Aliens!; Why Law Firms Should Focus on Selling; and “Samesies”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jared Correia: I’d like to take a moment to thank my mom for listening to every episode. Now, my mom is the real reason you’re listening to this show right now, but the sponsors have a little something to do with it as well. So, I’d like to thank our sponsors too; Clio, Scorpion, TimeSolv, Alert Communications. As the largest legal only call center in the U.S., Alert Communications sells law firms and legal marketing agencies with new client intake. Alert captures and responds 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]

Intro: It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia with guest Erik Bermudez, a round of Samesies. And as this show is all about learning, Jared shares his top 10 Sex Ed films from the 80s. But first, your host, Jared Correia.

Jared Correia: The Legal Toolkit Podcast is happening right at this second. Yes, I’m your host, Jared Correia. Burke Convey was unavailable so you’re stuck with me. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys. Find us online at redcavelegal.com. I’m the COO of Gideon Software, Inc. We build chat bots so law firms can convert more leads. You can find out more about Gideon at gideon.legal.

Before we get to our interview today with Erik Bermudez of Filevine, I want to talk about UFOs. That’s right, because aliens, I’ve always been kind of fascinated by aliens. I mean, who hasn’t? And it’s kind of naive to believe that there’s no life outside of humanity, right? There’s for sure biological life and there’s probably also intelligent life. I mean, the universe is so very vast, it’s impossible to dismiss the possibility altogether because our knowledge will likely never extend to the furthest reaches of the universe, which by the way is still expanding ever faster as we speak.

Interest in space and alien life converged on the public consciousness in the 1940s and 1950s in the U.S. as the Roswell incident occurred in 1947and Sputnik was launched 10 years later, which kicked off the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. That culminated in the 1969 moon landing managed by the United States Apollo 11 team. Since then, interest in the cosmos has mostly waxed with a through line of pop culture references for alien life serving as touchstones in our modern life. Think about how many things you watch consume that have to do with space and aliens; Star Wars, Star Trek, the alien movie series. The X-Files also is a seminal television show that my wife and I love. We’ve seen every episode including those produced for the new seasons. But it wasn’t really a surprise that the X-Files went off the rails in later seasons when they dropped the whole alien as antagonist thing and adopted a super soldier’s plot to drive the narrative. It also didn’t help that David Duchovny quit the show to make bad movies and worse music.

I recently made the mistake of watching M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs with my eight-year-old son. Now, I hear about aliens all the time, and I check for them in the backyard every night. Yes, it seems that human curiosity about space and aliens is as unending as the universe itself. That purported Roswell UFO incident I mentioned at the top is maybe the most famous one ever. In 1947, the conspiracy theory goes that an alien craft landed on a ranch in New Mexico and there were alien fatalities in the crash. Those alien fatalities were promptly scooped up by the U.S. Army so they could examine them and reverse engineer the spaceship. Or, so the story goes, the federal government said that it was U.S. Air Force balloon that crashed.

Now, I’ve actually visited Roswell probably over 20 years ago at this point. I just always wanted to go and it didn’t disappoint to be perfectly honest with you. So, of course, I went to the Roswell UFO Museum. I talked to the founder of the museum and self-professed Roswell crash witness, Glenn Dennis, about what he had seen. When he was talking to me, he was adamant about the fact that he had viewed alien bodies after the crash. He worked at the largest funeral home in town and he told me that he was asked by the local military base about supplying child-sized caskets ostensibly to bury the aliens. Did I believe him? He seems sincere, but there’s also a lot of inconsistencies with his story, as well as those of other witnesses. What I will say though is that if I was an alien looking to observe humans undetected, there are probably few better places to do so than in the New Mexico desert, which at night is a blanket of darkness with small dots of lights across the horizon representing small towns in the difference. And unless you crashed your UFO, the whole operation would probably have gone off without a hitch.

When I left the museum, we pulled into a gas station and saw a man pumping gas into what can only be described as a fish-shaped metal clad tank with Swastikas all over it. I assume this was to represent the native American symbol given the location. It was very clearly a DIY project and when I asked the guy about it, he actually opened the hatch and showed me around the control panel. I still have no idea what the purpose of building an armored fish car was. So, maybe the aliens touched down, saw this fish-shaped tank and just turned back and said no intelligent life on this planet. Meanwhile, I’m left with lots of questions and a baseball cap in my basement that has a representation of an alien’s head on it with lettering underneath reading abductee.

There’s not a lot of smoke of late about how maybe UFOs are real, with the federal government releasing suspicious videos and former pentagon officials coming out of the woodwork talking about how there may be something to all these accounts of impossibly fast moving objects in the sky after all. This past week, President Obama went on James Corden’s Late Late Show and told the host he had asked when he became president whether anyone was actively working on UFO investigations. In other words, was there real X-Files. The disappointing answer, no. But I guess we’ll find out at some point whether there’s been a massive cover-up or we’ve all just been fooling ourselves. In Fox Mulder’s office on the X-Files, he has a poster on his wall with a picture of a UFO that says, “I want to believe.” I’m not sure that I want to believe but I’m open to it. Until then, maybe the better advice comes from the same source, “Trust no one.”

Did you know that Cat Stevens wrote a song about aliens visiting earth called Longer Boats? It’s on his iconic album Tea for the Tillerman, and there are alternative lyrics you can find on YouTube that make that theme explicit. In this week’s Spotify playlist, I’ll include Longer Boats plus some other tracks about celestial possibilities. Now, don’t go anywhere, and why would you after that, because the truth is still out there. And the truth is that we’re about to talk to Erik Bermudez from Filevine about why and how law firms should focus on selling. Frankly, I don’t know how to make the transition from aliens to sales, so let’s take a moment to listen to the Clio Legal Trends Report Minute.

[Music]

Joshua Lennon: Here’s a fact, 58% of your clients want their lawyers to use more technology. I’m Joshua Lennon, lawyer in residence at Clio. What does this data mean for you and your law firm? It’s an indication that client expectations are shifting and a lot of this shift is being driven by technology. According to industry data in the past year, 52% of clients say they use more types of technology than ever and 50% say they become even more comfortable with that technology. When it comes to working with a law firm, over half want to meet through videoconferencing and handle their documents electronically. Law firms that don’t adapt to the shifting needs of their clients will inevitably fall behind. To learn more about what clients today are looking for and much more, download Clio’s Legal Trends Report for free at clio.com/trends. That’s clio, spelled C-L-I-O.

Jared Correia: Okay, it’s about time to get to the loose meat in the middle of this savory Luke Dawkins’ sandwich. Let’s interview our guest. My guest today, as I mentioned previously, is Erik Bermudez, who is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Filevine. Very impressive. Erik, how are you?

Erik Bermudez: I’m great, Jared. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Jared Correia:  Thanks for coming in, man. I know we usually talk about this stuff over a Poke bowl in the Southwest United States, but now we’ve got this different channel, which is a podcast. So, thanks for taking some time.

Erik Bermudez:  No problem. One of these days, we’ll get back down there and we’ll have another bowl together.

Jared Correia:  That’d be great. I’m looking forward to that. I’m just looking forward to getting out of my house again, frankly. So, you’re a sales guy. You’ve done sales at Filevine. I think you did like other sales jobs prior to that, right? So you’ve been like living in sales for a long time. Am I right on that in terms of your background?

Erik Bermudez:  Yeah, yeah, you are. I mean it’s interesting because sales is never, at least for me how it worked out for me, it was never one of those glorious careers, right, or professions or skill sets growing up in high school or in college. “Hey, I’m going to be a sales guy.” But, you know, it just kind of worked that way and now I’ve been doing it in terms of relationships and sales and partnerships, and kind of that whole thing. I’ve been doing that for about 15 years now.

Jared Correia:  Right, which is wild. Yeah, don’t feel bad. Like when I was in kindergarten, I wasn’t like, “Man, it’d be awesome to be a lawyer and a consultant.” Like, that’s really what I want to do. I think I had more sports attributes at that point, that’s what I wanted to do. So, you guys are out of Utah, which I think people know but maybe not. And like it’s funny Utah has almost become like the sales mecca, right, in some ways. Like you’ve got like companies, like podium out there, and the sales that these companies make is just staggering. I know a lot of people attribute that to like the Latter-day Saints stuff and people going and knocking on doors all the time. Do you feel additional pressure to sell well because you’re like out in this community where like everybody just crushes it in terms of sales?

Erik Bermudez:  You know, that’s a good question, and I would be lying if I didn’t say, especially in Central Utah, amongst the two valleys, it kind of has adopted this name of silicon slopes, right. You got the mountains and now you have all these tech companies that are blowing up, right smack dab in the middle of Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley. You know, you have a company in the fintech space called MX. You already mentioned podium. You have the telecommunications company called Weave. You have Qualtrics that just went public recently. And you have all these companies jam-packed and if you know Utah, you’re in this bowl surrounded by mountains and so you can’t just spread out forever and ever and ever. We are in the middle of Wasatch Mountains. So, it’s a very high concentration of tech companies and yeah, there’s a level of competitiveness and there’s rides and a sense of loyalty to the specific company. For me, personally, it’s not like I’m trying to go out and outsell peers or anything like that. I’m just trying to do the best job that I possibly can for Filevine and contribute to Filevine but I will say this. It’s palatable in these two valleys.

There’s the terms always thrown around of okay, who’s going to be the next big unicorn amongst these two valleys in the state, unicorn being any company that has a valuation of a billion or more. So, it’s definitely there. Does it impact me? I don’t know, but it’s definitely there, and there’s a lot of younger population. We have a couple of big universities that are feeder schools that just continue to drive great talent what we feel like here in the state.

Jared Correia:  Yeah, that’s awesome. What a great environment to be in. You’re calm and collected guy, I knew you wouldn’t let any of that stuff affect you.

Erik Bermudez:  Absolutely not. No, no. No way. No effect whatsoever. You know how it is. You just go and crush it and do your thing.

Jared Correia:  That’s right, that’s right. I love it. Okay, so, you do the sales thing. Sales is like not a dirty word in other industries, but for some reason like lawyers hate this idea of sales and being told that they sell. Why do you think that is?

Erik Bermudez:  That’s a really, really good question. I think it has to deal with a number of different factors, but one of them is you have these professions that are very niche, that you go to eight years of schooling to do a specific thing and it’s almost, not a guarantee, but it’s almost like look, you get through school, the dollars are going to come, right. If you become a physician, the money is going to be there. Almost if you become a lawyer in essence, right. You almost have these, not explicitly stated, but you almost have these implicit guarantees that you’re going to join a company and life’s going to be great. Well, you and I both know at the end of the day, every profession there’s an element of sales, there’s an element of market. And even if you’re in some random manufacturing company and you’re in operations, all of us to a certain degree are in sales. I think where you get that bad name is, you know, sometimes unfortunately, there’s some bad stigmas attached to sales. You automatically go to the used car salesman, used car salesmen tactics.

Jared Correia:  And lawyers say that. They’re like, I’m not a used car salesman. I deliver legal services, totally spot on as far as you’re concerned.

Erik Bermudez:  Right, right. Yeah, no, you’re a hundred percent. I think at the end of the day, it’s just coming around the corner and to the knowledge that that’s how life works, there’s transactions happening all over the place and at what cost and is it a dollar, is it a service or is it a technology or is it a product. At the end of the day, business is business in terms of transacting something and we’re all in it to make sure that those are done hopefully with a lot of integrity, and you’re doing it the right way.

Jared Correia:  Right, and I don’t think law firms see it that way unfortunately in a lot of cases. So, when I talk to lawyers, part of what I tell them is like wouldn’t it be more valuable if you had some knowledge about sales and how that works, the psychology of marketing. And there’s just not a ton of intellectual curiosity about that, which I think is really unfortunate. But I’m starting to see some law firms come around. I’m starting to see law firms hire marketing people, sales people, which is a totally different thing. I don’t know if you’re seeing that in the industry or you think there are ways that lawyers can ramp up their sales acumen, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on that as well, kind of where this is going. Because I do think it’s changing slowly.

Erik Bermudez:  Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I mean, like I mentioned before, I haven’t gone through law school but you hear a lot of people say in the market say, “You go to law school to become a lawyer, right, and there’s not much sales and marketing experience or knowledge transferred in that schooling.” And same thing with many other professionals.

Jared Correia:  Where did you learn it, totally.

Erik Bermudez:  Right. So, you’re right. I think as folks branch off and they have aspirations to be an entrepreneur, and to some degree you are selling legal services. I mean at the end of the day, whether it’s a box of something or legal services, that’s what you’re doing. And so, what I do see for sure and I know they’ve been around a long time, marketing agencies, I do see a unique interesting trend though where, yeah, like you mentioned folks are bringing that in-house and they want to build up that experience, they want to build up that brand recognition. They want to build up that IQ specifically to sales and marketing for themselves. So, you have these traditional sales people, these traditional marketers now coming in-house to really see how can that skill set rather than a technology company or a software company, how can we apply those to the legal services space. And surprisingly, it’s very applicable, very applicable.

Jared Correia:  Well, that’s an interesting question. In terms of the law firm environment, it’s not like a tech company in the sense that I hear a lot of law firms saying let’s establish like a sales culture. I don’t hear that a lot. But do you think that would be viable in a law firm potentially where there could be a sales culture, where there could be continuous learning and updating on this stuff? And do you have any tips from how you have structured this in your various roles? Do you think it might work in a law firm environment?

Erik Bermudez:  Oh, yeah. I mean the first thing that comes to mind as you ask that question is what’s the first impression. When you take a client or you take a lead or you take a prospect, however you want to even position this person that calling your firm for the very first time, interacting with your website for the very first time. What’s the impression? Put yourself in their shoes, what does your intake specialist or the receptionist that answers the phone, how do they talk to that person? Unfortunately, just like all sales people and you get into the routine, right, and you think every opportunity is equal. But if you can’t have the energy, the enthusiasm and the empathy to really understand what this person is going through, are there certain elements to help them at the end of the day sell your services, make that people feel welcome, cared for, on top of it that ultimately turns into a converted client. That right there is the moment of the sale.

Jared Correia:  I think you make a great point in terms of law firm receptionists, doctors’ office receptionists. I call a lot of law firms and I know you probably do as well. And I get a lot of receptionists who are kind of mean, frankly. And I’ll get on the phone with the lawyers and I’m like, “Was that your receptionist? She was really not happy to hear from me.” And she didn’t know who I was. I just like gave my name. I could be any schmo off the street like calling for legal services. I think this frontline issue which you talk about, I think is really important for law firms to get a handle on because I think a lot of lawyers are also like, “Hey, my admin people do that and I do this other thing. Meanwhile, like the first impression that’s getting left is really not great.”

Erik Bermudez:  And it’s a very dynamic issue that law firms have to deal with. If you think about any company outside of law firms even typically, not always, but typically some of the employees and team members that are paid the least are the ones delivering the first impressions.

Jared Correia:  Absolutely.

Erik Bermudez:  Are they monitored? Are they held accountable? Are these individuals that are giving those first impressions trained? Are they getting the resources that they need in every moment to ensure that they are successful in selling your firm? Whether folks want to believe it or not, at least by phone, they play an absolute crucial role in terms of the sale of that client, turning that prospect into a client. So, that’s the first thing is that interesting dynamic of sometimes your least paid team members are the ones that are the most crucial of the law firm in terms of the front door.

Jared Correia:  Right. Well, and then you get the toll like lawyer non-lawyer dichotomy, which I’ve railed against for years, which is like, oh, this person is not a lawyer. They’re somehow not as worthwhile as an attorney. When really like a lot of revenue streams depend on how well those admins service the clients or leads frankly.

Erik Bermudez:  Right, right, absolutely. And I’ll say the whole other side of the fence to this conversation is the prospect and the lead, and maybe, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, I would have to believe that the route that that lead took to understand, learn more about and contact that law firm is very different than that route today, where if that very initial impression is not up to standards, they’re going to go right back to Google and they’re going to call the very next law firm that’s in the list. So, the window of time that you have either via digital on your website or that touch point or that phone call is so much more crucial because now the accessibility to tons of information and law firms and numbers, you’re just one half a second click away from losing that opportunity.

Jared Correia:  Oh, and even like five years ago, there’s a significant difference. But that’s a good point as well that you bring up. So, the other thing I want to talk to you about, which is related to this is, you work for a tech company. Like it’s a different world also in the sense that 20 years ago, this was all on a person that worked in your firm to generate those leads, make sure that the leads were cared for, convert those leads. Now, you can automate part of that process. You can use technology effectively to onboard people to kind of stop the shop like you were talking about. So, I’m interested in your thoughts on that. Like where does this intersect in terms of we’ve got some people on this who are talking to other people, but then we’re also using technology to supplement what those people do.

Erik Bermudez:  Yeah, that’s a really interesting intersection. I think people are always going to bring that human element and there’s always going to be room for that touch. The way I put it is the two T’s. You have the tech and you have the touch. You never can completely survive one without the other. I remember when I was in healthcare technology and we would consult with some of the largest healthcare technology companies in the country, and there was just this thirst to automate completely everything because that at its core is the only way that you can scale as you’re going from zero customers to a hundred to a thousand to fifty thousand. Well, you try to remove as much of that touch and people element. But I’ll tell you after a decade of monitoring customer satisfaction and customer research, the best companies are the ones that use technology to a certain extent absolutely to scale and automate some of the things, but not necessarily to completely replace the human. It’s always in an effort to augment a touch.

And it’s a very slight adjustment in perception there, but it’s an important one. And so, I would say, as you look at your technology, as you look at your people processes, is it trying to replace that touch element with clients or is it trying to augment the touch experience that your people, which frankly should be the most important asset in any organization what they’re doing with the clientele.

Jared Correia:  Right. I think that makes a lot of sense in terms of like how this works from a workflow perspective, right, because if you’re an attorney or even an attorney staff person, you might get a call from somebody at 8 PM, or maybe you’re having dinner and maybe your staff person is having dinner. People demand some kind of next step, some kind of interface where they can communicate, and without that, without the technology, they’re going to bounce. But you don’t have to take that call at dinner anymore. You could use like an online calendaring tool to schedule a call that you take later. So, my thoughts on this too, and I think your points are great, is that like this kind of needs to be a holistic consideration. You need to have an idea of what the intake workflow is, what your leads want, and then that can be really helpful in terms of clarifying this for lawyers.

Erik Bermudez:  Hundred percent, hundred percent. Our goal, especially here at Filevine, our goal is just that can we put a technology foundation in place to not necessarily replace the people but absolutely be a foundational element of how those processes and systems ran. That leads to all sorts of things that will benefit the firm long term, but yeah, and can you guide them to, in an automated way, guide them to an online calendaring tool, right, like you mentioned, I think is a great example. Or you miss the call or on the second call, you have it set up in the system to where it automatically text back within two minutes. So, now, at least there’s some sort of human-like element to say, “So sorry, you missed our call. We’d love to call you back. Can we schedule sometime tomorrow morning?” Well, that’s an automated text that no one’s necessarily sending but it’s all done by technology behind the scenes that again augment that human-like experience.

Jared Correia:  You’re making me feel better about AI and the eventual robot takeover. Maybe we have a little bit more time than I thought. So, thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

Erik Bermudez:  Coming soon to a new Netflix documentary.

Jared Correia:  This has been great, man. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Erik Bermudez:  Yeah, you’re welcome.

Jared Correia:   All right, everybody, that’s Erik Bermudez of Filevine. We’re not finished with Erik yet. He’ll be back in just a little bit for the Rump Roast. We’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about what our sponsors do for your law practice then stay tuned for that Rump Roast. It’s even more supple than the Roast Beast.

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Welcome to the rear end of the Legal Toolkit. It’s the Rump Roast, everybody. It’s a grab bag of short form topics of my choosing. Today, we’re bringing back our guest, Erik Bermudez from Filevine, to play a game I just made up. It’s called “Samesies.” How does Samsies work? Well, it’s like this. I find other people online who have the same name as my guest, then I asked my guests to compare themselves to their name twins. If it sounds delightful, that’s because it is. Erik, are you ready to play?

Erik Bermudez:  I’m already going to enjoy this, Jared. This is going to be amazing. All right, let’s have at it.

Jared Correia:  Erik had no idea this is coming. This is his real-time reaction, so let’s play Samesies.

Erik Bermudez:  No idea. Absolutely no idea.

Jared Correia:  Now, if I remember correctly, you used to play football, right?

Erik Bermudez:  I did.

Jared Correia:  Okay. I thought I remember that right. Now, just remind me, high school, college, like how far you got?

Erik Bermudez:  High school, would have gone to college but you have that unfortunate broken leg accident right in the middle of my senior season. So, it ended there.

Jared Correia:  All right. So, we’re going to go back to happier times prior to that. So, believe it or not, there is someone named Erik Bermudez, who plays high school football right now in California, same name as you. The name of the town is Live Oak, California, which is a weird name for a town, right, like most oaks are already alive. So, I want to read to you a little bit about Erik Bermudez from Live Oak, California. He’s a running back/cornerback, senior as of 2019, jersey number 42. Now, what I’d like to do is compare his stats to yours, because I feel like you’ll compare favorably. Let me just read out to you some of younger Erik Bermudez football player stats. He’s 5’8”, 150. He’s got a 40-yard dash of five flat. So let’s compare high school you to the new high school Erik Bermudez.

Erik Bermudez:  Okay. Okay, all right.

Jared Correia:  Taller, stronger? What was your 40-yard dash like? I don’t know, five flat seems like pretty weak. I feel like you would have been running a 4-3 4-4, am I right?

Erik Bermudez:  No, that was wishful, very, very wishful thinking back then. Let’s just put it that way. I was running a solid 5-1, maybe 5-1-1, 5-1-2, but, you know, on a good day, the right asphalt, the right shoes, I was doing a 5-1 flat.

Jared Correia:  So, this game is actually pretty fast for high school.

Erik Bermudez:  You know we actually had some running backs. We had some quick guys that were down in the 4-4, 4-4-5 range.

Jared Correia:  Really? I forgot to ask, what position did you play? Were you a linebacker?

Erik Bermudez:  No, I was a lineman. You got to remember, I was much larger than the new Erik.

Jared Correia:  The new Erik Bermudez is tiny compared to you.

Erik Bermudez:  Hundred percent. I was standing at an astounding just over six foot, and I was just over 300 pounds.

Jared Correia:  That’s impressive. I’m not even over six feet now.

Erik Bermudez:  Yeah, the roster height and your true height, you got to know even in high school especially when you got recruits and scouts coming. There’s going to be a little bit of a difference. So, if you ask me what was on paper, it’s much different than what I actually was, but on paper, 6’2”, 6’3” depending on the game and time of the season. And then, no, but I was right around 300 pounds.

Jared Correia:  I feel like you would have eaten young Erik Bermudez’s lunch. This sounds to me like the Jayson Tatum thing where he grows two inches every year for the Celtics. Like I think Jayson Tatum is like 6’11” this year whereas couple years ago he’s like 6’7”. It’s crazy all that happens.

Erik Bermudez:  But look, Jared, you and I both know he has — the new Erik has the much, much better position. It’s every lineman’s dream to catch the pumpkin or carry the pumpkin and actually run down the field for some yardage. You never get it, you know. We’re always just blocking bodies. That’s all we’re good for.

Jared Correia:  Unless you’re like a patriots lineman in the Super Bowl and Bill Belichick just decides to go crazy and throw one out to the flat.

Erik Bermudez:  That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Jared Correia:  All right, but we’re not done yet. I got some more stats for you. So, these are Erik Bermudez younger version from California’s bench numbers, right. So, let’s talk about weightlifting. He benches 230, squats 325, and clinch 185. I feel like you probably blew those numbers away in high school.

Erik Bermudez:  That’s weak. It’s almost embarrassing he has the same name. He shouldn’t have the same name frankly.

Jared Correia:  This poor kid is going to have to change his name now.

Erik Bermudez:  He’s going to have to change it, you know, put a junior on the end, whatever you want to do. But yeah, those are not Erik Bermudez from 2004 graduating class standards, so.

Jared Correia:  So, clearly, you’re Erik Bermudez senior in this situation.

Erik Bermudez:  Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. He has to get back to two days. I don’t know what that guy’s doing.

Jared Correia:  All right, guess what? And this is not the full list, but I found two more Erik Bermudez’s of interest online. There’s also an Erik Bermudez from Chico, California. He’s a self-described Raider’s fan boy. His last post from November 8, 2020 was a re-tweet of a guy doing a face plan into a swimming pool with four laughing so hard and crying emojis. He’s not on Twitter all that often. So, I have to ask, is this you?

Erik Bermudez:  No. No, that’s not me. But you know what though, if you know Chico, California, re-tweeting something like that is not surprising one there. I mean I think Chico year in and year out is one of the most hardest party schools in the U.S. I think it ranks in the top five year in and year out. I mean Chico, we actually had a couple of track and field events in Chico from Sacramento, and we’d make the three and a half hour drive north. Having pictures tweeted in that town from people face planning isn’t — now there may be some other liquids involved in causing that but I will say that is not too far from what you see every single evening in the front yards along the streets of Chico, California.

Jared Correia:  I do think this was an aided jump. You know, my inspiration for this is, there’s not many other Jared Correia’s out there all be candid, but there’s one kid from Ohio whose name is Jared Correia. He’s about 20 years younger than me. And this poor dude like I stole all the social media accounts from him. I’m Jared Correia, he’s Jared Correia one. It’s a hard life, you know. Just like younger, weaker Erik Bermudez has to follow you, like that’s a tough gap, man. Now, believe it or not –

Erik Bermudez:  That is funny.

Jared Correia:  There is yet another Erik Bermudez that I would like to highlight. This Erik Bermudez is on — he’s on Pinterest, which is an interesting choice in its own. But this Erik Bermudez likes tattoos. He’s got a lot of them. Plus, he eats lots of eggs. So, Erik Bermudez on Pinterest, if you’re listening to this, the only two things you got going on on Pinterest right now are pictures of your tattoos and the eggs you ate for breakfast. Maybe time to diversify. He has four followers, no profile pics.

Erik Bermudez:  I don’t know if this is getting more interesting or just worse and worse for heaven’s sakes. Four followers — 

Jared Correia:  Erik Bermudez, let me ask you again, is this your burner account?

Erik Bermudez:  No. I will say though, I mean, I don’t have tattoos, I have zero plans to get tattoos, but I do enjoy eggs. I really do; mornings and eggs. I mean he has that going for him.

Jared Correia:  Yeah, man, I bet you’re pounding the raw eggs before you went to the gym when you were in high school there, throwing up this numbers,

Erik Bermudez:  Oh, hundred percent, a hundred percent. You know, just watch the Rocky five second video clip of down in the raw eggs and boom. You’re off jogging five miles, bench pressing, much more than 230, I will say.

Jared Correia:  Yes, yes. I unfortunately like there are more Erik Bermudez’s online, but those are the only three I’m going to throw at you. So, thank you for being part of the Rump Roast. You’re a great sport. I appreciate it.

Erik Bermudez:  You bet. This was a lot of fun. I had no clue that there were that many out there and somewhat similar entries. This was fun. This was fun, Jared. I appreciate you doing the research. This was good.

Jared Correia:  All right, that’s the end of the Rump Roast. That’s the end of the podcast, sadly. I want to say thank you to my guest. That was Erik Bermudez of Filevine. For more information about Filevine, go to filevine.com. Now, for those of you listening in Bacon Level, Alabama, I know you’re out there, our Spotify playlist for this week features songs about celestial topics. And if aliens are real, you may want to listen to this quick before the inevitable invasion occurs. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of time. So, I’m not going to be able to give you my list of top 10 Sex Ed films from the1980s. Come back next time though and I’ll give you my top 20.

Now, that’ll do it for another episode of Legal Toolkit Podcast, where a lady in my neighborhood walks the chicken around on a leash. That’s a real thing. See you next time

[Music]

 

Podcast transcription by Tech-Synergy.com