Norm Macdonald; Niche Legal Practice; and “Chicago vs. Kansas City”

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’ll 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, Alert Communications, Scorpion and TimeSolv.

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Intro: It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia.

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With guests, Stanley Tate, a round of Chicago versus Kansas City and then Jared reads selections from his dream journal.  Make sure no kids are listening.  This stuff gets gross.  But first, your host, Jared Correia.

Jared Correia: It’s the Legal Toolkit Podcast even though I don’t even know a pair of pliers(ph).  I’m your host, Jared Correia.  David Letterman was unavailable.  His beard finally consumed him.  I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations.  Find us online at redcavelegal.com.  I’m the COO of Gideon Software, Inc.  We build chatbots so law firms can convert more leads and conversational document assembly tools so law firms can build documents faster and more accurately.  You can find out more about Gideon at gideonlegal.com.

Before we get to our interview today with Stanley Tate from Tate Law on niche practices, I want to talk about Norman Macdonald, the massively under appreciated comedian who recently passed away.  When everybody dies, people fall all over themselves to address as many superlatives as they possibly can and so it was when Norman Macdonald passed away recently after a long secret battle with cancer, which is very much like him.  All of a sudden, Norman was the best late-night talk show guest ever, the best SNL Weekend Update host ever, the funniest Canadian ever, et cetera, et cetera, and so on and so forth.

Now, while I do agree that Norman was great on late night TV especially with Conan O’Brien and he was certainly my favorite Weekend Update anchor, I mean anybody get shit-canned for making too many jokes about OJ Simpson it’s all right in my book.  He’s definitely not the funniest Canadian ever at least as long as Jim Carrey is in the building.  But you know about that.  I’ve talked about that previously.  That all being said, it’s still a pretty strong resume.  Now, you wouldn’t immediately think of Norman Macdonald as an almost sinister comedian because he was so deadpan but he kind of was.  I always thought of him as a more subversive version of Bob Newhart, if such a thing exists, and with all the effusive praise coming out now, you think everybody was in on the Norman Macdonald experience right from the start, sitting there with him in the comedy club.  But that wasn’t the case at all.

Norman Macdonald never mainstreamed in a way that Adam Sandler or Chris Farley were.  Hell, even as mainstreamed as David Spade was.  And I was — part of that was cool about being a Norman Macdonald fan, it’s like a secret club.  A lot of people didn’t seem together.  Maybe that was probably because he made a lot of people feel uncomfortable about his comedy in the vain of Andy Kaufman but Andy Kaufman was a fucking weirdo.  Norman was a little bit more norm-al.  He just had this edge and he was kind of a dick and I was here for that.

Now, one thing you never hear about Norman Macdonald, even after he died, was that he was great movie actor.  He wasn’t a great movie actor but he made one great movie.  In fact, I think Norman Macdonald’s “Dirty Work” came out in 1998 was his magnum opus.  You probably haven’t seen Dirty Work, that’s okay.  Why would you watch it?  If you went to the Rotten Tomatoes page for the movie, you would see it has a 14% rating.  That’s not good.  Three of the critical reviews were just blank, like it said nothing at all.  And here’s a sampling of some of the others, a stupid low-down vulgar comedy, Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle.  Don’t bother to hang around for the outtakes, they’re not funny either.  Laurens Van Elder, New York Times.  Not great when you get panned on both coasts.  A screamingly awful, achingly, unfunny comedy.  Look at that pros coming in hot from Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle.  Those were the good reviews that I just read by the way and Marc Savlov really needs to get laid but that’s a story for another day.

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Now, the thing is Dirty Work is easily, easily one of the best comedies from the 90s and there were a lot of great comedies in the 90s.  I put it up there with Office Space, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy, the American Pie movies, Clueless, Friday, Dumb and Dumber, Wayne’s World, Mallrats.  Just for some context, Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” which is one of a number of like objectively terrible Adam Sandler movies has a 37% rating.  It’s funnily three times better than Dirty Work at least according to Rotten Tomatoes.  So, you know what?  Fuck Rotten Tomatoes.  I think people don’t like Dirty Work because they thought Norman Macdonald was really a shitty actor.  Only I don’t think he was acting.  I think he was just being Norman Macdonald in a movie and that’s one of the things that makes his performance so generally funny.  It’s like the opposite of over-the-top.  But Dirty Work also has a great plot.  It’s actually pretty inventive.

So, there’s two long-lost brothers who start a revenge for hire business … hilarity ensues.  Long-lost brothers you say?  Yes.  When someone in the movie is surprised to learn that Mitch, which is Norman Macdonald’s character’s name, is actually Sam’s brother and (00:06:15) Mitch says, “It’s a long story” and Sam brings in with “My dad boned his mom,” to which Mitch replies after be “Okay, it’s a short story” and it’s like that the whole movie.  Literally, every joke land in its top quality one after another, after another, after another.  I could repeat every line of dialogue in this film and it’s honestly impressive even watching it 20 plus years after it came out.  And just to be clear, for those listening at home with children, every joke is offensive but you probably already knew that.  And the rest of the cast is pretty good too.

So, Chevy Chase is in the movie.  He plays the doctor who is very, very bad at gambling, so bad that he bets against Rocky in the Rocky movie.  What I don’t understand he says is “When you owe a bookie a lot of money and he say blows off one of your toes, you still owe money.”  It doesn’t seem fair to me.  The rest of the casts is also very solid.  Jack Warden is Mitch and Sam’s dad, John Goodman is the mayor, Adam Sandler is the devil and Gary Coleman is his minion.  Yes, you heard that right.  Christopher McDonald is in the movie too.  You may know him as Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore.  He’s the bad guy.  Chris Farley is one of the barflies.  Don Rickles owns a movie theater.  David Koechner is a used car dealer.  Traylor Howard from Boston Common is Mitch’s girlfriend.  Oh, and Bob Saget, fresh off from Full House in America’s Funniest Home Videos, he was the director.

So, spoiler alert.  This did not lead to successful directing career for Bob Saget but I probably didn’t need to tell you that either.  Also, the movie prominently features many 90s hits gear to my heart.  The Third Eye Blind is in there with Semi-Charmed Life.  Chumbawamba even makes an appearance.  Those are the jams back in the day and well frankly still.  Yeah, for all that, no one respects this movie and that’s what hurts the second most, the lack of respect.  Now, Norman Macdonald is not making any more movies but Dirty Work is available to stream on HBO Max.  Of course, it’s on the shittiest streaming platform (00:08:23) quippy.  But if you’re one of the very few proud subscribers of HBO Max and can actually get the damn thing to load, check out Dirty Work or I guess just wait until it eventually moves over to Netflix.

This is a largely undiscovered comedic gem.  I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen if you decide to give it a shot?  It’s at least as good an idea as placing dead fish around the Southern California mansion of a prolific drug dealer.  What could go wrong?  Now, before we talk to our guest, Stanley Tate of Tate Law about niche practice, Joshua Lenon has some freshly squeezed to test tickle nuggets for you from the Clio Legal Trends Report.  That’s right, everybody.  It’s the long-awaited Clio Legal Trends Report minute.  We’ll be back in a second or a minute I supposed.

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Joshua Lenon: Here’s a fact, 58% of your clients want their lawyers to use more technology.  I’m Joshua Lenon, lawyer in residence at Clio.  What is 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 used 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.  Learn more about what clients today are looking for and much more.  Download Clio’s Legal Trends Report for free at clio.com/trends.

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That’s clio spelled C-L-I-O.

Jared Correia: All right, let’s get to the burnt ends on this plate of barbecue from Oklahoma Joe’s.  It is this podcast.  It’s time to interview our guest.  My guest today is Stanley Tate, principle of Tate Law.  Stanley, how are you doing?  Welcome to the show.

Stanley Tate: Oh, man, I’m chilling. Thanks for having me. How’s everything on your end?

Jared Correia: Good man, good.  We had a wasp manifestation in the house so there’re bees all over the house last night but it’s been resolved so I’m doing pretty well.

Stanley Tate: Oh, I’m glad that worked out for you.

Jared Correia: Thank you, me too. I got to tell you, man, like I had a bunch of people who recommend you for the show because they saw you do this presentation at ABA TECHSHOW on niche practices and I hear it was awesome.  So, I want to explore that issue with you.  There’s a rumor also that you are giving away cookies?  Is this a real thing?

Stanley Tate: So, not giving it away, right?  It’s part of the whole thing like — I operate with a principle that you have to believe your business is going to be successful even when there’s no evidence of it in order to deliver rock star customer service.  So, as part of believing that I’m going to be successful, I was like, “Hey, I want to give my clients cookies when I onboard.”  I want to give them something.  And then I was thinking “I didn’t want business cards.  I didn’t want that.”  And I was like, “Wait, how do I get someone to hold on to my contact information that’s not a business card?”  And I was like, “No one throws away cookie tins.”  And I was like, “Yo, let me see if I can find someone to ship out cookie tins with cookies in them.”  And it just so happened I found this company that does it and it has worked out great because like the added benefit of these cookies, they cost me, you know, a handful of dollars, whatever.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: But then I sent them to clients and if I make a mistake –I’m the dude that sent them cookies.  Like it’s hard to be mad at me.  So like that’s the approach that I take with it.  It’s like you want to deliver Rockstar service but it also has added benefit.  If I ever messed up, I gave you cookie.  Shut up.

Jared Correia: I love that, that’s great.  I think the first part of that is surely important too and I want to highlight that for people who are listening which is like you got to believe in the business regardless of what state the business is in and you got to crush it on the customer service side without a doubt.  Yeah, has anyone ever refused cookies at any point in time in history?  Probably not.

Stanley Tate: No, you’re right.  No one’s ever refused cookies.  You know, of course you send them to people that going to like Cheetos or something like that and so they give them to the kids or to whoever and —

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate:  And that’s the risky one but that’s such like a small risk that the benefit greatly outweighs.  So you don’t worry about it because it’s a unexpected gift on your part.

Jared Correia: Right, right.  Nobody’s going to be even if they’re on keto, nobody’s going to be like “You sent me cookies, asshole.”  It’s never going to happen.

Stanley Tate: Right.

Jared Correia: Let’s talk a little bit about — so you’ve got a really interesting practice.  You focus exclusively on student loan law, right?

Stanley Tate: Yes.

Jared D. Correia:  And that’s a federal practice area, really cool spot to be in.  So you’re all dialed in to this niche practice.  So, this notion of niche practice I think is important for law firms because it does a lot of things that reduces competition, it makes it easier to sell yourself and be more authentic.  Can you talk a little bit about the value of a niche practice for you and why you decided to get into this particular practice area?

Stanley Tate: Yes.  So the way I thought about is like Seth Godin who had the book “Purple Cow,” right, like book marketing.  The whole concept there is you want to be something that stands out.  And too many lawyers I saw that launched their own firm, they are jacks of all trades.  And so, you’re trying to be Cheesecake Factory but you can’t out Cheesecake, Cheesecake Factory.  There’s no way you can do everything great.  So, from my perspective, I was like, “Let me focus on something that could be great at that has the possibility — the potential for scale.”  And —

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: When I was looking at things, it starts off like, “Oh, I’ll just do bankruptcies” and bankruptcies are scalable to an extent but the problem is for the most part you’re stuck in the area from marketing wherever you’re located at unless you try to do a national practice.

Jared Correia: Yes.  Right.

Stanley Tate: But that brings us some headaches.  So I was like, “Okay, with student loans, I can pretty much do that all over” and then also there’s less competition there because people are like, “I don’t know what to do with it.”  We have an aging population of consumer lawyers who didn’t want to tackle it.  You had new lawyers who are coming up that didn’t even know it was an error of law like I didn’t know it was one either.

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: And so, it was just — it was right for opportunity plus all the other dudes, there was like a handful of people who were doing it.  It was either nonprofit legal service organizations or a couple of like dudes who didn’t look like me or didn’t have my personality.

Jared D. Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: I was like, “I have an opportunity to stand out here and make a name for myself.”  So, that was the whole mindset that I took into and it’s been like a huge reward for me.

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Jared Correia: I think that’s awesome.  I think I’m sensing a theme here also.  So we’re talking about cookies, we’re talking about Cheesecake Factory, I’m definitely willing to go down that rabbit hole.  Now, I’m getting hungry.  Let me ask you, I was looking around your website a little bit and I thought it was really interesting how you pick this niche practice, right, because there’s a little story behind that.  Like you said, you were in law school or you were in the military as well, you were like, “Hey, when I get out, I’m going to be a student loan lawyer.”  That kind of — it kind of fell into that a little bit, right?  And that’s okay, like I’m just interested in the origin story behind that.

Stanley Tate: Well, I mean it’s not all that eventful, right?  I guess I could be like these corporations who make up a cool origin story later but like at end of the day, I went to law school to get paid and like I want to get paid legally.  How do I make the most money doing the least amount of work?  That is my goal.  And so, I started to think through what does that look like but then, I also realized I actually don’t really want to make the most amount to do the least because personal injury doesn’t interest me at all.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: So, what can I do that —

Jared Correia: Also, super competitive.

Stanley Tate: Right, also competitive.  But I was like, “What can I do?”  So, as I was ending on my federal clerkship, one of the attorneys — banks attorney, he had a student loan question, some CLE, and he was like, “Dude, what’s the — do you know the answer to this?” and I just so happen to know the answer because I just dealt with the issue myself.  He said “Man, you should really focus on student loans.  We have no one here that does this.  You would be prime to do it” and I was like, “Why me?”  He said, “Because you’re — look around, you’re the youngest person in the room” and I was like “True.  True.  Okay.”

Jared Correia: Fair point.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.  But then there’s a difference between someone telling you there’s an opportunity for legal services versus opportunity for you to get paid because you still have to be able to market and figure out how to monetize something that didn’t really exist.

Jared Correia: Yes.

Stanley Tate: Right?

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: And so you have to figure that piece out.  And here’s the hard part, there’s people who turn out these courses that teach you all about student loan law but no one teaches you how to make money and that’s really what we need to focus on.  How do you make money in a way that makes sense for you?  And so that’s been the — after I got down with the law part, I understood it in how to do it, I spent most of my energy understanding how to make money from what I was doing.

Jared Correia: It’s shocking to me even at this point how many lawyers like come out of law school and they’re like — I’m like, “What do you want to do?”  And I’m like, “I want to help people.”  Like nobody takes that mindset into it that like “I’d like to help people and oh by the way also run a business that’s profitable.”  So I love that you bring that into — let me —

Stanley Tate: Dude, I’m from Chicago, man, like from the hood, like — so like — honestly, like this is opportunity to change my stars like that movie “A Knight’s Tale” with that boy, Heath Ledger, right?  Like, —

Jared Correia: Yes.

Stanley Tate: –you change your stars, that’s what the law provides me.  Yes, I get to be helpful but if I were just to care about being helpful, I could be a damn barista at Starbucks.  I want to get paid doing this.  So, let me figure that part out.  And it sounds crazy because it’s like we’re all about the money but that’s not really it.  What it is money provides security and I never want to be broke again, I never want to worry about my home security, my food security, my family security.  So the law enforced me to do that.

Jared Correia: I totally get it like I take a similar approach.  My family is poor growing up too and I think you have a different mindset when that happens.  Let’s extend this conversation a little bit because I think this was interesting.  So, like you’ve talked a lot about the benefits of niche practice, I think people generally understand those now.  But I think the hardest part for people is starting it up because the beauty of like a general practice for most attorneys they can take any case they want.  I think it’s very hard for attorneys to focus on a specific practice area and turn down work.  Like how do you get past that?  Because that’s a real significant hurdle.

Stanley Tate: Well — so, I didn’t start off just like I’m only doing the one thing but what I made sure was that any time I introduce myself, I introduced myself as that one thing but then my friends, whoever they knew I was a lawyer, and so they will come on and be like, “Hey, can you help out with this contract?  Can do this or whatever.  Can you handle this traffic ticket?”  Cool.  And I did that and I used to run around town like my clients say, “Oh, I got $50 for you.” Dude, I would drop everything and go chase down that $50 and go get it.  Because if they didn’t go to me, it was going in like somebody else.  So like I need to go to them, right?

Jared Correia: Right, right, right.

Stanley Tate: But you do that with the understanding that you have to market yourself for what you are becoming and you have to keep your focus there.

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: And so that was always my focus and slowly over time I built up enough rep where I’m starting getting enough leads and opportunities for just student loans that I could fully abandon doing all other areas of law.  And so, that took me four years to do that and — but it was worth it because like, you know, you go through that struggle and makes me appreciate the opportunity that I have now to just focus and it feels so crazy because like someone’s like, “Oh, I got some money for you to do this thing” and, you know, you can do it in ten minutes but then you’re like — actually, that takes away from all this other stuff I want to do over here.

(00:20:06)

So, I’m going to say no to that and —

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: It feels good because you’re not operating from a position of hunger anymore.  You’re operating from a position of security you know you’re going to be okay so you could say no to things.

Jared Correia: Yeah.  You get a little bit of that grind and you know, still, I can feel it.  I think that’s right and —

Stanley Tate: The grind is different now.  The grind now is “I want to see if I can make a million dollars a year as a solo attorney with no help.”  “Can I do that?”  That’s the grind.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: And you got to set goals for yourself.  “Will I get it?”  “I don’t know.”  But like, that’s the goal I have for myself because I want to see can it be done?

Jared Correia: I feel like you can get it.  It can be done.

Stanley Tate: Let’s see.

Jared Correia: You’re probably got to do it.

Stanley Tate: Let’s see, bro.  That’s my goal.

Jared Correia: One thing I take from this too is a lot of lawyers I think feel like everything they do everything at a website for example has to be focused on like anything and everything they could do.  But what you said, which I think is really interesting is like, I focus most of my marketing on this one thing but I was taking cases on the side and maybe that was personal relationships but that wasn’t necessarily something I was focused on and I think a lot of people have trouble getting past that as well.  That’s a mindset shift for a lot of people, I think.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.  But the way I have to think about this is when you’re first starting out or you know, doing your own thing, your one resource that you have is time but that’s a finite resource so you have to figure out how you’re going to debit it up.  I knew right away that I was going to focus on search engine optimization or organic traffic because I knew I was going to be able to continue to get leads from that — from an article that I worked on six months ago — nine months ago and —

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: I go down this path to say when you know you have a finite amount of time, with my website I wanted to make sure I wrote my blog post on a thing that I knew I wanted to do and I wanted to focus there because if I focus on everything, then I couldn’t focus on one thing and establish dominance, established knowledge or establish — that you’re expert at something.  So, I wanted to focus all of my time there because I couldn’t afford to hire content writers or anything or the writers I could afford, they sucks.

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate:  So like, no I got to do this myself and I need to be precious of my own time and make sure I’m focused on the ultimate goal.  And the ultimate goal for me I knew I wanted to do student loan law because I saw the opportunity.

Jared Correia: That’s like a double-barrel shotgun now.  Because like if you’ve got the niche and then you can also be authentic within that niche, that is killer.  And I would recommend to people look at your website because by the way I thought it was really well done and you can see your personality coming through.  And I think this is the other aspect of it too.  Like a lot of lawyers out there, they’re afraid to show personality and they’re pretending to be a type of lawyer that they’ve seen on TV or they assume lawyers act the certain way and they try to act that way.  So being yourself is really important too, I think.

Stanley Tate: You know that’s the hard part if you accomplishes up.  But here’s the thing, I’m 6 foot 7, 300-lb. black man.  Like, I have to be me when I show it because I’m going to be seen and so either I’m going to be myself and be okay with it which means they’re going to be some clients who are turned off by you and say, “Nope.”  That means they’re not your client and that’s okay.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: So long as you have enough people who are saying, “No, this is the type of guy I want to roll with.”  And so like my onboarding like — and I care so much about onboarding.  I think people kind of lawyer suck in particular at onboarding people.

Jared Correia: Oh, man, I just talked about that at the last podcast.  It’s terrible.  Disaster.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.  It sucks but I want to let you know right away who I am, what I stand for, what it is I do so you can make a decision up front.  “Do I want to work with this person?”  Because that makes everything easier by how we communicate.  I don’t hate communicating with you man because I get to be me.  I get to cuss, I get to be a little bit flippant, I get to cut you off because that’s how this is going to go.

Jared Correia: 6’7”, you’re definitely the tallest person we’ve ever had in the history of the show.  There’s going to be some kind of a wharf for that.  I’m going to send you ten cookies.

Stanley Tate: Right, that’s good.

Jared Correia: I want to ask you one more thing and this is not germane to the niche practice conversation, more to like the practice itself rather than running the practice.

Stanley Tate: Right.

Jared Correia: We hear all this talk about student loan forgiveness.  It’s in the news all the time.  Can I ask you a little bit about that?  What’s your take on that?  Do you think that cuts into your practice at some point?  Do you think it ever happens?

Stanley Tate: All right.  So, true — when buying — before Biden when (00:24:33) Liz Warren were out there, I was like “Oh, bro, like, I might be losing my practice.”  And you start thinking, like, you know — I was like, this is how slave owners felt back then when the law was changing on them like “Oh, my own business model is going away.  What do I do?”  Well, it’s actually good for the population but I don’t want that change.

Jared Correia: Yeah, yeah.

Stanley Tate: I still want the fee.

Jared Correia: Yeah.  Can we hold off for about fifteen years?

Stanley Tate: So I was sympathetically, you know, a white dude in Georgia in 1700, you know, 1800.

(00:25:00)

But the way I look at it is once Biden was in office, Biden is someone who pulls towards essential and —

Jared Correia: Yes.

Stanley Tate: They’re just the far left that’s loud crying for student loan forgiveness and I get it, I get the argument.  There’s some valid points there about the cost of education, about how we run the programs.  But then, you have to convince not only Republicans but then moderate Democrats to agree to give something to their neighbor to say “I’m going to forgive X amount of loans” and I think that’s a hard argument to make.  And the question is, is Biden willing to use his chips on that versus his transportation package or something else?

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: So, I think what we’re going to see is change to the bankruptcy code itself to allow discharge of student loans and bankruptcy because I think we can all agree, that’s fair.

Jared Correia: I totally see that.

Stanley Tate: That’s a fair approach.  And then, if we do offer any loan forgiveness, I think it’s going to continue to be targeted to those extreme cases like ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, and things of that nature, but you went to school and you over-borrowed for your income.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: I don’t think that’s something we tend to agree within society across the board.

Jared Correia: Yeah, we have to get everybody on board with that.

Stanley Tate: Exactly.  I think so.  And I don’t think they’re going to use their chips on that.  That’s my perspective.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: Well, “Hey, if I got to pivot, bro what I learnt running this practice, it applies to so many different areas of law.  So I’ll be fine.  I’ll just have to switch it up.

Jared Correia: I love it.  This is great.  Hey, Stanley, you’re awesome.  That’s Stanley Tate from Tate Law.  Stanley is coming right back.  We’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about what our sponsors can do for your law practice.  Then stay tune for the rump roast.  It’s even more supple than the roast beast.

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Jared Correia: All right, everybody, welcome back.  Yes, once again this is the rear end of the Legal Toolkit.  The “rump roast.”  It’s a grab bag of short-form topics all of my choosing.  Why do I get to choose?  Because I’m the host.  Stanley, we’ve been talking a lot about food during this podcast and I think I’m going to extend that a little bit.  Do you remember — this is like a national holiday in my house, do you remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken came out with a Double Down sandwich?

Stanley Tate: No.  What sandwich was that?

Jared Correia: So listen to this.  People were like too much bread, too much gluten.  So instead of bread, let’s have two chicken breasts as the bread for a sandwich and then put cheese, bacon and sauce in the middle.

Stanley Tate: Keto before keto, that’s what I’m talking about.

Jared Correia: Sometimes it’s keto and sometimes not.  They actually have a Canadian version of that.  There’s a waffle in the middle of it which I’ve not tried, yeah.

Stanley Tate: Oh, man, (00:28:42)

Jared Correia: It sounds amazing to me.  So, I want a Double Down on this show.  So, the prior episodes we’ve talked to guests about where they live and stuff they like or dislike about those places but as you mentioned in the first half of the show, you’re a Chicago guy.  You’ve recently relocated to Kansas City.  So, I think this presents a very unique opportunity for us to ask you about both places to cover your root in Chicago and how you feel about Kansas City so far.  So, I’m going to ask you to do a little travel guide stuff for those towns.  Are you willing to go there for us?

Stanley Tate: Yeah, sure.  Let’s do it.

Jared Correia: So, let’s stick with food.  You’re a Chicago guy for a long time, what’s the best deep dish pizza in Chicago?

Stanley Tate: See, I’m a fan of Eduardo’s which is on the north side.  Some people say Gino’s East, you know, but Eduardo’s is nostalgic to me which is like past like old (00:29:33) north going towards Evanston.  I really like that.  But if I’m going to choose a pizza, I’m probably going to choose Home Run in pizza.  It’s not deep dish, it’s a thicker crust.

Jared Correia: All right.  Let’s go off the book, that’s fine.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.  So Home Run in south side of the White Sox stadium, that, but then my all-time favorite like hood classic, Italian Fiesta, and all you get is like– if you’re from Missouri, you get like the Imo’s.  It’s kind of like that but just way better with actual real cheese because like Provel cheese is not a real cheese but whatever.

(00:30:04)

So Italian Fiesta is the pizza-go-to.  However, I’m sure many of us is probably in travel and sent to (00:30:11) drive to go out there so the (00:30:13) rush area.  If it was me, I’m ordering Home Run in or I’m going to get Gino’s East.

Jared Correia: I knew you would crush this.  Okay.  So, let’s switch to Kansas City, what’s the best barbecue in Kansas City so far?

Stanley Tate: So far — so I did like the whole tour, right?  So, like you do like the thing on a Saturday where you go like check out three different spots and you’re checking their brisket, sausages or whatever.

Jared Correia: Right, right.

Stanley Tate: The thing I hate here before I answer your question, I hate that they slice the sausage thinly so you don’t get like a whole link or like a quarter link which is like crazy.  So, you got this thin, like paper thin, which is like ridiculous but whatever.

Jared Correia: Oh, I feel you, yeah.  I don’t like that either.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.  Arthur Bryant’s is probably my favorite but from my perspective, I think Kansas City barbecues are kind of overrated.

Jared Correia: Oh, boy.

Stanley Tate: I’d rather have barbecue from Snow’s down in Texas, down to Austin or I’d rather go Hole In The Wall — there’s this place from South Carolina.  Oh, dude, I saw them in New York Times.  I forget the name but it’s so good, the barbecue.  Kansas barbecue is okay.  It’s good, you know, but I think for the longest time it was the only thing so you got to support your only thing.

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: But there’s so many other food opportunities here.

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate:. Because I lived here before when I was in the military.  I was stationed in Fort Leavenworth.

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: And there was really nothing here back in 2004 or 2005 or ‘06.  And now, 2000, you know, ‘21, there’s all these wonderful restaurants and cocktail bars here.  So, if anyone ever comes to Kansas City and they were like, “Hey, can we hang out for drinks?” “Come hit me up.  I’ll take you on the best tour ever.  We can go drink all the bar (00:31:43) in this place.”

Jared Correia: All right, hold that thought.  I’m going to ask you about cocktails too.

Stanley Tate: Okay.

Jared D. Correia: Let me ask you this, Missouri, have you tried frozen custard yet?

Stanley Tate: I have.

Jared Correia: Do you like it better than ice cream, less than ice cream?  Like, it’s an acquired taste for people I feel like.

Stanley Tate: Well, so I’m a fat boy so like all sugar and like fat works for me.  So, like it doesn’t really matter.  Gelato, custard, whatever.

Jared Correia: I’m right there with you.

Stanley Tate:.  I really love Ted’s Rolls(ph) on a summer night.  If there’s something to be said just about the atmosphere of it all going to pick it up and the way they fold them in with the concrete-type style situation, I love it.

Jared Correia: Yeah.  I’ve been to Missouri a bunch actually believe it or not.  I’ve been to Missouri probably like 25 to 30 times.  I love it out there.  There is a place called “Lambert’s.”  I don’t know if you’ve ever been there.

Stanley Tate: Yeah.

Jared Correia: Where they throw the dinner rolls at you?

Stanley Tate: Yeah, throw the rolls, baby.  Throw the rope.  Dude, I’m telling you.

Jared Correia: I don’t feel like good though (00:32:32).

Stanley Tate: If there’s any like fat thing that exists, I have been there to try it.

Jared Correia: Except for the KFC Double Down.  You got to hit that up next.

Stanley Tate: Exactly.  Exactly, yeah, that I wasn’t doing.  I’ve never been a KFC fan.  Like, I’m always Popeye’s.

Jared Correia: Yeah.  I know, I get it.

Stanley Tate: Or you get your wings fried hard in Chicago with my own sauce, so.

Jared Correia: Okay.  Let’s shift because I know there’s something else you like as well.  You’re a sports guy.

Stanley Tate: I know.

Jared Correia: So what’s your favorite team of the Chicago sports teams?

Stanley Tate: Oh, the Bulls, man.  Hands down.

Jared Correia: Were you like big fan in the 90’s with Jordan?

Stanley Tate: Yeah, I was a teenager when — when Mike and Scotty and Rodman and HORSE and all those guys are coming up in.  That’s– and I thought I was going to be — I thought I’d be a pro ballplayer until I played next to NBA athletes and you realized those dudes are aliens and it’s like “Yeah, no.

Jared Correia: Have you played like —

Stanley Tate: I’m not built for this.  (00:33:22)

Jared Correia: Have you played like pickup with NBA guys?

Stanley Tate: Yes.  So, I was a pretty decent hooper at one point and I thought I had a shot but you have a shot until your circle changes.  And I played in Pro-Am with a couple of NBA athletes and I was like “Yeah, no.  These dudes are unreal.”  I remember I was playing against Emeka Okafor and this dude, he’s like in a (00:33:44) job.

Jared D. Correia: He’s huge.  Yeah.

Stanley Tate: And I’m in a full strength trying to keep up with this dude and then he jumps and I jumped and I’m coming down and he’s still going up and I was like, “Yeah, no.  This ain’t for me.”

Jared Correia: You know, Okafor is like 7’3”, wasn’t he?  He was huge.

Stanley Tate: No, he was like 6’10”.  People stretch things out.

Jared Correia: Was he?

Stanley Tate: Omeka —  yeah, he’s not that big.  Omeka Okafor, he’s tall but he was just athletic.

Jared Correia: All right.  Chicago Bulls, solid choice.  What about Kansas City?  Now that you’re in Kansas City, have you adopted any of those teams or do you follow any one more closely than the other?

Stanley Tate: I follow Chief– I’m a football fan more than any other sport.

Jared Correia: Yeah, yeah.

Stanley Tate: But I follow the Chiefs most because they’re fun and it’s —

Jared Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: Like when you watch the Ravens game, the Ravens and Chiefs game (00:34:26), there’s no doubt in your mind that if the Ravens didn’t go forward on fourth down, Patrick Mahomes is going to win the game.

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: And so, that’s fun to — excellence is fun to watch and Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Pat Mahomes, those dudes are excellence personified.

Jared D. Correia: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.  All right, good team to adopt, right?  It’s nice to come into another city and have a —

Stanley Tate: It’s nice to travel —

Jared D. Correia: (00:34:49) on the team.

Stanley Tate: (00:34:50) the next 15 years.

Jared Correia: All right.  Let’s get back to the food and drink aspect because you mentioned this before, you’re a cocktails guy, right?

Stanley Tate: Yeah.

Jared Correia: So, If I want a good cocktail in Chicago, where would I go, what would I get and then let’s follow up with the same question for Kansas City.

(00:35:03)

Stanley Tate: So, it’s not just about the drink.  It’s also about the ambience.

Jared D. Correia: Yeah.

Stanley Tate: And COVID has kind of destroyed all this.  But the Thompson Hotel, down on Rush, they have this live plant wall, sexy bar, moody, the cocktails are on point.  They’re appropriately priced which means you’re not paying like $25 for old fashioned.  You’re paying like $18.

Jared Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: So, that would be my go-to spot there for a drink.  In Kansas City, there’s — oh, man, there’s so many great places but it’s — the one place I really love is called “Swordfish Tom’s” and it’s an alley down a basement.  You feel like you’re going into a Saw’s basement so you don’t know if you’re going to like a horror movie or something and you get into this basement and they have this green light, red light system where if the red is on, that means you can’t come in and just wait.

Jared Correia: Oh, I love that.

Stanley Tate: If it was green, go ahead and knock and they’ll let you in and —

Jared Correia: So, machine and a bouncer, right?

Stanley Tate: Exactly.  Bro, but the drinks.  When you watch someone that care so much about building the perfect cocktail and just the excellence again, like I’m a dude, I can watch, you know, neuro drinks of sushi(ph) or like Japanese do like making a wood beam and he’s just shaving off these paper-thin stuff, I can watch that for hours.

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Stanley Tate: So, watching and sitting in the bar, watches them to make drinks, that’s for me, bro, like Swordfish Tom’s is my go-to.

Jared Correia: You’re like a walking travel guide.  I’m really impressed.

Stanley Tate: Bro, I like to get out and live life, man.  Like, what’s the — we’re all going to leave this surface one point and we might as leave it with some cool ass stories to tell.

Jared Correia: Stanley, this is a lot of fun.  We’re out of time now.

Stanley Tate: Oh, thanks, Jared.

Jared Correia: Thanks for coming in.

Stanley Tate: I appreciate you having me.

Jared Correia: Yeah, this was great.  All the hype, it was totally spot on so thank you.  So, if you want to find out more about Stanley Tate and Tate Law, visit tateesq.com, that’s T-A-T-E, esq.com.  Now, for those of you listening in Devil’s Elbow, Missouri, we’ve got a great Spotify playlist for this week.  In honor of the late Norman Macdonald, I’m dropping Kansas greatest hits because my kids fucking love Gordon Lightfoot.  No.  No, they don’t.  I guess we’ve run out of time for me to read selections from my dream journal which honestly it’s probably for the best.  Just know that any buffalo used were stuffed for safety’s sake.  And now that will do it for another episode of Legal Toolkit Podcast where I’m not (00:37:29) looking totes.

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Podcast transcription by Tech-Synergy.com

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