Peculiar Pandemic Purchases, the Legendary Bob Ambrogi, and Our Spotify Contest-Winner Rump Roast

Episode Notes

Transcript

Legal Toolkit

Peculiar Pandemic Purchases, the Legendary Bob Ambrogi, and Our Spotify Contest-Winner Rump Roast

12/09/2020

[Music]

Jared Correia: Welcome. Welcome, welcome to the award-winning Legal Toolkit podcast only on the Legal Talk Network. Twice a month, we’re delivering law practice management tips and tricks directly to your earholes. My name is Jared Correia and because Len Kasper wasn’t available, I’m your host. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys. Find us online at www.redcavelegal.com. I’m also the CEO of Gideon Software, Inc. We build chatbots so the law firms can convert more leads. You can find out more about Gideon at www.gideon.legal.

Before we get rolling, I’d like to take a moment to thank my mom for listening to every episode. I’d also like to thank our sponsors. They’re the reason you’re listening to this show right now. We would like to thank Alert Communications for sponsoring this podcast. If any law firm is looking for call intake or retainer services available 24/7/365, just call (866) 827-5568. Scorpion is a leading provider of marketing solutions for the legal industry. With nearly 20 years of experience serving attorneys, Scorpion can help grow your practice. Learn more at scorpionlegal.com. Abby Connect has delivered premium live receptionist and answering services to lawyers since 2006. You can try them out for free at abbyconnect.com. TimeSolv is the number one web-based time and billing software for lawyers. Providing solutions since 1999, TimeSolv provides the most comprehensive billing features for law firms big and small, www.timesolv.com.

2020 has blown goats for sure. Mercifully though, everyone, it’s almost over. But I’m a glass half full kind of guy and so I try to focus on some of the positive elements of this year which has been fairly difficult. The way I see it, it’s been great for me that I get to spend more time with my kids, right? Who wouldn’t love that? I wouldn’t have been able to do that under different circumstances. My house is tidier than it’s ever been and I don’t think I’ve ever spent any less on gas. What’s been really interesting though is seeing the way that everyone’s purchasing habits have changed since they’ve been housebound. No one is spending money on travel. Everybody is spending far less in their local communities. I mean as I drive around my neighborhood or walk around my neighborhood, I’ve never seen lawns more immaculately groomed than they are now. I’ve never had more friends engaging in home improvement projects. I think everybody is putting up additions these days because where else are you going to, right?

2020 is also the year when people are mass purchasing 25-foot skeletons for their front yards for Halloween, and over the summer, you couldn’t find any of those little pools, you know, the ones that you can set up and take down because they were all bought out. And now as the holiday season approaches, it’s probably going to be hard to find whatever massive Christmas decorations are going to be popular this year. So if you want that giant Santa’s sleigh for your roof, buy now.

Speaking of the holidays, it’s clear that everybody is rushing to put a cap on 2020 as quickly as possible. The day after Thanksgiving, I see people putting up mass amounts of decorations, putting out their Christmas trees. People are ready to move on. One of my neighbors has actually got a diorama of like the National Lampoon’s Christmas movie with Chevy Chase in all his electrified glory, maybe one of the best Christmas installations I’ve ever seen. And this is all just such a weird artificial moment in time. I’m just really interested in watching how everything passes because hopefully this will never happen again in our lifetimes.

So, being stuck at home, I’ve got fewer business and personal expenses than ever before and I too sadly have fallen victim to what I call pandemic purchasing. So my wife hates this of course. She’s pretty frugal and to be fair, I’m also pretty frugal usually. But these are again, the strangest of times. Plus, Google shopping is the worst. It’s so easy to buy stuff online.

So over the summer, my sainted wife Jessica was able to talk me out of buying a thousand-dollar inflatable water park installation for the front yard of the house, but only just barely I was very close to purchasing it anyway. But she’s been less successful in related endeavors. Since I made mention before on this podcast, I’m a big baseball fan. I love baseball, I love old school baseball teams and I probably bought 30 new baseball hats, maybe more since the pandemic lockdown started. It’s really bad, but there’s so many cool hats out there, how could you not? Like, how I could I live with myself if I didn’t have a 1973 Cleveland Indians hat I ask you? Perish the thought, right?

(00:05:06)

So I even bought one of those hat racks that they have in stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods and put it in my mudroom. It is gigantic. It’s probably eight feet tall. Predictably, Jessica hates it and when I felt like our sports equipment collection, non-hats edition, was out of control, I bought this giant blue bin on wheels that they use in factory floors to like clean stuff up. This thing is just gigantic as well. I could probably fit like all my kids in it, right? So I bought it online, but the company called me before they delivered it because they said this is a residential address, right? First one of these blue bins they’ve ever delivered to a residential address in the history of the company and here it comes rolling up on a pallet in my driveway. All the dads that come through the mudroom, they love the bin. The moms are a little bit skeptical.

Now, if you’ve got young kids or if you happen to be alive, you’re probably familiar with the movie Frozen and also Frozen 2. Not surprisingly, my daughter who’s five loves Frozen. So they sell this three-foot replica of Sven, the reindeer from Frozen. So it doesn’t do much, just stands there. You can move the head up and down. It makes reindeer noises and you put a carrot in its mouth and that’s about all you can do. It’s absolutely not worth the price, overpriced like crazy. But I figured if there was ever a time I was going to buy giant reindeers Sven for my living room, it was now. So I took a shot, right? So it comes in this giant box. It’s got the reindeer on it. My daughter is ecstatic and she played with it for a whole day, like she’s watching TV on it. She’s feeding the reindeer the carrot. And then after the first day, she never looked at it again. So my wife said, “I told you so.” But I got the best revenge because now, I dry my laundry on Sven’s antlers. So what kind of crazy shit have you bought during the pandemic? Hit me up on Twitter @jaredcorreia or on LinkedIn and let me know. I’m interested. Now let’s take a moment to listen to a word from our sponsors and we’ll be right back.

[Music]

Advertiser: Imagine billing day being the happiest day of the month instead of the day you dread? Nobody went to law school because they love drafting invoices for clients. At TimeSolv, our attorneys save on average over eight hours a month in billing work. That means more billable time and turning billing day into happy day. Learn more about how to get to your time of billing happy place at timesolv.com. That’s www.timesolv.com.  Remember that’s timesolv.com.

[Music]

Advertiser: As the largest legal-only call center in the US, Alert Communications helps law firms and legal marketing agencies with new client intake. Alert captures your responses to all leads 24/7/365 as an extension of your firm in both Spanish and English. Alert uses proven intake methods, customizing responses as needed, which earns the trust of clients and improves client retention. To find out how Alert can help your law office, call (866) 827-5568 or visit alertcommunications.com/ltn.

[Music]

Jared Correia: All right, let’s get back to it. It’s time to put the Nutella in the middle of the sandwich. Let’s interview our guest. My guest today, long-time friend of mine, lawyer, author of the LawSites blog, the famous LawNext podcast and doer of many other things, Bob Ambrogi. Bob, how are you?

Bob Ambrogi: Jared, I’ve been called many things but never the Nutella in the middle of the sandwich. So I guess, this is quite an honor.

Jared Correia: Nutella is big in my house, so consider it an honor. Thanks for coming on.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah thanks. How are you doing?

Jared Correia: You’re all stomping grounds.

Bob Ambrogi: Neighbor of mine.

Jared Correia: Yes, yes, we live very close to each other. I’ll get to that. I’ll get to that, but before I do, I want people to know like, if they don’t know you which probably like that’s six people who are listening, right? Like what do you do?

Bob Ambrogi: Out of all seven?

Jared Correia: How do they find you online? That kind of thing. Yeah, my mom is a dedicated listener.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah. So I am here in Massachusetts.

Jared Correia: Yes.

Bob Ambrogi: I mean most people know me because I write. I’ve been writing about legal technology and innovation in law for a very long time now. I write a blog called LawSites which is at lawsitesblog.com and I do a podcast called LawNext which is at lawnext.com and I also write a weekly tech column for Above the Law.

Jared Correia: Right. It’s right that all your stuff agrees with your URLs, right? That’s perfect happenstance.

Bob Ambrogi: Absolutely.

Jared Correia: So check out Bob’s stuff if you haven’t already. And I think LawSites was 18th-20th anniversary you celebrated recently?

Bob Ambrogi: I just had my 18th anniversary of writing that blog. Yeah.

(00:10:01)

Jared Correia: That’s amazing. LawSites is now able to drink, everyone.

Bob Ambrogi: Well it’s right, yeah.

Jared Correia: In 1970.

Bob Ambrogi: And finally, my blog is able to vote. I was going to send it down to Georgia right away.

Jared Correia: Well, thanks for coming on. I know you’re a busy guy, and so I just want to talk to you about a few things. First is Massachusetts as you mentioned before, we’re neighbors which I think a lot of people don’t know. I think people probably think like, “How could two brilliant legal minds live so close together without opening a wormhole?” But it’s true. So talk about Massachusetts. Like I don’t talk about this a lot on the show, but like I actually love living in the North Shore, Massachusetts, really cool place to live, really quiet, really convenient. Do you feel the same way? I’m hoping you do because you’ve been here for a while. But you’ve lived other places as well?

Bob Ambrogi: I have lived other places including the Caribbean for a while where I used to practice law when I was younger. I live in a little town called Rockport which is a really sort of scenic, picturesque little Norman Rockwell-ish lobstering, art colony kind of town. It’s great in the summer. The winter is I’m not so thrilled with it.

Jared Correia: Like it’s cold and you’re by the water too.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Jared Correia: I guess we’re like all by the water where we are.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Jared Correia: So for people who don’t know like — there’s like Cape Cod which is like the arm of Massachusetts, and then at the top, there’s like this little bump and that’s the North Shore.

Bob Ambrogi: Chatham, the other day.

Jared Correia: Chatham, right. Yeah, exactly.

Bob Ambrogi: Nobody knows about.

Jared Correia: The cape nobody knows about, but we have great beaches too, but it does get windy and cold in the winter for sure?

Bob Ambrogi: It does. It does. My wife and I have been fantasizing about warmer places and maybe even moving to a warmer place.

Jared Correia: Oh man, well I guess we’re not seeing each other now, anyway right? So what would be the difference if you lived in Hawaii or something.

Bob Ambrogi: Right.

Jared Correia: I also want to talk to you a little about your career, right? Like I think a lot of people would consider you — I’m one of those people, kind of like the journalist of record for legal technology. I hope that doesn’t embarrass you, but you got a lot of fans out there, but you didn’t have — that’s not a job you apply for, right? To become like the poet laureate of legal technology. So how did you get to where you are? I know you have a background in law. You have a background in journalism. You still practice law. Like how did you find this niche for yourself?

Bob Ambrogi: You know I did have a background in journalism and I was actually one of these people who crazily went to law school hoping to advance my career in journalism, not really planning to practice law, but I did practice law a bit and I still practice law. Interestingly in my law practice, I represent a lot of news organizations and journalism organizations there, but I got into this — I mean I went back into journalism after becoming a lawyer. I started out many years ago as the editor of Mass Lawyers Weekly which you would know, Jared, but a lot of people wouldn’t know, but it’s kind of the legal paper of record here in Massachusetts.

Jared Correia: But there are lawyer’s weeklies in all kinds of other states too?

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, they are all over the place and if there’s not a lawyer’s weekly, there’s some equivalent of it. It’s pretty much every state. But you know, I kind of moved from that company. I ended up working with American Lawyer Media in New York and I was editorial director of a division there and also the editor-in-chief of the National Law Journal. And really, it’s at some point I really in the very early days of the internet, I just kind of got interested. I mean I was playing around with the internet. You know, before the web in the days when you had to know how to like type all these weird commands and navigate around that way.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: But once the web came along, I kind of very quickly thought — you know there’s really — lawyers ought to know about this and no lawyers did know about it at that point or very few did.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: And I actually started a — I’m trying to think of what I did first. I started writing a column and it’s kind of started syndicating it out to like bar association publications on why — well actually no, before the column, I started this newsletter called Legal Online. It was the first ever print. It was the first ever newsletter for lawyers about the internet. It was in print because no lawyers were online.

Jared Correia: How interesting. Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: And they talked about how you could use the internet for marketing and research and networking and all these different things, and that led into a syndicated column, and that led into some other stuff. Some point, I wrote a couple books and as soon as I wrote the books, they were out of date. So then I tried to figure out a more timely way to write and I start blogging just thinking, “You know, that’s the best way you’ve going to be writing about something that’s changing rapidly, you need a medium that lets you.”

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: Let’s you publish rapidly.

Jared Correia: Right, and here we are today all these years later.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Jared Correia: No, but that’s legit. That’s the real deal. I think you do a great job.

Bob Ambrogi: Thank you.

Jared Correia: I mean I think most people or a lot of people in the industry look to you to bring news which is pretty cool. So in terms of news, stuff that’s happening right now, one thing that’s been really interesting is like pandemic hits, right? Everybody is worried about what’s going to happen. All of a sudden, there’s this pandemic money that’s going crazy in terms of all these merger and acquisitions in legal tech. Like some of these companies that have been like privately held for a long, long time, like Rocket Matter, they just got acquired.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

(00:15:01)

Jared Correia: So like, you’ve been in this space a long time. You know a lot of the players. So why like, what has led do you think to these M&A deals happening now all the sudden it seems like?

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah. I’m not sure I agree that it’s all of a sudden, but it certainly accelerated this year. I mean I think really what’s been happening is we’ve been seeing steady momentum over the last few years of an increased investment in legal tech. It was true — I don’t know — not all that many years ago, that the big money investors, venture capitalist, private equity investors steered clear of legal tech.

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: They didn’t see the return in it and I think over the last few years, they started to realize that that was not the case. We saw more and more of some of the big Silicon Valley investors getting interested in legal tech and that was all well before the pandemic.

Jared Correia: So you think this is just timing, but this has been happening? This has been like a slide to this for a little while now?

Bob Ambrogi: I think it’s been a slide, but I do think it’s been accelerated this year and I think what’s accelerated it in part is the realization that moving to the cloud is inevitable and you know, many of us probably have said that for years, that moving to the cloud is inevitable, but it wasn’t happening all that quickly.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: But with the pandemic and with everybody having to go into working remotely and working from home, the value proposition for the cloud became very quickly, very apparent and I think that in part is what explains some of the big investments we’ve seen. I mean just in the practice management space which has been kind of — I don’t know, slow moving space. Slow moving isn’t the right word because there’s been a lot that’s been happening in that space over the years.

Jared Correia: They’re just so many players in that space.

Bob Ambrogi: Including Clio getting a major.

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: Clio, what was that, last year? Was it last year or two years ago?

Jared Correia: Yeah it might have been last year, they get the $250 million. Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah. But this year, you know, we saw the — as you say, Rocket Matter, the ASG LegalTech has been acquired.

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: A number of companies practice Panther and MerusCase and Bill4Time.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: And they also acquired Headnote.

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: I think that’s the other sort of common theme — and then MyCase.

Jared Correia: MyCase, yes.

Bob Ambrogi: So I think the other common theme here is that all of those things — not only the cloud-based applications or platforms, they all have e-payment aspects to them.

Jared Correia: Yeah I think that’s a driving force too.

Bob Ambrogi: Something else that became very important this year was the ability to get paid electronically, right?

Jared Correia: Right, so you think a lot of what’s pushing this is like this movement toward the convenience economy? Which I think also has been like ongoing for a long time, right? This is probably just what pushed it over the edge?

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Jared Correia: That’s interesting. So I guess this kind of relates back in some ways to — how lawyers and law firms are using technology? If they’re pushed into using more these types of technologies and more of them using the cloud, that becomes more valuable proposition? So I guess from your perspective like, we’ve seen lawyers adopt cloud technology more aggressively now and that’s got to be a trend that continues into the future, right? Do you think it’s going to be much more aggressive than it’s been in the past?

Bob Ambrogi: I mean I don’t think there’s any going back at this point. I mean part of it is I don’t think that we’re ever going back to the brick and mortar law office in the way it once looked.

Jared Correia: Right.

Bob Ambrogi: I mean I don’t mean to say that lawyers aren’t going back to their physical offices. I think they will, but I think very clearly now that we’ve discovered that remote working not only can be done, but can be done quite successfully and that people can in fact be quite productive and get a lot of things done and still have maybe a little better work-life balance.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: I don’t think there’s any going back and if we’re not ever going back to a traditional brick and mortar environment for law firms, then that means the cloud. I mean that’s the only way to do it.

Jared Correia: Yes. Do you think that’s going to be true of big law firms too? I know a lot of those firms are still holding onto their leases. I mean my wife’s firm still has a big office space in Boston and they don’t seem to be moving off of that. So it’ll be interesting what happens.

Bob Ambrogi: Well do they have any choice but to hold onto these leases. I mean a lot of us don’t have long-term leases.

Jared Correia: Right, none of those leases are long term. Yeah. Right.

Bob Ambrogi: I think over the next five years or some of these leases start to run their course, we’re going to see a radically different reshaping of the physical footprint for law firms.

Jared Correia: Can be a lot of people moving to Rockport.

Bob Ambrogi: People moving are eye-opening.

Jared Correia: So let’s talk about the other side of this coin. One side of it is you grow a nice successful business. You hopefully have an exit, you get bought out by somebody, that’s a good deal. But what about legal tech startups? Like I know you keep track of legal tech startups. You keep track of the funding that’s coming into legal tech startups. What kind of trends are you seeing there?

Bob Ambrogi: This is again a curve that started well before the pandemic in terms of the rise of the numbers of legal tech startups.

(00:20:06)

But there has been a surprising increase in the level of activity I think around legal tech startups this year. That’s not just funding based. A lot of these are just still — you know, people funding these out of their own pockets or just trying to get started. Bootstrapped, yeah. You could probably tell me more about the legal tech startup space since you’re in it.

Jared Correia: I don’t know about that.

Bob Ambrogi: But I haven’t been quite sure how to explain it except I think one explanation for why there’s been so much activity this year is that people have more time on their hands and honestly.

Jared Correia: You’re like, “You can’t get go anywhere, so you’re going to sit home and code, right?”

Bob Ambrogi: Right. No. Well I think that some of these startups that had been spending so some of their time and these are not super early stagde startups, but some of the legal tech companies out there that had been spending a good part of their years in the past going around to bar associations and trade shows and whatever and trying to make a name for themselves haven’t been going anywhere. So they really had time to sit down and work on refining and building out their products and getting some of their wish list items that they’ve had on their blueprints for a while.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Bob Ambrogi: I think that’s even happening with some of the larger companies. There’s been just a real surge in product development this year and product refinement this year.

Jared Correia: And I think that’s true. That’s a really interesting take. So if you’re not doing the conferences, if you’re not spending as much time on marketing and branding, what else are you going to do? Than work on the products. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. All right. I know you have a lot of obligations, sir. I’m not going to keep you for much longer. However, I wanted to thank you.

Bob Ambrogi: You can keep me as long as you want.

Jared Correia: I want to thank you for being on the show today.

Bob Ambrogi: Thank you for having me.

Jared Correia: That was the Bob Ambrogi everybody. This is not everyday at the Legal Talk Network that we get to talk to Bob. So just one more time, if people want to read your stuff, find you online, what’s the best way to do that?

Bob Ambrogi: Probably by blog, lawsitesblog.com or up on Twitter @bobambrogi.

Jared Correia: Always good stuff. Thank you Bob, I really appreciate it.

Bob Ambrogi: Thank you sir. As soon as this pandemic is over, we’ll have drinks or coffee or something.

Jared Correia: We’ll see each other in person. We’ll drink from our legal tech vendor related swag mugs, it will be a good day.

Bob Ambrogi: When are going to do the swag show? We’re going to do that soon.

Jared Correia: That will be the update, the swag show. Stay tuned a few months from now, we’re going to do that swag show. So we’ll take one final sponsor break. So you can hear more about what our sponsors can do for your law practice. Then stay tuned for the Rump Roast, is even more supple than the roast beast.

[Music]

Advertiser: Now more than ever, an effective marketing strategy is one of the most important things your law firm can have, and Scorpion can help. With nearly 20 years of experience serving the legal industry, Scorpion has proven methods to help you get the high value cases you deserve. Join thousands of attorneys across the country who have turned to Scorpion for effective marketing and technology solutions. For a better way to grow your practice, visit scorpionlegal.com.

[Music]

Advertiser: Your legal work requires your full attention. So how can you build lasting relationships with new or existing clients while juggling your case load? Try Abby Connect, the friendly highly-trained and motivated live receptionist who are well known for providing consistent quality customer service and support for law firms just like yours. Every connection matters. So call Abby Connect today at 833-ABBYWOW to get started with your free 14-day trial and $95 off your first bill.

[Music]

Jared Correia: Welcome everyone to the rear end of the Legal Toolkit, the Rump Roast, it’s a grab bag of short form topics of my choice. Today we’re going to bring in a brand new guest for this segment. We have with us William Crawford Appleby IV, like the third Duke of Edinburgh, right? Like what kind of royal status do you have?

William Crawford Appleby IV: It’s exactly like that, except without the status.

Jared Correia: That is an impressive name, my friend, and you go by Crawford, right?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I do.

Jared Correia: You pick the coolest of the names to go by, well played. So I need to ask you, how did you get on the show today?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I got on the show by answering your trivia questions from the last episode correctly.

Jared Correia: Right. Yes, correctly. So you’re one of the folks who submitted an answer. We had a little playlist of songs and you had to identify all the products to get on the show, and you did, and we picked you and you won. So let me ask you, how did you get those questions right? Were you like old school listened to the song? You knew it already or were you like a lyrics genius type of guy?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I wish all that was true. Some of the songs I heard before and some of them I hadn’t and in the interest of being the first person, I did it as quickly as possible using Google.

Jared Correia: Well played. Did you have a favorite song in the playlist or favorite artist? Or are our musical tastes aligned at all? I’m not sure if they are. We threw in a little Harry Chapin in there, a little Oasis. It’s all over the place.

(00:25:05)

William Crawford Appleby IV: There were some in there that I thought, “Yeah, I’ve heard that song. I like that song.”

Jared Correia: Good, good, good. You don’t have to say that by the way. You could be like, “Your playlist is garbage.” But I appreciate you helping me out there. That’s what my kids do. So I want you to be able to introduce yourself to folks. So you got a couple interesting things going on. You’re practicing lawyer, work at a law firm. You’ve also got this legal tech software that’s focused on access to justice. So can you tell the folks a little bit about that?

William Crawford Appleby IV: Yeah absolutely. So I’m an attorney in the Los Angeles office of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman and we do cases for plaintiffs involving mass torts, drug cases and transportation accidents, especially aviation and we also qui tam. I also have on the side, my legal tech company which is called rulings.law and like you said it’s an access to justice thing. So what I’ve done essentially.

Jared Correia: You could describe it in more detail than that.

William Crawford Appleby IV:  Oh yeah don’t worry. Actually what I’ve done is I put together this searchable database of trial court rulings for state court judges in California. So now when people go in front of their trial court judge and they’re going to do a motion or they’re going to do some kind of argument, they can look up how the judge has ruled in the past and read their prior rulings and get some insight into those judges, learn about them, what arguments persuade them, what cases work for that judge, and then you know hopefully be more successful. And so the idea is to take something that you know is normally issued by the court and it’s only issued temporarily. It’s put up on the court’s website for a couple days and then the ruling disappears and it’s gone forever. But it’s still part of the public record and I think people should have it so that they can do this research. I wanted to make it free because you know, I wanted it to be something that everybody can have and so that’s what it’s all about.

Jared Correia: That’s really cool and that would seem to have a ton of applications for lawyers, lay people, potentially just anybody who has an interest in legal issues.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Absolutely. You know, I designed it originally to help, you know, lawyers, you know representing the little guy, but it’s turning out new kinds of uses all the time. So I’m always, you know, excited to find out what else people can do with it.

Jared Correia: And so how can people find the product?

William Crawford Appleby IV: Best way to do it is just to go online and visit the website rulings.law and everything you need to know is on there, including how to get in touch with me.

Jared Correia: Yeah, there you go. People should get in touch with you. Do you want to give out your cell phone number now or are you saving that for later?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I’ll save that for later.

Jared Correia: Okay. So check out the site especially if you’re in California. All right, now I got a game for you. So when I was a kid, I used to have this book called Donkeys Can’t Sleep In Bathtubs. You ever hear of this book?

William Crawford Appleby IV: No, it’s amazing. It’s a good title.

Jared Correia: I love this book and I bet I’m older than you. So this book probably came out like the early ‘80s, right? So it was all about like all these crazy state laws. So in one state, it was illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs randomly. So because you’ve got this ruling.law thing and you’re interested in spreading the word about laws in the United States, like let’s do a little spreading the word of some crazy laws in the US. So I got three questions for you.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Okay.

Jared Correia: So what I’m going to do is tell you a law that’s insane and then I’d like you to tell me the state in which that law applies. Are you ready to go?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I’m ready.

Jared Correia: Number one is probably obvious. In which state is it illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs? And I’m going to give you a multiple choice. I’m not going to make you guess.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Okay.

Jared Correia: So we got Arizona, New Mexico or Utah. What do you think?

William Crawford Appleby IV: New Mexico.

Jared Correia: Very close. Very close, it’s Arizona. You didn’t learn this in like first year property class?

William Crawford Appleby IV: No it wasn’t on there, my test unfortunately.

Jared Correia: So here’s the story. So in the 1920s, a dam broke in Arizona and it flooded this rancher’s house and the rancher had a donkey and the donkey like to sleep in a bathtub. So the bathtub got washed away like miles away and they had to like spend a ton of money like rescuing this donkey from a bathtub. So they passed a law that said donkeys can’t sleep in bathtubs. So no law against sitting or standing in bathtubs, however, as long as the donkey is awake.

William Crawford Appleby IV: I’ll keep that in mind when I go to Arizona.

Jared Correia: Yeah. Yeah, your donkeys, make them sleep somewhere else. So next question I think it’s particularly appropriate because as you told me you’re kind of summering in Vermont right now. I am in Massachusetts myself, let’s do New England-centric question. In which state is it illegal to park in front of Dunkin’ Donuts? Is it Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Maine?

William Crawford Appleby IV: I feel like it’s Massachusetts.

Jared Correia: That’s a good guess, but it’s not. It’s Maine. So the donkey in South Berwick is so busy that they banned parking in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts just because of so many traffic headaches. Last question, you’re over two so far. I’m not going to say I’m disappointed, but I’m a little disappointed.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Nowhere to go but up here.

(00:30:04)

Jared Correia: Nowhere to go but up. In which state are miners not allowed to play pinball? Pinball, the gateway to all kinds of illegal activity. Is it (a) Washington, (b) South Carolina or (c) Nebraska?

William Crawford Appleby IV: Nebraska.

Jared Correia: I’m sorry, we’re over three, it’s South Carolina. I actually don’t even have a story as to why that’s the case. I don’t get it. All right, that’s the quiz. You performed poorly. No, you’re fine.

William Crawford Appleby IV: I did. I did.

Jared Correia: That was a tough get, lots of tough questions there. But let’s turn this around a little bit. I’m going to do another.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Before we do, I wanted to mentioned.

Jared Correia: Yes, go ahead.

William Crawford Appleby IV: I don’t know if you’re aware, but another law that fits right in with your quiz.

Jared Correia: Hit me. Bonus law.

William Crawford Appleby IV: It’s two laws actually.

Jared Correia: Yes.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Yeah, bonus law that the Federal Penal Code says that it is illegal for you to impersonate Smokey the Bear or Woodsy the Owl. I’m not joking. You can look it up.

Jared Correia: I’m so screwed for Halloween next year. All right, let’s turn this around a little bit, like tell me — who’s your favorite musical artist? I’m going to include that person on our next playlist just for you.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Favorite musical artist?

Jared Correia: Yeah.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Oh gosh. This is really random.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

William Crawford Appleby IV: But I really like the Blues Brothers.

Jared Correia: The Blues Brothers? Like John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd from the movie?

William Crawford Appleby IV: Yeah, just doing covers. Yeah.

Jared Correia: Oh I was not expecting that. All right.

William Crawford Appleby IV: That was a curve ball.

Jared Correia: I made the promise. I’m going to make this happen. Well, we’re almost out of time. So thank you Crawford for playing. You are fantastic. I’m glad you won our little contest. One more time, can you tell people about who you are and how to find you?

William Crawford Appleby IV: Yeah, absolutely. Anybody who wants to reach out, I’m an attorney at Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles and my legal tech company is rulings.law.

Jared Correia: All right, thanks Crawford. You were amazing. Check out rulings.law everybody. Not bad at all. I’m giving you a silent round of applause right now.

William Crawford Appleby IV: Thanks Jared.

Jared Correia: But that will do it sadly for another episode of the Legal Toolkit podcast where we just bothered zoning.

[Music]

(00:32:38)