Succession Planning: Being Prepared for the Uncertainties of the Future

Episode Notes

Transcript

State Bar of Texas Podcast

Succession Planning Being Prepared for the Uncertainties of the Future

01/09/2021

[Music]

Intro: Welcome to the State Bar of Texas podcast. Your monthly source for conversations and curated content to improve your law practice. With your host, Rocky Dhir.

Rocky Dhir: Hi and welcome to the State Bar of Texas podcast. Let me begin by wishing you a very happy new year. I know most of us are anxious to make 2020 a distant memory and get 2021 rolling toward a more you know, normal life again. Whatever that is. But before we do, let’s talk for a moment about 2020. A 2020 hindsight that is if you’re like me, you beat yourself up now and then about the things you should have gotten done but never did. I mean, it’s hard, right? You work all day, take care of personal obligations, watch your health, maybe try to get a little downtime. No time for anything else, right? Then one day we decide it’s time to retire. You know, the golden years. Travel, pursue hobbies, it all sounds so nice. Actually, I don’t even know what my hobbies are. I’m so busy working all day but wait, we forgot a step. An important step. There’s that transition from working life to retirement or for those of us who just cannot hang it up, there’s that transition from our practices to our practices without us in them. There’s a term for this transition. It’s called succession planning. Many of us have heard the term. We even acknowledge its importance but then we put it off and we put it off, and we — well, you get the idea. But hey, it’s January. Time for new year’s resolutions, right? It’s a new start. The world is reawakening albeit slowly after COVID-19. What better time to tackle the transition and begin succession planning? I kind of like that term. Tackle the transition. But how? How do we go about it? What do we need to do? Where do we begin? Why can’t things just be easier for crying out loud? Well, let’s start with baby steps. Baby step number one is to hear from Penny Robe. Penny is the perfect person to help us understand succession planning. You see, she is the president of Robe Law Firm where she practices in the areas of probate and estate planning, guardianship, divorces, child custody, child support and business law. She’s been in practice for over 25 years, 10 of those serving as in-house corporate council and here’s something really cool, she began her career serving as an active-duty attorney for the U.S. Airforce. Penny knows about how we need to plan for our exits and well luckily for us, she’s here with us today. Thank goodness for that because can you imagine if I told you all about her and she wasn’t even here? Awkward. Anyway, Penny, thank you for being here. Welcome.

Penny Robe: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here.

Rocky Dhir: So, Penny, full disclosure. I did some intel on you. All right, now by intel I mean I typed the words Penny Robe into a search engine. But when I did, I found out that you were the course director for the law practice management CLE course that was webcast it looks like I guess November of 2020. Tell me a little bit about that. What does that course cover?

Penny Robe: So, the law practice management course covers all kinds of issues that come up for attorneys in the practice management. So, any kind of private practice issues. So, the course, well we’re also planning for next year’s course too.

Rocky Dhir: Okay, sure.

Penny Robe: And in that one, we’re doing kind of an arc of practice which I think is going to be a nice way to frame the whole thing where we start with creating your practice and then in the middle of the day is building and growing it and at the end of the day is wrapping it up. You know, selling it or ending it; however, you’re going to end it.

Rocky Dhir: So, now the 2020 course I guess that’s available online for those who missed it, right?

Penny Robe: It is.

Rocky Dhir: Okay, so now are you going to be course director for 2021 as well? Is that part of the plan?

Penny Robe: Yes, yes I am.

Rocky Dhir: Okay.

Penny Robe: I was the chair of the law practice management committee until this summer and so it’s just kind of a natural progression to continue with it.

Rocky Dhir: Yeah, there’s no getting out once you’re in, is there?

Penny Robe: There really isn’t.

Rocky Dhir: You should demand like a 10% or 20% pay raise from what they’re already paying you.

Penny Robe: As long as we go by percentages they’ll give me whatever price I want.

Rocky Dhir: It’s an easy negotiation, absolutely.

Penny Robe: Right.

Rocky Dhir: So, you talked a little bit about the course covering the ending of the practice and I suppose that’s where succession planning sort of comes in. So, let’s maybe start with some fundamentals. For those of us that may not be as familiar with the term, can you tell us what succession planning is and why is it important from a practice management standpoint?

Penny Robe: Well, it all comes down to the fact that as humans we will all eventually escape this mortal coil. And so, we’re all going to have our practice end one way or another. So hopefully it’s deliberately by choice where you’re doing it as part of a retirement or moving on with life. But if you don’t plan, it’s still going to end. So, it just won’t be pretty for your clients or your family. So, succession planning is who will succeed you in your practice or your you know, who will help your firm any number of ways of ending a practice but succession planning is the most pleasant way of talking about leaving a practice.

(00:05:07)

Rocky Dhir: You talked about who will succeed. I mean there’s so many ways you can tackle this arena, so let’s start with this idea of succession. So, let’s say that I’m a solo practitioner and I assume you’re a solo practitioner yourself, right?

Penny Robe: I am, yes.

Rocky Dhir: Okay, so you can probably answer this question both from a personal perspective as well as from the theoretical side but if you’re a solo practitioner, who’s going to succeed you? I mean it’s you practicing law, so do you sell the practice? Are you giving clients away? How does that look?

Penny Robe: So, for me as a solo, I made a deliberate decision not to build an empire, right? Not to have a firm with multiple people working with me. I have no minions, you know? It’s just me. And so, when I end my practice, my most likely scenario is I’m just winding it down. I’m finding other homes for my clients. I may have some payout but you know, I’m probably just winding it down. I’m not building a brand that lends itself to selling my practice, I’ve built my brand as me. So, I have expertise in different areas and clients want to hire me, they’re not hiring Robe Law Firm as much as they’re hiring Penny Robe. I’m not setting it up to sell to be real. It could be something I change my mind about. I mean I’m in my early 50s, I’ve got some time to change my approach but currently for me, if I were to end my practice, it would just be ending it. It would wind it down, find new homes for cases. And then you know, get out of any contracts I have left, that sort of thing.

Rocky Dhir: Right, right, right. When does that process begin though about finding who you give your — you know, if you’re transitioning clients to another attorney, do you have to kind of plan for that ahead of time? Do you kind of you know, you said you’re in your early 50s, so do you start now by saying, all right, who are the people that I’d want to hand my clients off to or does that happen later in the process as you’re nearing retirement?

Penny Robe: I think it’s later in the process if you’re talking about retirement, but I ran for judge recently and the election in November, and so for the last year and a half while I was running, I had to keep in mind what would happen because you can’t have a private practice if you’re a judge.

Rocky Dhir: Surprise.

Penny Robe: So, if I had won I would have had just about less than 60 days to wind down my practice. So, yes, absolutely, I was thinking about what am I going to do with these cases and what am I going to do with these clients and I structured my contracts so that they were all month to month so I had the ability to not have an ongoing outflow of money with no income to pay for it. You know, things like that and I thought about with each practice area who I would tell those clients to go to. But I was because the transition would be based on becoming a judge, I was definitely not going to be looking for any kind of money coming to me where it looked like I was doing something shady with that attorney.

Rocky Dhir: Right, right.

Penny Robe: I’m very conservative on things like that. There may be a way I could have done it where I would get money, it’s just not what I did.

Rocky Dhir: It usually involves a briefcase meeting in a park, you’re both wearing sunglasses. I’ve watched spy movies so I know all about it. I can help you next time you want to look at that.

Penny Robe: The white envelope with cash, right?

Rocky Dhir: Actually,. I always go for manila but you know, hey, your mileage may vary. But when you when you talk about having to make that decision now, you made a deliberate decision to run for judge. But what about things like disability? You know, somebody could be in a car crash and something happens, you know? So, is succession planning something we need to kind of have a plan in place from day one or do you kind of are you really working more towards looking at a voluntary exit? It sounds like such a daunting task when you really start thinking about it.

Penny Robe: Oh yeah, I can go any number of ways and people can have an accident, car accident, any kind of thing can happen or physical illness can happen that makes you unable to immediately unable to act or the more slow disability sort of thing. So, some of it depends on whether you have the ability to handle the unexpected thing coming up. So, if something happened and you were hit by a bus and you’re in the hospital but you’re conscious, you know, maybe you have your phone, maybe you don’t. But somebody brings it to you and you frantically call friends and say, I’ve got a hearing tomorrow, who can cover that for me? I actually had that happen when I had kidney stones take me out, you know? And I did have a hearing the next day. And I have a friend who’s also a solo and we’ve agreed that if something happens to either one of us, that’s who we’re going to call. So, she was willing and able and I’ve done it for her when she’s had unexpected things come up and she didn’t go personally cover it, but she helped me find opposing counsel. You know, and let them know and help me notify the court that I wasn’t going to be there.

(00:10:00)

Help me notify the client, all of that. That was relying though on me being conscious and aware.

Rocky Dhir: Do we need contingency plans for if we’re not conscious and aware? Is that

kind of like — you know, is it kind of like a will of some sort where you kind of have that stored with somebody? I mean, how do you kind of know when something like this can happen and there’s so many different scenarios. You know, it’s almost like you can’t just have one lawyer that would take over your case. You may need to have a team of them. My mind is boggling as we talk about this, so I apologize if I sound a little frantic but it’s a big issue.

Penny Robe: So, if my friend had not been available, I do have other people that I would have reached out to. But yeah, one of the things that happens is if somebody gets hit by a bus and they’re dead, then it’s a different scenario. Like what would have happened in that case is well, first my family would have realized something was wrong when you know, as I have a child. So, people would have realized and then I didn’t show up for court, hopefully my reputation as such that they would be like that is odd, right?

Rocky Dhir: I have the opposite problem. When I do show up, they go, okay, things are about to get funky, but yeah, sure.

Penny Robe: Right, yeah you really want it to be that they are surprised if you don’t show up when you’re expected. And then hopefully inquiries would happen. So, it’s important to have the backup people being aware of what would happen if you just stop showing up for things. Because that is how it goes with a solo especially a true solo, because I don’t have staff or anything. So, it’s important to have people that you’re regularly checking in with who would know what to do.

Rocky Dhir: Do you think this issue of succession planning is specific to solos and small firms or do in-house folks and large firms also need a succession plan of some kind?

Penny Robe: I think everyone needs awareness of what would happen if they unexpectedly just got hit by a bus, but for a large firm, probably not as urgent because the other partners, the support staff are there. Somebody’s going to be aware. Like if you have somebody from a large firm and they don’t show up for a hearing, they’re going to call the office.

Rocky Dhir: There’s another coming on.

Penny Robe: Right. Somebody’s going to make sure the client is taken care of and all of that.

Rocky Dhir: Right, right, right. Let’s talk about the steps in succession planning. First of all, who do you go to for that? Are there succession planning experts? Is it a trust and estates lawyer? Who do you go to for something?

Penny Robe: So, I will say, I do a lot of transactional work and I also do probate. So, I handle it both from a personal and a business perspective as part of my practice, so anytime I’m setting up a new business for somebody, that’s part of what we talk about. All right, who’s in charge if something happens to you? And you have to factor that in, you know it’s like begin with the end in mind as a you know, kind of a classic hopefully.

Rocky Dhir: Right, right.

Penny Robe: The thing that people say it’s a Franklin Covey quote, you know, the big players we used to have before there was digital.

Rocky Dhir: Sure, sure.

Penny Robe: Begin with the end in mind because it will end, whatever you’re doing is not going on into perpetuity. So, I think it’s a partly a business analysis as well as a practice analysis.

Rocky Dhir: Is that something that needs to be written down or is it just a matter of everybody in the in the office knowing who’s in charge if something happens?

Penny Robe: So, in an ideal world, there’s somebody in your life that’s going to pick up and help you. I have had clients who were married to an attorney who was a solo who died and they’re not an attorney, right? Those are hard cases and usually what happens is colleagues’ step in to help. But not always, you know, sometimes there’s not a good plan. That’s one of the reasons the state bar has been working on this succession planning designation. That’s a new thing. So, that while you’re alert, aware and competent, you can talk to somebody else and say, hey, you know, will you be my go-to person if something unexpectedly happens to me?

Rocky Dhir: Talk to me a little bit about this state bar initiative because I’ve heard tell of it but I’m not that familiar. So, can you kind of walk those of us that are now thinking about succession planning thanks to you. You know, can you walk us through what the state bar is doing on this particular issue?

Penny Robe: Absolutely, so there have been situations like I was describing where you have a solo who I mean like there was a gentleman here who like he was on a motorcycle and he literally got hit by another car.

Rocky Dhir: Oh gosh.

Penny Robe: Unexpected death, right? He was a solo and his wife was not an attorney, so she was dealing with the state bar and they’re trying to figure out how to refund trust account money and things of that nature. So, that’s not a unique situation unfortunately. It does happen, so this initiative was to set up a more formal process to deal with that. So, if that were to happen now, hopefully everyone is going to do this.

(00:15:02)

What happens is you’d formalize the arrangement I have with my friend, so I’ve designated her as my first-person succession choice. And then she has to accept the designation, so I can’t just be like, hey, I’m naming you, right. If you’re not willing to do it, so it is a reciprocity for sure you want the other person to agree to do it. And then the state bar knows that if like, Penny didn’t show up for a hearing, what’s happening? And then they see my obituary, then they’re going to reach out to her and she knows to come in and help my clients find new attorneys and wind down any obligations I have to the court. And it is purely legal practice that this part of the succession planning is doing. Like, for the big picture thing, absolutely, I need a will, right? You know, to deal with the other stuff and the money that’s left over when the practice is wound down. But for the practice itself, the succession planning means that that person is going to go ahead and reach out to all my clients and they’ve been designated as the person to do that.

Rocky Dhir: Is a state bar going to have some kind of a worksheet? You know, is it something like, all right, here’s the things you need to do in a successful succession plan so please fill it out. Or is it really one of those lawyerly it depends situations and you kind of start with a blank sheet of paper and tailor it to what you need it to be?

Penny Robe: I do think they’re going to have some resources but I don’t know what all

those are. I think you’re also going to talk to Greg Samson, and he’s going to be the better one to ask that question about what exactly the resources are. I do think there’s an aspect of it that’s going to be specific and unique to the practice areas of that person, but he’ll be able to answer that more clearly. I don’t think a person needs to be afraid to be designated though. I do think the purpose is to have support for people. I don’t totally know the answer.

Rocky Dhir: Well, because you know I’m trying to think where I would start if it was me and I’m sitting there trying to figure out, okay. All the different pieces, if I start with a blank sheet of paper, sure, I can say so-and-so’s in charge and so-and-so is going to handle my legal matters moving forward or they’re designated to at least get them new homes or whatever. But am I missing things? And so, having some kind of an overview as to what all I need to plan for would be helpful and I’m just trying to think if there are resources or if there will be resources because I could see that being hugely helpful.

Penny Robe: I know there definitely will be resources, there definitely will be one of the upcoming law practice management courses. One of our segments coming up is going to be what do I do if I’m appointed, you know? If I’m that successor attorney, what do I do? And it’ll be you know, 30 minutes or 45 minutes just on like here’s what you do and here are some checklists. So, the resource definitely, I don’t know if it exists yet but it definitely will exist.

Rocky Dhir: I can also see this getting further complicated, so let’s start with this question. So, I know in your 2021 law practice management course, you said it’s going to be sort of the arc of the life of a law practice, right? So, you started, you set up your LLP or you know, your professional corporation, whatever it’s going to be and then grow the practice, maintain it and then sunset it. In your view, in an ideal world, does the succession planning start the day you open your law practice or is it something you do later on in the process of being a lawyer?

Penny Robe: I think it’s ongoing throughout, like when you open it, you need to know what would happen immediately if something happens to you. Or if you just decide this is not fun, I’m going to go in-house or I’m going to go work for a bigger firm because that’s a type of succession planning. If you start out as a solo and then you end up joining with other people, you’ve had a succession. So, it doesn’t mean not every succession is getting hit by a bus, right? Some of them were happy successions. Oh, great, I got a promotion and now I’m making a boatload more money as an in-house attorney or whatever.

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: So, those are types of succession planning for sure and I think it’s something that should always be in your mind. You know, what happens, how does this end? How does this turn out?

Rocky Dhir: I guess then that means you have to constantly revisit because what if the person you designate as your as your person decides you know what? I’m done, I’m moving to Costa Rica and I’ll see you never. And if they just leave, then you’ve got this succession plan that you did the right things on but then suddenly you’re in a situation where you got to amend it. And if you don’t think about it on time, it could be too late by the time you realized you have an old succession plan. I’m trying to think of this in terms of planning my life and just planning my day-to-day activity. We get so wrapped up in the day-to-day aspects of law practice, how do you recommend people work this type of thing into their lives? Succession planning, you know wills and estates, I mean all of that. How do you get to the point where you’re willing and able and in the right mind to really start tackling that?

(00:20:01)

Are there places they can go? Resources they can turn to? Ways to make this an easier process?

Penny Robe: So, one of the things that I advise clients is any time that you have a material life change, the same thing that would trigger opening a cafeteria plan for life insurance.

Rocky Dhir: Got it.

Penny Robe: You should think about globally, like your will and your business succession planning, so things like getting married, getting divorced, having a child, having one of the people you named no longer be available. So, for example, if my will names my dad and my dad passes away, I really should update my will.

Rocky Dhir: Well, sure.

Penny Robe: Right? So, it’s that kind of thing. If my succession attorney stops practicing, that’s analogous to the situation and I should re-look at my succession planning. So, kind of it’s in your head if you can put a trigger of okay, I’ve had a material change in circumstances. I need to look at whether to change my health insurance options and also my succession planning and update my will. Whatever makes sense.

Rocky Dhir: So, do you revisit this like once or twice a year? How do you go about it? Because you know, I’m trying to think you know, if something happens and I think, oh yeah, I got to work on that and then I just never get around to it and then three years go by and I never updated my succession plan, and then I need it and it’s not available. I mean I’m just trying to think through, knowing how lazy and unproductive I am, I’m trying to put you know, if there’s a plan that could work for me, it’ll work for most people because I am just that much of a procrastinator. So, take the procrastinators like me, you know, do you put in a calendar or do you start by getting you know, a probate will lawyer who can kind of handle these aspects and then you meet with them once or twice a year? I mean how do you recommend people kind of get a handle on this to make it manageable?

Penny Robe: So, I don’t think it has to be all that often once you’ve done it initially.

Rocky Dhir: Yeah.

Penny Robe: You kind of want it to be a long-lasting plan.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Penny Robe: Like when I draft a will, I always kind of go with what will happen if they never

ever update this, right? Because that does happen.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Penny Robe: You know, I recently probated a will from the 70s and it went through fine, smooth as butter, right? Just had to deal with successors that were listed which is why you know; you want your plan to have contingencies in it as a will does. So, like when I’m doing a will, I’m drafting out the residuary until either I’m getting two heirs at law or like a charity, right? I’m going no matter what. If people die and you don’t update, there’s still an answer. So, for succession planning, it’s analogous to going and test date if your plan falls apart, right? And that’s the messiest way and yeah, it’ll get handled, it’ll just be a lot harder on everybody, your family and you know, your clients. Same as if you die without a will or if your will is no longer good. So, one way to keep it going would be, you know, some people like think about I’m going to redo my batteries in my smoke detector.

Rocky Dhir: Those are the bane of my existence. They just go off at the wrong time.

Penny Robe: Right, so they’re like hey, it’s new year’s, redo the batteries in your smoke detector. You could mentally link it to that, you know?

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: You could do like every time it’s a five, you know, the year 2020, 2025, 2030, that’s going to be when I re-look at things. It’s kind of whatever makes sense to you individually. I mean as the person doing the planning, I always assume people won’t do what they’re supposed to do.

Rocky Dhir: That’s good.

Penny Robe: Because those are the ones I get, right?

Rocky Dhir: That means I’m not alone.

Penny Robe: No, no, no. It’s so common to not have thought this through and just be like, oh. So, the designation of your successor on the state bar, there’s a web page to go to and do that and then it triggers your person you’ve named to accept it. That’s just going to stay the same. They don’t make you annually verify it like your IOTA verification or anything like that. So, you have to do a little bit of awareness of hey, you know, I named my friend Joe to be my successor. Is he alive?

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: Is he still my friend, right?

Rocky Dhir: Joe’s a monk in a mountain now and we’re never going to hear from him again, so yeah.

Penny Robe: Exactly, yeah, so it’s good to check you know, every so often and that every so often can be a really long time or if you’re somebody who likes to trigger it, it could be more often. I mean if you’re like — if the years that end in five don’t work, you could be like the years divisible by three, prime numbers, I don’t know. That’s just silly but something like that.

Rocky Dhir: Let’s talk for a second about an issue that has been getting a lot more awareness over the last few years and that’s mental health. If you’re an attorney especially a solo practitioner and you start getting some undiagnosed mental issues, you know? At what point, is there a way to set up a succession plan that accounts for that?

(00:25:01)

So, for example if I’m going through a mental health issues and I don’t realize I have mental health issues but those around me do. My clients can tell, my colleagues can

Tell, maybe my go-to person that I designate can tell, hey you know, Rocky’s just not the same anymore and something’s going wrong. Is there a way to work that into a succession plan where somebody else can come in and trigger it and say, there’s an issue or is that strictly a guardianship question? You know, I’m trying to think about the situation where the designator in this case has no awareness that they need to now trigger their succession plan.

Penny Robe: Yeah, that’s a hard one and it’s going to be specific to each person too. So, the demographic of the entirety of the practice of law in Texas is for aging populace. So, we are having more issues of people developing dementia that’s you know, things that are more common as you get older and it’s like it is a hard thing because that’s not something people are aware of. I think that that does depend on people, you know we have a duty as attorneys to be aware if somebody we’re dealing with seems to be having issues like that. Whether related to substance abuse or just like losing capacity. And we do have a duty to notify the state bar, but you could also before it gets to that point, if it’s a friend, you would want to intercede and see if you could help. But I think that duty ends up being on those who are not losing their capacity.

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: With the person losing their capacity, I don’t know what other than having that conversation and being like, hey, if you see me losing it, you know, please do an intervention.

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: I don’t know if you know, I don’t have a solution other than that.

Rocky Dhir: I’m wondering if that’s something that can be written into a succession plan. You know, sort of you know, hey if I designated you as my go-to person and then you start noticing problems, could Penny Robe come in and say, hey, Rocky’s got some issues and so I’m triggering the succession plan until we can figure out what’s going on here. So, I’m going to come in and kind of watch his cases to make sure nothing really bad goes wrong. You know, is there a way to write that into a succession plan or is there no precedent for that yet?

Penny Robe: I think that would be something like a springing power of attorney sort of a situation, so where you’d have to have. To do a springing power of attorney that only springs up if physician puts it in writing, that the person’s lost their capacity, so it’s a pretty high bar. And I think that’s probably the closest thing that would happen because with attorney-client privilege, you don’t really want somebody coming in without the consent of that person.

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: So, I guess it really depends on whether the attorney who’s losing capacity has

any awareness that they’re losing capacity.

Rocky Dhir: Wow, so this can be simple or this can be really complex.

Penny Robe: Absolutely.

Rocky Dhir: So, it sounds like maybe the first thing to do is to keep it simple and at least designate somebody if something tragic happens to you and you’re out of commission either because of loss of life or loss of other capacity and just at least get somebody on board. That’s better than nothing and then we can think about these more complicated issues as we tweak this. Wow.

Penny Robe: Yeah, yeah. It is complicated. I had a situation where I was appointed on a guardianship case for an attorney who had — initially the diagnosis was early onset Alzheimer’s. She was in her late 30s.

Rocky Dhir: Wow.

Penny Robe: And I don’t know what the final diagnosis ended up being, I think they changed it to something else but because she’s an attorney, was really good at covering, right? So, I’m meeting with her in her house and I asked, she has children that are little. Like under five and I asked her, where are your children right now? Just as part of the interview as her attorney ad litem and she says, let me get back to you on that. And it was like, let me do a supplemental brief to the court, right?

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Penny Robe: Kind of an answer, which is such an attorney way of covering. And so, I think in some ways, you know the good news is we’re all good at covering what we don’t know the answer, right? But the bad news is that can make it harder to deal with that person who’s losing capacity. And of course, she was a solo, of course because that’s how life goes, right? So that was a hard situation and her situation, clients just were kind of naturally going off to somebody else, you know? Because she wasn’t responding.

Rocky Dhir: Wow, well you know, obviously this is a very, very important topic and I’m glad we had this conversation but unfortunately Penny, we have run out of time for today, so we’ll have to pick this up some other time. But this was really insightful. Thank you so much for being a part of this and for educating us.

Penny Robe: Absolutely, it was my pleasure and I hope it was helpful to people that are listening.

Rocky Dhir: I bet it is and of course, so I do want to thank Penny of course and I want to

thank you for tuning in and I want to encourage you to stay safe, make sure you follow all applicable orders for dealing with COVID-19. It’s 2021 but it’s still with us, so please advise your clients and loved ones to do the same. This situation is changing fluidly and quickly, let’s hope it changes and goes away forever in 2021. Let’s just see what happens with that, but do please seek out legal counsel if you have a question. If you like what you heard today, please rate and review us in Apple podcast, Google podcast or your favorite podcast app. Until next time, remember life’s a journey folks, I’m Rocky Dhir, signing off.

[Music]

Outro: If you’d like more information about today’s show, please visit legaltalknetwork.com. Go to texasbar.com/podcast subscribe via Apple podcast and RSS. Find both the State Bar of Texas and Legal Talk Network on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn or download the free app from Legal Talk Network in Google Play and iTunes. The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by the State Bar of Texas, Legal Talk Network or their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders or subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.

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