Jared D. Correia, Esq. is the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, which offers subscription-based law...
Published: | June 29, 2022 |
Podcast: | Legal Toolkit |
Category: | Legal Education , Legal Entertainment |
Continuing legal education was slowly moving online even before COVID-19 hit, but nowadays, online, in-person, and hybrid CLE programs are all just part of the norm. Jared chats with Bruce Richard about what the post-pandemic CLE experience is like for attendees and the benefits of becoming a CLE speaker.
Later, they guys play Jared’s latest game – “Course Correction!” Jared gives both real and fake online course descriptions, and Bruce must decide which oddball classes are really out there for your consumption.
And, love him or hate him, Conan O’Brien has been a mainstay of comedy and late-night TV for decades. Listen in for Jared’s thoughts on why Conan is the best late-night talk show host ever.
Bruce Richard is program attorney for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc. (MCLE│New England).
Just because we’ve finished our conversation about continuing education doesn’t mean you’re done studying. Check out this episode’s playlist all about learnin’ and schoolin’.
Our opening track is Two Cigarettes by Major Label Interest.
The music for the Legal Trends Report Minute is I See You by Sounds Like Sander.
Our closing track is At Sea by In This World.
Special thanks to our sponsors iManage, CosmoLex, Clio, and TimeSolv.
Jared D. 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, Noda, Scorpion, TimeSolv. 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]
Male: It’s The Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia. With guest Bruce Richard. A round of course correction. And then, since we’re always leading the way in podcasting technologies, behold this episode presented in Technicolor. But first, your host, Jared Correia.
Jared D. Correia: It’s time for The Legal Toolkit, listeners. Tell your friends, your enemies, and even your friendenemies. And yes, it’s still called Legal Toolkit podcast. Even though I can’t tell the difference between a flathead and a Phillips head screwdriver. Which one is the flat one again? I’m your host, Jared Correia. You’re stuck with me because Conan O’Brien was unavailable. He told me he was too busy shaving his pubes. Yes, they’re orange, too, or so I’ve heard. 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.
Now, before we get to our interview today with Bruce Richard, program attorney at MCLE New England, I’ve got something truly triumphant for you. Conan O’Brien is my favorite late night talk show host ever, and it’s not particularly close. He got The Late Night gig on NBC in 1993, following David Letterman’s departure to CBS for The Late Show when this stuff mattered. Along with Letterman, Conan is probably the only legitimately funny, modern late night host who is actually willing to push boundaries. Everybody else sells out and becomes boring if they weren’t already boring to start with. And it’s funny, I guess, kind of in the ironic sense that both Letterman and O’Brien were shot out of The Tonight Show gig by Jay Leno, of all people. Perhaps the unfunniest person ever to grace late night television, at least this side of Jimmy Fallon. Oh, wait, weird, he hosts The Tonight’s Show now, too.
But I digress. Let’s take it back to The Conan O’Brien show. Before hosting Late Night on NBC, Conan wrote for Saturday Night Live when it was funnier than it is now, but not as funny as it was in the 70s. And also, he wrote for The Simpsons when The Simpsons was funny. Remember that? Like, seasons one through maybe 12? He wrote the monorail episode of The Simpsons, if you remember that one. That was a good one. But then he auditioned for the Late Night host role and got it after initially being asked to be a producer. Big win for my guy.
So I used to stay up late and watch TV with my dad because he was a night owl and we watched a lot of late night talk shows together. And I think I was 13 or 14 when Conan started hosting Late Night. And it’s difficult in the modern environment to effectively describe all the crazy shit that he did on that show. Nobody even watches cable television anymore. It’s a fading notion that people would try to get away with things on network TV, whatever that is, right? But Conan, along with his cohost, Andy Richter, who was also great, got away with a lot of whack stuff. In fact, when he took over Late Night, everybody fucking hated it. The executives, the critics. But I loved it as, like, a teenager. And I got to tell you, I have a lot of favorite Conan O’Brien’s sketches. There was a masturbating bear who was literally just a bear wearing a diaper for some reason, who would come out juggle his nuts for a few minutes and walk off the stage. The best one of those was this episode when the masturbating bear was revealed to be none other than Jim Carrey. And you already know how I feel about Jim Carrey.
(00:05:03)
In the year 2000, I bet that makes you feel old, was another skit that featured a series of wild predictions about the near future, completed with a darkened studio and flashlights to highlight faces in a spooky way. Clearly, no expense was spared. With all the critical acclaim, they must have been shoveling dollars into the show. I felt like Andy always got the best jokes in this sketch. One of the underrated Conan sketches from back in the day was driving the desk where Conan would drive. Andy would be in shotgun, and they would use a greenscreen to pretend they were driving around New York City. And they struck down a lot of pedestrians with that desk. Pimpbot 5000 was a robot pimp. I don’t know if that needs any further description. Conan and Andy would also have these steering contests during which ridiculous and vile things would happen behind Conan’s back, causing Andy to break concentration and lose. He lost, like, every time. He only won the last one.
And while I was putting this together, I learned there’s also a Wikipedia page of Conan O’Brien sketches that includes over 100 skits. You’re welcome. Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Why don’t you go shake your fist to the cloud, old man? The 90s are over.” Sadly, you’re right. But this shit is ripped from the headlines because Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was arrested last week at the US Capitol while trying to do some political interviews for Stephen Colbert show. He’s got a late night show, too. I think he hosts the Late Show now after David Letterman left.
Anyway, you may be asking yourself, “Who is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog? Oh, he’s just the canine Don Rickles, that’s all.” Triumph was originally a Conan sketch from Late Night. He’s a cigar smoking dog. Well, actually pause. He’s a hand puppet that looks like a dog. And appropriately enough, he insults people, animals and things in an amusing way. He kind of sounds like an overcaffeinated Bela Lugosi, and I definitely can’t do the voice. There aren’t a lot of insult comics nowadays because everybody is so goddamn sensitive, but this was a thing back in the day when people were actually allowed to laugh at themselves. So Triumph was voiced by a guy named Robert Smigel, who is also well known for his work on Saturday Night Live, particularly on a segment called TV Funhouse. Now, if you’ve never seen TV Funhouse, this was an animated series of shorts, vignettes in an anthology framework that included some legitimately hilarious sketches. My favorite TV Funhouse was actually when Mr. T attempts to break into dramatic acting and tries out for Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. When he’s auditioning for the play, he tells the director, I want to be Torvald, sucker.
Anyway, Smigel is Triumph, and he’s best known for crashing popular events and insulting participants. So the first Triumph sketch featured him interviewing and humping a number of real dogs at the Westminster Kennel Club before he got kicked out of that event. You see a theme here. So for a subsequent show, he came back to the Kennel Club this time disguised as Ed Bradley, which was the puppet with the fake mustache. He also made fun of Star Wars nerds waiting in line for one of the prequel movies, and he claimed to have had anal sex with Lassie on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Plus, he does a lot of political coverage, hence the recent ejection from the capitol for purported unlawful entry. I hope they got some of that filmed, though, because that sounds like a pretty dope sketch. Maybe not the best context for that type of stunt, but hey, Triumph is always out there pushing buttons. Many of the Triumph sketches are also available in grainy footage on YouTube right now, so check those out. You won’t be sorry. Well, you will be sorry, but that’s kind of the point.
Hey, I thought that was a really good monologue for me to poop on. Now, before we get to our discussion on continuing legal education for lawyers with Bruce “The Rocket” Richard of MCLE New England, let’s continue our ongoing education on law firm data with Joshua Lenon, who has you for this week’s edition of the Clio Legal Trends Report.
Joshua Lenon: Is your law firm falling behind in technology? There has been a mass adoption of legal tech among firms of all sizes. Today, at least 85% of legal professionals are using some form of practice management software. I’m Joshua Lenon, lawyer in residence at Clio, and this is just one finding from our recent Legal Trends Report. Use of legal technology has dramatically altered client expectations. The need for more flexible, convenient methods of interaction is here to stay. So it’s not surprising that at least 95% of law firms plan to continue using newly adopted legal technology beyond the pandemic.
(00:10:01)
It’s a clear indication that technology adoption has become the norm for firms of all sizes. To learn more about legal technology adoption, download Clio’s Legal Trends Report for free at clio.com/trends. That’s Clio spelled C-L-I-O.com/trends.
Jared D. Correia: All right, let’s get into the Sam LaGrassa’s pastrami sandwich to this podcast segment. It’s time to interview our guest, and it’s not often that I get to bring in Boston-related stuff on the show, but today, my guest is Bruce Richard, program attorney at MCLE New England who works in Boston. Bruce, how you doing?
Bruce Richard: I’m doing well, Jared. How are you?
Jared D. Correia: Good. Sam LaGrassa’s, man, is that still open down in Boston?
Bruce Richard: You bet.
Jared D. Correia: That’s one of my favorite places. It was like half pastrami and half brown sugar, if I remember it correctly. Their sandwich is flavorful.
Bruce Richard: Pretty close. I was there two weeks ago.
Jared D. Correia: Obviously because your last name is pronounced Richard. I mean, it seems only natural that you would have gone to law school in Manitoba Province in Winnipeg. I went to college in Southern New Hampshire and it was cold, but I got to ask you how fucking cold did it get in Manitoba and how much alcohol did you have to consume just to stay warm?
Bruce Richard: All right, so fucking cold doesn’t even come close to describing how cold it was in Winnipeg. We had — my personal favorite memory involving cold weather in Manitoba is as I was listening to the radio as I was about to walk out of my apartment and the announcer was doing the forecast and he said that it was minus 50.
Jared D. Correia: Oh, my God.
Bruce Richard: With the wind chill, it was minus 76. I’m like, “What is –?” Those aren’t numbers. Those are not numbers. I stood outside in the little — in one of their little bus stations protected from the 20 degrees worth of windchill watching as my pants were freezing to my leg and thinking to myself, “Yeah, I chose to come here to go to law school.”
Jared D. Correia: Yeah, seems like an odd choice but that is cold, man. That is really cold.
Bruce Richard: Really cold.
Jared D. Correia: All these people from San Diego are like morons. Anyway, I think we should probably talk about like some legal stuff because we have sponsors to please and we just can’t talk about cold weather for 20 minutes although we probably could. Let’s talk about the CLE stuff because that’s what we’re doing now. You work for MCLE New England which I’ve had a long affiliation with personally. I presented for you, folks, a bunch and you do a great job. What do you think about where we’re at right now? Because for a while, it was only online presentations. Before that, it was mostly in-person presentations. Now, you got both options and I’ve seen people doing hybrid programs like what do you think is the best fit now or you’re like thrilled that you have like a ton of different options to deliver content to people?
Bruce Richard: I’m always happy with the different options now. I guess MCLE has always been fairly cutting edge when it comes to how to present so even long before COVID, we were doing in-person programs and they were being recorded live. So, we had a live audience watching online so you’d get 20 people in the room, you’ve got another 25 or 30 watching. So, that was a pretty much a standard setup for us and then COVID hits and we went completely online and now we’re starting to come back to where we’ve got a mix. We are not there yet. I know there are — our fall programs are going to — we’re going to see a lot more in-person with an online option in the fall.
Jared D. Correia: You think the hesitation is kind of going away for people? Because I know a lot of people are hesitant to do online or in-person rather programming for a while. You think that’s going to be done with mostly by the time the fall rolls around?
Bruce Richard: It’s tough to say because I think that what we were seeing even before COVID, the trend was definitely more and more online.
Jared D. Correia: That’s interesting.
Bruce Richard: Irrelevant of the chance of catching COVID. People just didn’t want to come in. If you’re practicing in Western Mass or outside of the state, it just made sense to just fire it up and watch online as opposed to being there in person. We were trending that way so we’ll get a better sense in the fall as to whether or not that trend continues.
Jared D. Correia: Yeah, I talk to people about this a lot and I think the thing about COVID that people didn’t recognize was that a lot of the stuff that happened was going to happen anyway. It was just accelerated because we’re heavily in the convenience economy right now where people don’t want to leave the house. I mean, my God, how much have I spent on Grubhub this year. It’s embarrassing.
Bruce Richard: If we can’t get people to go out and pick up food —
Jared D. Correia: Right. They’re going to go out and attend the CLE.
Bruce Richard: Getting them to show up here for three hours for a CLE program may be a little difficult.
Jared D. Correia: Do you think there’s a chance because I’ve heard people talking about this, too, that there’s going to be a rush back to in-person because people are missing seeing each other and having kind of like that human component?
(00:15:00)
Bruce Richard: I think this rush back to in-person, I think that works. If the CLE provider is going to — does a big push for that first program and has something that’s fairly open that has a significant interactive experience, then I think you see that but I don’t know. I’m hopeful.
Jared D. Correia: I guess we will find out. Do you want people in the building or do you not care? Like as long as they’re attending in some fashion?
Bruce Richard: It completely depends on the program. There’s a lot of our programs that are very easy to consume remotely. You can watch the speakers and you can ask them questions. You can do some level of interaction with them and I think that works for a lot of our programs. Other programs, I mean, we do mock trials or that sort of thing and that is awfully tough to do on Zoom. We did it last year but I will say that there is a certain benefit to being in the same room with everybody and being able to get that level of interaction, that kind of setup.
Jared D. Correia: One of the other things about CLE programming that I think is interesting is like a lot of people don’t know that there are some states that don’t have mandatory CLE and Massachusetts is one of those states. So, in that instance, like how much more difficult is it for you to get people to come and attend programs if their license isn’t on the line to do it?
Bruce Richard: It’s funny because if you talk to anybody in Massachusetts who isn’t an attorney, they’re shocked to find out that attorneys are not required to take CLE in Massachusetts.
Jared Correia: Yeah, there’s only — am I right in saying there’s only six states left that don’t require CLE?
Bruce Richard: Yeah, I believe so. There’s only six of us left and it’s like Massachusetts. Really, Massachusetts? But yes.
Jared D. Correia: People are a little bit less confident in their lawyers when they hear that.
Bruce Richard: I’d like to, I mean, for us, it works well for us. For me, personally, it means attendance at our program means, wow, we found something that people are genuinely interested in. This isn’t a case of it’s like, “Oh look, we have 55 people attending this program. We must be getting close to that time of year when everybody gets their CLE credits.” So, everybody who’s there is there because of the speakers, because they like the content, because they want to be there where I am far less worried about attendees at our programs simply tuning in and then trying to run it in the background while doing something else.
Jared D. Correia: Right. Yeah, that’s a super positive spin that I was not expecting. Let’s talk about that because I think that’s an interesting piece as well. Especially with the online programs.
Bruce Richard: Right.
Jared D. Correia: Like I’ve heard a lot of people are out there like getting onto Facebook, twirling their pen, maybe catching up on their sleep. Like how do you get somebody to get something out of a CLE program since they’re not bored? I do a lot of these. I know everybody’s not paying attention to me. I guarantee you I’ve had people fall asleep during my presentations before. So, how do you combat that?
Bruce Richard: A certain amount of it is going to be interactivity. If you can engage with your audience, then you’re forcing at least some of the audience members to reply back and honestly, they’re going to get more out of it when they do. I look at the number of programs that we run where I look at the questions afterwards and I’ll think to myself, “You know, this is a program for family lawyers. We had three judges on the program and you had an hour to ask them any question under the sun. And two people asked a question.” I’m thinking to myself, “What are you doing? This is your opportunity.” I wouldn’t even expect the chairs to have to really say anything more than, “Look, judges, go.” And they just don’t, at least sometimes, they don’t interact. But yeah, interaction is probably the easiest way to make sure the audience is paying attention and I will say for anyone who is taking one of our programs for CLE purposes, you definitely want to click the button that asks you if you want prompts because you’re going to need those prompts for any other — virtually, any state that requires CLE is going to require us to show that you clicked prompts throughout the program so you weren’t just running it in the background while you were doing other work.
Jared D. Correia: Yeah, can you talk a little bit about that because I think that’s super interesting? So, you don’t have to require those because you’re in Massachusetts, right? But what are some of these states requiring in terms of prompts? Like do you have to answer a question? Do you have to take a poll? Like what does that look like?
Bruce Richard: Well, I mean, for us, we send all of our programs through like virtually every state either says you have to agree to our requirements or you have to be qualified in another state. So, for the most part, it’s easy because another CLE provider in another state just simply gets qualified according to the state’s requirements and then they’re all set and for us, it’s a little more tricky because there are no state requirements because there is no CLE body here because we don’t have one.
(00:20:00)
So we submit all of our programs to Rhode Island and they approve our programs. So that way when people who are looking to get credit in New York or California or wherever, we send them our certificate and that our program has been confirmed by Rhode Island and that’s usually enough to resolve most of the questions those states have.
Jared D. Correia: CLE is such a tangled web and people don’t even realize it. Bad news for those who wanted to catch up on their sleep though while watching a program, there are no prompts apparently that you have to watch. Let’s take another direction on this.
Bruce Richard: Sure.
Jared D. Correia: We’ve been talking a lot about people who are attending programs. How about people who are speakers, like it would seem to me to be obvious from a referral networking standpoint as to why attorneys will want to get gigs either hosting or presenting at CLE programs, but what are some of the benefits that you see for attorneys both the obvious ones and some non-obvious ones?
Bruce Richard: Well, the obvious one is the one you’ve just described. I mean, it’s an easy way to network. It’s something else to post on the website and in your bio that you are deemed to be an expert in this field so much so that you have actually taught a course on it. Some of the other parts and I’ve heard this from a number of the speakers are the information that you’ll get from the other speakers in the program. I mean, usually these programs involved several speakers. So if you stay on, if you’re listening while they’re doing their talk, you’re gaining their experience and one of the real benefits of being one of the speakers is, there’s nobody there to shut you up. So if the other person is in the middle of their presentation and they say something and you have a question, “You just wait a second, so how does this work? If I do this and this, then what happens there?” And then they answer and they engage and honestly that kind of engagement makes the program better.
So, I never discourage that and I always want to see that come out and I guess the other part is there’s also the networking aspect. I mean, if the program is live, I look at it and audience members who are there would be crazy not to come up and chat with somebody about whatever the topic or where they work, how long they’ve been practicing, what is it like? Just ask them anything.
Jared D. Correia: Yeah.
Bruce Richard: Pick up a conversation. This is one of the benefits of the in-person program is that you can do that. It’s a little tougher to do that when everything is remote.
Jared D. Correia: Oh, for sure.
Bruce Richard: I mean you could still make it work.
Jared D. Correia: Yeah. So last question I have for you and we’ll take on another segment after this is, do you have trouble finding speakers ever? Are you always just like, “Okay I’m plucking out these people” or do you try to reach out and find people who are not necessarily involved? Do you look for people to reach out to you directly? So what I’m really saying is this is your chance to say, “Email me if you want to speak” but maybe you don’t want that. I don’t know.
Bruce Richard: Email me if you want to speak.
Jared D. Correia: Okay, great.
Bruce Richard: I do have a number of regulars obviously, that people who consistently do — we repeat the same program over each year, every couple of years and I reach out to a lot of the same people for that sort of thing. We’re always looking for more. I’m always happy to hear from folks who want to do a program. The best ones are the ones who want to do a program and then email me with a topic that they want to talk about. Then you’re just doing my job for me, and I’m all about that.
Jared D. Correia: Right, topic and a description, right? You want to paragraph, write it all out for you?
Bruce Richard: Ideally yes. If you could get me a couple of paragraphs that would fit nicely in the brochure, we’ll need a headshot, we’ll get your email, have a little conversation and yeah, we can take it from there.
Jared D. Correia: Nice. All right. So you heard it here. Hopefully your email doesn’t get too flooded, but I tell this to people all the time, like there are a lot of opportunities out there. You just have to ask. Bruce, this was really fun. Will you come back for the last segment?
Bruce Richard: You bet, that’s why I’m here for the last segment.
Jared D. Correia: Yes. Excellent. All right. 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. It’s even more supple than the roast beast.
[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 and chasing overdue bills. At TimeSolv, our attorneys have the tools to achieve a 97% collection rate, that means more revenue for the same work and turning billing day into happy day. Learn more about how to get to your time and billing happy place at TimeSolv.com.
[Music]
Advertiser: Bill for lawyers notice cloud-based business banking is perfect for your solo or small law firm. You want to spend your day helping clients not struggling to reconcile bank statements. Notice customer service specialists are here to help you. They only support attorney so they understand the tools you use and the requirements you’re up against and they take your business as seriously as you do.
(00:25:02)
Don’t miss out on exciting new member benefits including our partnership with law lines or in ethics, credits for your CLEs. Online at trustnota.com/legal. Nota, banking bill for law firms like yours. Terms and conditions may apply.
[Music]
Jared D. Correia: Welcome to the rear-end of The Legal Tool Kit, the Rump Roast. It’s a grab bag of short-form topics all of my choosing. Why do I get to pick? Because I’m the host. Today, we’re going to talk about CLE, Bruce, your area of expertise, so this should be easy for you. We’re going to play a little game I invented called “Course Correction.” So what we’re going to do is I’m going to read to you the description of an online course and I want you to tell me if it’s real or if I’ve made it up. So you were just asking, you wanted people to submit course ideas to you. Well, here I am, my friend. And feel free to comment on any of these as well. Everybody is set up on these programs, don’t worry. Okay, number one, I’m going to start out with what I think is an easy one. You could tell me if you agree or disagree. Star Trek, inspiring culture and technology. Is that a real online course that you can purchase?
Bruce Richard: Yes. Oh, yes.
Jared D. Correia: Absolutely.
Bruce Richard: It’s got to be.
Jared D. Correia: Absolutely, yes. From EDX at 21 hours of Star Trek stuff. I don’t know, man. As a self-guided course, I might be tapping out. Do you think you could do 21 hours on Star Trek? I probably could not.
Bruce Richard: I just finished the most recent season of Piccard. I was getting ready to tap out as was so at 21 hours, I don’t know.
Jared D. Correia: Are you ready for number two?
Bruce Richard: Ready for number two.
Jared D. Correia: No more pop culture touchstones. Number two, the course name is “Challenges in Modern Butt Chugging,” real course or nah?
Bruce Richard: I think my biggest question is modern? What was — challenges that are old school? An early civilization butt chugging?
Jared D. Correia: I was thinking more online.
Bruce Richard: How long has society been aware of this and what kind of implements were involved early on?
Jared D. Correia: You’ve never seen those like French cave paintings? I’m thinking more lines with like 2018 rather than like Medieval times. Online courses, man, anything could go, anything.
Bruce Richard: Sure, you know what? Yeah, anything could go. I could see this taken an hour, two hours, sure.
Jared D. Correia: I don’t know how deeply you want to dive into this, but that is something to dive.
Bruce Richard: You don’t want any fun for this.
Jared D. Correia: You’re like, “I don’t want to do any of this.” That is fake. I made that up.
Bruce Richard: Okay.
Jared D. Correia: I think like if I’m the only one who’s thinking, there’s like degrees of butt chugging, maybe there should be a course on this because clearly there’s some kind of art available here as well. All right. Number three, “What to text a girl you like?” Is that a real online course? Is there enough information that could be imparted in a course like that?
Bruce Richard: I don’t know. You know, I decided that there was two hours’ worth of material in butt chugging. So I’ve got to assume that there’s got to be at least not that much information available for this one. So I’m going to say, yes.
Jared D. Correia: You are correct. This is an actual online course though. Sadly, it’s been discontinued, so you’re on your own. I could totally see this being a case like teenagers. They probably spend multiple hours over what to text someone or to Snapchat someone or whatever the kids are doing these days. All right, I got another one for you. We’re halfway through here.
Bruce Richard: All right.
Jared D. Correia: “Modern Scrimshaw Techniques: Whales Are People, Too.” Is that a real online course?
Bruce Richard: No.
Jared D. Correia: It is not. All right, you’re on fire now. That’s two in a row. I just happened to be from New Bedford, Massachusetts, the Whaling City. So I’m often thinking about scrimshaw. All right, course number five, “Communicate With Your Animal Telepathically.” Is that a real course?
Bruce Richard: Oh, yes.
Jared D. Correia: Yes. Do you want to take a guess as to what rating this course has out of 5 Stars? 90 ratings in.
Bruce Richard: Oh, probably 5.
Jared D. Correia: Oh, good guess, but it is 3.5, which is just crazy to me.
Bruce Richard: So they’re not doing well.
Jared D. Correia: Well, I guess. Yeah, they’re not doing well on an internet basis. But like the fact that people — there are some people out there who are giving low ratings for probably like this doesn’t work, you should probably know that coming into the class, it’s like 17 bucks. So for the pure pleasure of watching something like this go down, that might be worth it. All right, three more for you.
(00:30:08)
Bruce Richard: All right.
Jared D. Correia: You said yes. So you’re working on four in a row now. This is real heater on the Rump Roast. Next course, “Discover The Mystery Of Faery Witchcraft, Shamanism Today” and faery, I just want you to know is spelled F-A-E-R-Y in the Edmund Spenser vein, so this is old school, what do you think? Is that a real course?
Bruce Richard: It sounds good. Sure. Yes. Yes, I’m going to go with that one. Why not?
Jared D. Correia: Five in a row. That is actually a course. This is another one from you. So it’s $20 today, but apparently it’s usually a thousand dollars. It’s a pretty deep discount.
Bruce Richard: Wow.
Jared D. Correia: 4.5 rating.
Bruce Richard: Well, if you’re going to pay a thousand bucks for it, you better give it a five-star rating.
Jared D. Correia: You might as well. Yeah, I got two more for you. Let’s see if you can go seven for seven at the end here. “Martens, fishers and lesser wolverines, which has been raiding your trash.” Is that a real online course?
Bruce Richard: No, that’s not a real online course.
Jared D. Correia: It’s not. Yes. I have to say I’ve had a fisher cat in my neighborhood lately. Have you ever seen one of those things?
Bruce Richard: I have not.
Jared D. Correia: Probably in Canada, right? No?
Bruce Richard: No.
Jared D. Correia: These things are — they are like tinier versions of wolverines and they scream like little children screaming, they’re horrifying animals, horrifying and they eat dogs. It’s crazy. All right, that’s enough. That’s enough fisher cat stories. I don’t think we’re going to hold the audience with that. So one more online course. Let’s see if you can close out with seven in a row, “Calling bullshit in the age of big data,” is that a real online course?
Bruce Richard: That definitely sounds like a real online course.
Jared D. Correia: Yeah, you are CLE expert, you are correct, sir. There’s a website called callingbullshit.org apparently, it’s a non-profit. There’s not only a course, there’s tools, there’s books, there’s workshops and now I feel bad for promoting this craziness. Not bad, sir. You survived the Rump Roast. I would say not only survived but thrived with flying colors. Well done.
Bruce Richard: What can I say? I know my Rump Roast.
Jared D. Correia: Think of all those cold days in Manitoba. It was all worth it. Bruce, thanks for coming on, you’re awesome.
Bruce Richard: Oh, thanks so much, Jared.
Jared D. Correia: If you want to find out more about Bruce Richard and MCLE New England, visit MCLE.org. Now, for those of you listening in Billerica, Massachusetts, I’ve got a new Spotify playlist just for you and it’s all about learning but you won’t get any CLE credit for it. We hope you’ve enjoyed the vibrant technicolor in which this episode was delivered. We believe it’s an impressive artistic achievement and I’m preparing my Oscars speech at the moment which will clearly put me on the path to an EGOT. So that’ll do it for another episode of The Legal Toolkit podcast. This is Jared Correia reminding you that the last letter added to the English alphabet was J in 1524. Before that, people used I for J. Correction, this is Iared Correia signing off. Let’s take this bitch back to 1523.
[Music]
Conrad Saam: Hey Gyi, what’s up?
Gyi Tsakalakis: Just having some lunch, Conrad.
Conrad Saam: Hey Gyi, do you see that billboard out there?
Gyi Tsakalakis: Oh, you mean that guy out there in the gray suit?
Conrad Saam: Yeah, the gray suit guy.
Gyi Tsakalakis: There’s all those beautiful rich leather-bound books in the background?
Conrad Saam: That is exactly the one. That’s JD McGuffin at law. He’ll fight for you. I bet you he has got so many years of experience, like decades and decades and I bet, Gyi, I bet he even went to a law school.
[Music]
Advertiser: Are you a lawyer? Do you suffer from dull marketing and a lack of positioning in a crowded legal marketplace? Sit down with Gyi and Conrad for Lunch Hour Legal Marketing on the Legal Talk Network. Available wherever podcasts are found.
Notify me when there’s a new episode!
Legal Toolkit |
Legal Toolkit highlights services, ideas, and programs that will improve lawyers' practices and workflow.