either to dinner with all my professors first year or to their houses for dinner multiple times.

AE (37:44.995)
Mm-hmm.

AE (37:57.948)
Bye.

NicTheLawyer (38:11.126)
And so I felt really cared for at Pepperdine. I I really did have a good, good time, or as good as a time that you could have in law school.

AE (38:11.698)
this way.

AE (38:18.002)
Yeah, man, that's amazing. That's probably a good foundation for why you are so relationship focused. Like you are seeing firsthand building those relationships and them reaching out to do that stuff. And so speaking of professors, what made you want to become a professor? You said you liked teaching when you first went to law school. What made you say, along with everything I got going on, I want to also become a professor as well?

NicTheLawyer (38:25.368)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (38:29.57)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (38:46.144)
Yeah, I liked I think in college, a lot of friends when I when we'd have study groups and stuff, they'd be you have you're really good at like helping this information stick. So I I don't know exactly what it is, but I had a good way of digesting information and then being able to convey it in a way that helped people. so people told me that a lot in college and I had done like some student teaching and stuff, or like TA ing for college classes. I was like, I really like this. also liked the the idea of the professor work life kind of, you know.

AE (38:55.195)
Mm-hmm.

AE (39:02.29)
Hmm.

AE (39:09.074)
No, I don't.

NicTheLawyer (39:15.444)
And but I again I liked the legal subject that I had taken recent college. I was like, I like how this is challenging me. And so I was like, yeah, I want to learn this law school is gonna be a challenge and it's a you know good thing to do. but also I think I want to be a professor. And so this is actually one of my I don't even know where the people are at anymore, but in my mind, I'm like, ha ha, I told you. So I get to get to law school. This is actually one of the bad experiences that I had at Pepper Dog. I go meet with the career counselor people.

AE (39:16.305)
Mm-hmm.

AE (39:36.345)
Yeah

AE (39:40.815)
Wow.

NicTheLawyer (39:44.559)
And they're like, So what do you want to do? And I was like, Well, you know, I want to be a professor. And they're like, Well, you should have gone to Harvard or Princeton because you're not gonna be professor unless you're like number one in the class. So what else do you want to do? And they kinda dismissed it and I was like, All right, yeah. Grant now, to I won't even say to my credit, but I guess I don't wanna take revenge on them, but they did get fired that year. They got they got let go, yeah.

AE (39:56.443)
What?

Really? Jeez.

AE (40:08.242)
Wow, you wonder why there's probably tearing on a bunch of students

NicTheLawyer (40:12.97)
I'm like, how you gonna tell somebody no? Yeah. You're the career person, I'm gonna just tell me no. but I

AE (40:17.294)
Exactly. They just had a string of lost to this walk out their office crying like what's going on? Why do they keep leaving your office sad?

NicTheLawyer (40:25.246)
Yeah. But but I did kind of take what they said, you know. And so when they said that, I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna be like I'm gonna practice for a long time, and then maybe on the edge of my career after I've had like 20 years of experience, I might be an adjunct or something like that. fast forward, I when you're talking about like must you know how to deal with mistakes, or this is more of a setback.

AE (40:32.485)
Yeah.

AE (40:41.968)
Yeah.

AE (40:48.626)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (40:50.156)
But again, I always say one, the mistakes are learning opportunities. And then the setbacks, we don't know that they're necessarily setbacks. because I can tell you the setbacks for me set me up to be where I wanted to be. So not having a job made me start the firm sooner. Starting the firm let me get that first real estate client. That first real estate client had a lot of tax issues, and that was one of the areas where I was afraid. I was like, I don't want to touch this.

AE (41:04.498)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (41:18.854)
and so I was referring out a lot of businesses. I was like, man, that's a lot of money that's going out that that's literally my client. And so that's what made me get my LLM in taxation. And then probably five years out of practicing, I was like, you know, going through and I was like, if I had to do this the rest of my life, it's cool, but I'm not waking up excited. Like, and so I was like, What else have you wanted to do? I was like, I like the law, but what else could I do with my legal education? And it's like, teaching, that's what you first got into this for.

And so I set up a a a job alert on some edge tea like professor website or whatever, and saw one that basically was looking for somebody with a law degree and a tax background to be an adjunct professional. And I like, perfect. And so they were looking, or actually, no, they were looking for a full-time. they I went in, I interviewed like three or four times, did a teaching demo with all the staff, met with the president.

AE (42:05.867)
NicTheLawyer (42:15.63)
And they ultimately were like, you know, we love you, we love what's going on, but you just don't have a lot of college teaching experience. I TA'd for like two classes. So they're like, we'll have you on as an adjunct, and then let's, you know, we'll we'll give you a couple of classes under your belt, and then we can revisit maybe looking at full-time tenured next year. And so those setbacks are what made me make the decisions that set me up to be the perfect candidate for that job.

AE (42:34.876)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (42:43.052)
And while I'm not teaching at that school, that teaching at that school, I developed the business law curriculum for their masters of accounting program, for the MBA program, also taught at their undergraduate level. And so all of that experience for the school that I'm at now, they're like, you've done curriculum, you've done this, you've done that. And so that all those setbacks made me take the steps that I needed to, that I didn't know I needed to, but set me up in the position to be where I ultimately wanted to be.

AE (42:43.495)
Wow.

AE (43:06.257)
Mmm.

AE (43:10.299)
Man, that's amazing. And I know that's going to bless somebody because I feel like, especially when you start your legal career, a lot of people have this picture perfect idea of what their legal career is going to look like even before they even start law school. And I try to encourage people to not hold on so tightly to their plans. Like we make plans and God laughs. And it may not come from like a different path, but it can come from a

NicTheLawyer (43:25.848)
Mm-hmm.

AE (43:39.186)
career services person being negative and shooting you down and taking you off your square for a bit and make you forget what you really are about. And you can have this grand idea of like, want to become a professor and somebody says one thing and it throws you off. And I'm glad you found your way back because I don't like the negative. I don't like that negative aspect, especially so for me.

NicTheLawyer (43:41.938)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (43:55.214)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

AE (44:04.24)
I wanted to become, I want to work for the DOJ. And when you go to these different interest meetings, they say similar things. They're like, they only take from Harvard. They only take from Yale. Like they don't really take from a non top 10 on a non ranked school. And that threw me off my square. Like the first time I applied, I didn't even finish the application. Cause I was like, nah, they're going to take me. I'm just wasting my time. And then I applied the next year and I got in. it's those little...

NicTheLawyer (44:29.514)
Yep.

AE (44:31.986)
foxes or those little ideas that people plant in your head can be very damaging. And it's so crazy how that how one conversation can just deter you so much. So I'm glad you found your way back. That's that's amazing, Yeah. So you teach you do all these different things. I want to get back to to TikTok. And I do see a lot of lawyers becoming creators now.

NicTheLawyer (44:37.102)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (44:44.972)
Yeah, me too.

AE (45:00.914)
Including myself. What do you think becoming a content creator has taught you? And how has being a lawyer helped you with content creator, if anything? Any transferable skills?

NicTheLawyer (45:14.414)
I don't know there's a whole lot of because I mean obviously I'm talking about law, so that's gonna chapter, but I'd say that one thing it's taught me is that like just the consistency, like I'm not a big content creator, and also I'm not necessarily trying to, I do it for marketing. But you also you'll sometimes you'll put a whole lot of thought into a video and you're like 10 people liked it. That's it. And then it's just like, yeah, but I'm not doing it for the likes. I'm doing for me, especially I do it for one for marketing, but then two

AE (45:19.256)
Yeah,

AE (45:25.243)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AE (45:33.486)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

AE (45:40.902)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (45:41.431)
I think that the law is so powerful. I think everybody should have a base understanding of the law. And I'm a little biased. I think everybody should take, I teach like an intro to business law class and we cover kind of the basics of a general law and then focus on business law. And I'm like, everybody should take this class because it just teaches you how to navigate the world so much better. And so for me, my goal is one, just having some eyes on having keeping top of mind for clients so that when they have a need, they're like, yeah, Nick. but then the other one is just.

AE (45:51.26)
Yeah.

AE (45:59.366)
Yeah.

AE (46:09.938)
you

NicTheLawyer (46:10.508)
Giving this knowledge to people and letting them know so they can navigate their situations better. And you know, a lot of times people aren't liking it, ain't commenting it, ain't doing anything. But then there's some times where somebody's like, Man, that helped me so much. Like I didn't even know what to what words to use to like research or whatever. So thank you for that. And so those moments, I'm like, yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing it for. So this is not quite your question, but I think for me, just keeping in mind of why am I actually doing it? Cause yeah, it's cool to be like a content creator and get brand deals and all that sort of stuff.

AE (46:22.285)
Yeah

AE (46:32.657)
No.

NicTheLawyer (46:39.552)
And again, that would be awesome, but that's not what my, you know, goal ultimately is for this. So keeping that in mind.

AE (46:43.908)
Right, right. Yeah. Just to give information. Yeah, right. Same. And that's what keeps you going too, like seeing the responses and the replies. I had an interview or episode with somebody who went to law school at 50 years old and graduated in like his 60s. No, sorry, graduated in his 60s and went to law school in the 60s. And it blessed so many people. The amount of people who are thinking of going to law school in their 50s and 60s.

And you just wouldn't have known, but it's like, there's a whole community of people out there. Obviously, when you think about it, yeah, there's people who had full lives and full careers who've always wanted to become a lawyer, but for whatever reason never did it. So seeing moments like that where it impacts people's lives, just, it's amazing. Even though like, yeah, I agree. You get the 10 likes, you get the 200 views like, yeah, I thought this was fire. Like I thought this was, I thought this was amazing. Yo. So, that's why I just want to ask you, I always like to like,

NicTheLawyer (47:31.563)
Yeah.

AE (47:40.056)
ask teachers and professors, how is the next generation doing? Are we in good hands, Professor Nick?

NicTheLawyer (47:50.371)
Man, so one, I'll give the copy, I teach at the undergraduate level. So I'm we're not dealing with lost school students. But yeah, I was telling my wife, I was like, man, I I I hope that I'm I hope that I'm not cut becoming jaded. Cause like now I'm to the point, because one, I've I've been teaching for a long time. So I'm used I know the questions that a lot of them are gonna ask. And so I have a very thorough syllabus and a very thorough like announcement. And I like talk over all the stuff the first day. So I'm like, I've given you all the resources.

AE (47:54.394)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

AE (48:07.282)
Mm.

AE (48:12.081)
Mm-hmm.

AE (48:16.722)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (48:18.732)
And I was telling her, I was like, am I like jaded or am I bad? I feel like on one hand, I don't want to be like pushing them off. But on the other hand, I I'm like, if I'm giving you all these resources and you ask me a question, like I I wanna say, have you have you read the syllabus? Because it's in there in bold what you're talking about. But I'm also gotta be the professor and kind of help you. But at the same time, if you're at a job and they give you a manual and then you ask them the questions that are in the manual, you're probably not gonna have that job that too long. so

AE (48:25.841)
Yeah.

AE (48:34.854)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

AE (48:46.618)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (48:48.662)
I'm seeing a lot more of that, but then but that's not everybody. I still have some amazing, bright students as well. I have every term I'll have a student that I'm like, hey, whatever you want to do, like I wanna write your letter recommendation. So we have some work to do at the general sense, but we we're gonna have some that are keeping us strong as well.

AE (48:52.305)
Yeah.

Yeah.

AE (49:01.99)
Yeah

AE (49:07.931)
Yeah, no, that's real. know Gen Z and Generation Alpha has been getting a lot of slack in the sector media and it's the realm of like, being called lazy and they don't want to work as hard, yada, yada, yada. And I always say it comes from a good place. I feel like they've seen the generations before and a lot of them want to buy houses and with everything going on with inflation, everything being so expensive, it feels like they're like, what's the point? What's the point of going hard like everybody else?

NicTheLawyer (49:36.108)
Get that, yeah.

AE (49:37.234)
And there's nothing else. My parents have been working at the same company for how many years and they're still living paycheck to paycheck. It's hard for them to be motivated. So yeah, I always like to check in on the generation behind us to make sure everything is good. So it says here that you helped raise capital with in some of the $2.5 billion in assets.

How does it feel to touch $2.5 billion? What does that feel like?

NicTheLawyer (50:08.536)
Feels cool. And actually I'll say I didn't update it. It's actually at about two point nine now. So we're pushing three. Yeah. Yeah, it it it's cool, you know, because like again, thinking back, you know, sixteen years ago when I started the firm, like never would have thought anything like that, you know. So it's just cool. And I guess that's one thing I'd say to people too, is that things take time. Things just take time.

AE (50:12.887)
What? Okay. Yeah, we gonna round up to three. Three billion. How is that?

AE (50:29.052)
Jeez.

AE (50:36.016)
Hmm.

NicTheLawyer (50:36.944)
one one thing that my mentor told me is they said, think of the things today that are just your everyday life that you dreamed about a decade ago. And I was like, Wow, that is like a good way to think of things. Cause like if I'm thinking back to like when I started my firm, you know, I'm just trying to, can I get enough money to pay my portion of the rent with my roommate? and then it progressed to like, you know, can I, you know, have my own plate, have my own apartment? And then will I be able to buy my place? And now I've got employees and I'm like, now I'm like.

AE (50:57.094)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (51:05.336)
helping multiple families pay their rent or their mortgage or what have you. And all that it wasn't nothing extra special by by me. Yeah, I had to work hard at it. But more than anything, it was the time, just continually progressing every day and and the time of of that cons consistency.

AE (51:08.754)
Wow.

AE (51:16.839)
you

AE (51:22.414)
Man, that's so good. Things take time. It's so true. It's, again, especially being young in this profession still, there's a lot of days where I feel like you want the ultimate goal right now, or you want more right now. And like you said, it's like, bro, I remember being, becoming a lawyer was the mountain top. Like I didn't, it's a big right. Like I didn't plan anything after becoming a lawyer low key. Like the goal was just to become a lawyer.

NicTheLawyer (51:36.738)
Right.

NicTheLawyer (51:42.882)
Yeah, that's amazing.

AE (51:51.536)
And I really did want to do litigation. I was like, once I become a lawyer, I can litigate and then I'll be it. And then you get to the mountaintop, you're like, all right, time for a new value. The constant cycle of always wanting more, always wanting more. But no, that's real. You got to be present. You got to be present and appreciate what you have in the moment. That's so real. Yeah. Dang, I wanted to ask you something you said.

NicTheLawyer (51:59.503)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (52:12.898)
Yeah.

AE (52:22.162)
Yes, so what I asked in the onboarding forum was one thing people misunderstand about your profession or industry. And he said, clients occasionally think that we are magic. While I am a magician in the artistic sense, sometimes the facts cannot lend themselves to an amazing outcome. But our job is to make the outcome as good as it could be, which is still bad or far less desirable sometimes.

NicTheLawyer (52:49.964)
Yeah.

AE (52:50.354)
Explain that process of a client coming in and wanting magic to happen. You gotta let them know like, listen, you really gonna make this one, much less get some magic out of this one.

NicTheLawyer (53:02.7)
Yeah, you know, I've had some some clients that they'll come and they're like, I want to do this and want to do that. And I'm like, Well, here's the regulation you gotta follow with this and you gotta do this. And so you're not gonna be able do all those. And they're like, But but you're the lawyer, like make it happen. And I'm like, that's not how it works. Like, I'm here to advise you on what you can do and keep you within the lines. If you want to just do it, like don't talk to a lawyer and just be violating the law. That's what you want to do. But yeah, sometimes, you know, people because I think lawyers are heralded, and I think appropriately so.

AE (53:10.56)
Mm-hmm

AE (53:16.883)
I'm gonna break the law, yeah.

Yeah!

AE (53:26.034)
Right.

NicTheLawyer (53:32.763)
and we are able to help people a lot, and sometimes helping people in their worst times or their best times. but we're not magic. And so sometimes as you learn in law school, the facts are what they are. And you know, if you've got bad facts, you can try to, you know, do some things to make it a little bit better, but if the facts are not on your side, then you know the outcome probably is not gonna be what you want. but people don't always understand that. They think, but you're a lawyer, you guys can do anything. And I'm like,

AE (53:35.957)
Mm-hmm.

AE (53:44.955)
Yeah.

AE (53:55.494)
Yeah.

AE (53:59.442)
I'm doing it, nah. And so speaking of making magic, how did you become a magician? How does one enter the world of magic?

NicTheLawyer (54:03.166)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (54:10.57)
Yeah, so in LA there's a or Hollywood technically, there's a thing called the Magic Castle. And I had heard about that. I moved to LA, it's actually 20 years now. I moved to LA in 2006 and I had heard about this magic castle and you can only be go there if you're invited by a magician. And so I had been in LA for like a decade and had heard about it, but never knew anybody or had a connection close. And then there was I think it was twenty seventeen, I think. I had one friend that like

AE (54:14.374)
Yeah, yeah, part of it.

AE (54:38.492)
Mm-hmm.

NicTheLawyer (54:40.198)
won a couple of passes through like work or something. And then I had another friend that had passes. And then so I went twice that year. And I was like, this is so cool. This is awesome. And then the next year, the girl that I was dating, one of her colleagues, was actually a magician at the Magic Castle. And so got to go with him a couple of times. And I just every time I was just fascinated and like loved it. Cause also especially my logical mind is like, this is not logic. How's this working? Yeah.

AE (54:54.226)
Mm-hmm.

AE (55:03.858)
Hmm.

How's it work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (55:09.312)
And so that year for my birthday, she got me a magic lesson with one of the people that teach at the Magic Castle. And in the Uber ride to dinner after the lesson, I'm like ordering books on Amazon and like just liked it. And then once I started studying it and learning more, I'm like, okay, now I actually know what it is. And I thought I was like, is this gonna ruin magic for me? But it still doesn't. Now I typically know what they're doing, or at least I'm like, I have a way that I could do that.

AE (55:16.915)
Mmm.

AE (55:24.092)
Hmm.

AE (55:32.018)
Mmm.

NicTheLawyer (55:37.315)
But I still can appreciate the art. Cause sometimes I like, I'm like, I know how to do that, but if I did it, you would see it all, or other things. So I still like it a lot because now I can really appreciate the artistry. It's not so much the mystery of how they did it. There are still some things that I may not always know. but more so I'm like, man, that was so smooth how they did that. so I still like watching magic a lot. And and also I'm not an amazing magician by any means. I do do a little bit, but I'm still learning.

AE (55:43.442)
All

AE (55:56.05)
Mmm.

AE (56:03.442)
That's so interesting. So what is the art of magic? Because I watched a video. I don't know why I watched it. It was a five hour video of this guy debunking Oz Perlman, the mentalist. Yeah. And he was explaining that the reason why he was saying Oz is a fraud, think, and I'm going to butcher the explanation, but he was saying he was a fraud because I'm forgetting the term of it. It's the same term they use in wrestling.

NicTheLawyer (56:14.709)
Mm. He's a mentalist, yeah.

AE (56:31.868)
Whereas like you're buying in to this world and you know it's not real, but the audience and the magician or the mentalist has an agreement of what this is. And he was saying Oz crosses the line because he takes it past that and really claims to be this thing and has these powers. So is there like a line or when it comes to magic, is there, what's the art of it?

What is going too far? I don't know if it's clear question or not.

NicTheLawyer (57:04.014)
No, no, I get you're going. So yeah, I think part of what and I don't have this critique of Osperman, but I think part of I've I've seen like a clip of that of somebody saying that. I think part of it is that they're basically saying that he has plants that are kind of trying to like talking to you while you're in line or something and learning information. So it's not really you know, mentalism. But for me I'm Yeah.

AE (57:11.089)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

AE (57:23.216)
Yeah. And he uses like a notebook, like a computerized notebook that transfers to his phone and he can see it. Yeah. All that stuff. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

NicTheLawyer (57:31.786)
I I don't take any issue with that because at the end of the day, end of the day, I'm like, it's not real. It's not real. So we're doing something, right? We're doing something that's sneaky and not technically truthful. so I don't have an issue with that. I think more and I guess to what I'd say part of the art is like keeping that a secret, whatever the thing you're doing is, keeping it secret and and doing it in a way that people are not readily gonna think about it. And

AE (57:39.631)
Yeah, yeah.

AE (57:43.162)
Yeah. Yeah.

AE (57:52.082)
Mmmmm

NicTheLawyer (57:59.577)
Kind of what I kind of one of the things I like about magic too is that you are you're trying to figure out what are people gonna think or look at or see beforehand. And the the magic that I like the best is you you do the trick or you do you do whatever you're doing, and then you're like, you think I'm doing this, don't you? Well, let me do it without. Let me show you that what you're thinking cannot be true. And then, you think I'm probably doing it this way as well. Well, let's do this. See what you think there also cannot be true.

AE (58:07.602)
you

AE (58:16.274)
Mm.

AE (58:20.624)
Mm, yeah. Right.

NicTheLawyer (58:28.258)
And so eventually they're like, Yeah, I guess it's just magic.

AE (58:28.785)
Yeah.

Man, that's fire. Yeah, yeah, Your parties must be less. Your better breakfast gonna be like, we gonna have magic, we gonna have food, we gonna have a whole lot of going on. That's fire. I love that. Give the audience a networking gym. What's a good networking gym? What's a little networking tactic you use to help build relationships even now 16 years in?

NicTheLawyer (58:56.248)
So I'll I'm I'm actually a bit of an introvert, introvert. So I'm not the greatest networker, but I understand. I mean, I'm good when I'm talking to people. I'm not a good icebreaker. That's more so what I'd I should say. I'm not a great icebreaker. once the ice is broken, I'm very personable and can talk with you and everything, but not a good icebreaker. And so for me, when I have the opportunity, especially if I'm a place, if I know who's gonna be there or what have you, and if I know somebody, I'm gonna stay next to the person that I know is just gonna talk to everybody so that they can break the ice and then I get in there.

AE (59:00.594)
Mmm. Mmm.

AE (59:07.782)
Yeah,

AE (59:20.85)
Mm.

Yeah Yeah So so your tactic is find a friend who's outgoing and Live by currency through them and find a way to make connections. That's real Yeah

NicTheLawyer (59:32.352)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (59:37.356)
Yeah. And I I think one of the important things with that more so is just understanding, you know, you you may not be great or amazing at everything, understand what your weaknesses are and figure out the tools to overcome those weaknesses.

AE (59:45.883)
Yeah

Yeah, that's real. Would you say it's easier to meet people and do that in LA? Like, how is practicing and being a lawyer in LA?

NicTheLawyer (59:59.319)
I mean, I I haven't done it anywhere else. I don't know how it's any different. yeah, it doesn't I I feel like I don't know, I guess in personally, I feel like there's probably a lot more L lawyers in LA that could just be my own biased thinking, but for some reason I feel like there's just a ton of lawyers in LA. but yeah, it's I I the one thing I like about it is that for the stuff that I don't do or don't handle or don't want to do, I have a pretty good roster of people that I can refer.

AE (01:00:02.738)
Choo choo choo choo.

AE (01:00:14.139)
Nah.

AE (01:00:26.939)
Mm-hmm

NicTheLawyer (01:00:27.65)
Which is great for my clients 'cause clients with other business clients, you know, they need the help. Even if I can't give it to them, I wanna make sure they have it. So it's it's great that I have a a solid roster of people to refer when it's stuff that's outside of what I do.

AE (01:00:36.081)
Yeah.

AE (01:00:40.39)
No, that's real. It makes sense. You even practice anywhere else. So I practice in DC, and then I'm now practicing in Tucson. So I'm seeing the night and day. And obviously, there's amazing attorneys out here. But in terms of the opportunities to meet different lawyers and meet different people in DC, I'm sure it's similar to LA, where it's like you throw a rock and you hit a lawyer. There's always something going on. There's always events happening. you're not feeling like there's an abundance.

NicTheLawyer (01:01:02.018)
Yeah.

AE (01:01:09.683)
of opportunity to meet. And I'm sure that the same thing can be true about LA. And like I said, I was in LA last week. It was my first time there. And I was like, is, LA is fire, man. Like just the culture, every block looks different. Like the architecture is amazing. The weather was dope and the food, I almost shed a tear eating some of that food, man. Like it was so good. Again, I don't know, is what I got to spots like that, say through a Miami, I'm like,

NicTheLawyer (01:01:19.744)
It's it's it's great.

AE (01:01:36.742)
There's no way I'm getting work done here. There's no way I'll focus in here.

NicTheLawyer (01:01:41.812)
Or or you're more focused so you can get out and enjoy all that. Yeah.

AE (01:01:45.996)
True. True. You got to earn it. You got to earn LA. Yeah. You got to earn it. That's real. All right. So you had this practice for 16 years. Where do you see poly... I'm sorry. I'm going to get it wrong. Where do you see polymath legal in the next 16 years? Where do you want to take your firm?

NicTheLawyer (01:02:07.374)
just more growth. yeah, definitely 16 years from now, I really want to just probably just be the CEO and probably not really not at least doing major practicing of law, advising, guiding, but more so just overseeing the business. and just going right now, I'm the only attorney. I've had attorneys in the past. that was part of that that kind of burnout that I talked about. And that was like when I told my team in the summer, I was like, I'm not doing anything. I had a I was super staffed up maybe like two years ago.

AE (01:02:14.588)
Mmm. Mmm.

AE (01:02:21.968)
Yeah.

AE (01:02:29.732)
Mm-hmm. Yay!

NicTheLawyer (01:02:35.968)
And then it was just like a I just like, man, it's a constant grind 'cause I got, you know, five or six different real salaries to make sure that I'm paying. And so slowly have wound it down. Also realized that I had just a lot more expenses than I needed. And so I like it right now. We're like really lean right now, but it's great because I'm like, I got I got married in like a month ago. And so the summer thank you.

AE (01:02:36.37)
Mmm.

AE (01:02:44.24)
Yeah.

AE (01:02:51.602)
you

Mm-hmm.

AE (01:02:59.492)
Yo, congrats. That's amazing. That's amazing. Congrats.

NicTheLawyer (01:03:02.732)
And so so part of the burnout I was like, yeah, I'm tired this summer, but also I'm planning a wedding and then have a a honeymoon. And so I really have not worked a ton this summer, but the firm's still going, still making money and still getting the client stuff out and good and everything. And so right now I'm kind of enjoying the the slower pace. but had a good good trip on the honeymoon and I hit the team. I was like, okay, I think I'm back ready to start building again. So get ready. But yeah, it's been nice and lull for the last like three or four months, not like sleepy, but just

AE (01:03:07.26)
Right.

AE (01:03:11.058)
Good. Yay.

AE (01:03:20.882)
Mmm.

AE (01:03:27.804)
Man.

NicTheLawyer (01:03:32.162)
purposefully a little bit slower. and I'm enjoyed that. but I think I'm ready to start building it a little bit more again.

AE (01:03:39.654)
Man, that's fire. That's a blessing to be able to do. And so let's say there's a law student right now and he wants to be like Nick or she, he or she wants to be like Nick, the lawyer. they see what you've built. What's something that they can do right now in law school? They're choosing their classes.

NicTheLawyer (01:03:42.371)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (01:03:49.143)
Or she

AE (01:04:06.67)
Not something they can do, but if it's a mindset they need to have or something they could do, what do you think they can do right now to start building towards?

NicTheLawyer (01:04:17.064)
going back to what we're talking about, build those relationships in law schools because I still get referrals from law school classmates, and I'm 20 year or I guess 17 years out of the game, whatever, and still getting referrals from law school students. So that's one. And also, we're talking about that first job was from a referral from a law student. So yeah, build those relationships. I'd say have an idea of what you want to do, but don't be necessarily married to that idea and specifically not married to the past.

AE (01:04:27.398)
Yeah.

Man.

AE (01:04:34.726)
Yeah.

AE (01:04:44.924)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (01:04:46.496)
Of getting to that because for myself, kind of as I've talked about, the path getting to the goal that I wanted was not anywhere near what I thought it would be. And that's kind of story for a lot of my friends, not all of them, but for a lot of my friends. So have a have a you know, a destination where you want to go. but I would say don't necessarily have a specific path. Have ideas of the paths to get there because I don't want you wandering aimlessly, but know that that path, that plan might get changed, and that's okay.

AE (01:04:48.432)
Hmm.

AE (01:04:55.474)
Hmm.

AE (01:05:07.729)
Mm-hmm.

AE (01:05:13.894)
Yeah, man, so good. life can happen. Life can happen. And if you hold so tight onto it, you don't want to keep dealing with the disappointment. If you're so tied to this specific outcome, when it doesn't happen, you're going feel like the world's about to end. And it's not. So try to, try to. Man, Nick, thank you for being on the podcast. It's the perfect way to close this out. You could find Nick the Lawyer on all social media.

NicTheLawyer (01:05:17.375)
Uh-huh.

NicTheLawyer (01:05:21.827)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (01:05:29.154)
Yeah. Yeah, it's not.

NicTheLawyer (01:05:37.708)
Yeah.

AE (01:05:43.94)
Nick, lawyer, his law firm website is polymathlegal.com. If you want to get into syndication, trademark, my guy does it all in the California. All of California? Or just LA? It doesn't matter? Yeah, because the grandparents said you got to practice in Washington. he also barred in Washington.

NicTheLawyer (01:05:53.246)
Yeah.

NicTheLawyer (01:06:00.664)
I got clients yeah all across the state and also Washington as well. I'm licensed in Washington also, so do some stuff there. Yes.

AE (01:06:13.892)
He also does a free monthly webinar typically on business law topics at nixlawlessons.com. Nick, thank you for being on. Thank you for all you do, man. The information that you share, the work that you're doing is impacting a lot of people's lives. So I appreciate you out here killing it.

NicTheLawyer (01:06:31.052)
Yeah, thank you for having me and thank you for what y'all do too. Love this and keep it up and happy to support you however I can.

AE (01:06:37.117)
will do. Thank you. Thank you. This has been the whole lawyer.