Superior Sketch Comedy; Opting Out of Legal Tech; & “Stuck in the Middle With You”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia with guests Emily Gordon. We play a round of Stuck in the Middle with you and then Jared strongly recommends you go see a very specific traveling show while not so much Jared, but the extra terrestrial speaking through him. But first, your host Jared Correia.

Jared Correia:

It’s time for the Legal Toolkit podcast because it’s still too early for howdy duty time, or at least that’s what my Fitbit is telling me before it causes me wrist to cancer. And yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit podcast even though I have no idea what saw horses are. Wait, yes I do. I’m not a fucking idiot. Even I know that I’m your host Jared Correia. You’re stuck with me because Martin Mull was unavailable. He was occupied in crafting his next monologue for the forthcoming episode of Fernwood. Tonight I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations. Find us [email protected]. I’m the COO of Gideon Software, an intake platform for law firms. Learn more and schedule a [email protected]. Now, before we get to our interview today about opting out of legal tech, that’s right, I said it with Emily Gordon of Amara Law.

I want to take a moment to pitch my current favorite sketch television show. I like a good sketch comedy show as much as the next guy, and there have traditionally been a lot of excellent options, but I’ve got to confess that I think Saturday Night Live sucks and mostly always has. The first few years of Saturday Night Live were great. Cass was iconic sketches were not derivative and really interesting. Then it sort of blew until the nineties when they got Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler and Chris Farley. That was a good grouping and after that it’s been pretty shitty again for like 30 years. I honestly can’t believe people still watch this garbage, even in short Cliffs. I guess weekend updates is more consistently good, but that’s only one small segment of the show. There’s just too much parody that is pretty thoughtless and most of the original sketches are terrible for real.

I feel like the only Saturday Night Live sketch I’ve liked since I was like 17 was a Casey Affleck Dunking Donut sketch, which is undeniably great and an obvious precursor to the recent Ben Affleck dunk Kings Super Bowl commercial. Still got my dunk Kings tracksuit on pre-order, but there’s one former Saturday night live writer and actor who’s just lighting up the sketch comedy world right now. That’s Tim Robinson, who is the genius behind, I think you should leave on Netflix. Well, he’s actually got a co-creator, a guy named Zach Canaan who sometimes appears in sketches dressed up kind of like a hot dog, but not really or getting trashed in a focus group meeting. I can’t believe more people haven’t seen this show. Honestly, it’s kind of staggering to me with the number of people who have Netflix subscriptions. Don’t worry, I’m not looking to blow up your spot if you’re still sharing passwords.

It’s kind of crazy that I’m still recommending the show. Everybody should be watching this, but I’m going to keep recommending it until literally everyone in America has given it a try. So I think you should leave is sort of absurdist cringe comedy, kind of like the stuff Andy Kaufman used to do and that SNL couldn’t handle either. Pretty much every sketch they do on this show is fucking hilarious and it gets funnier every time you watch it. If I told you how many times I’ve watched some of these sketches, it would be embarrassing for me, so I’m not going to do that. But I would like to give you a smattering of what you’re going to get if you dive in and binge all three seasons of I think You Should Leave, which you should go do right now. Seriously, stop listening to this episode.

Yeah, I’m done. No, I’m just kidding. The first skit I ever watched from the show is called Baby of the Year. I have no idea how I came across it because I didn’t watch it on Netflix. The setup is it’s a competition for wait for it baby of the year, and the show is hosted by a frequent Tim Robinson collaborator named Saam Richardson. There’s a panel of three judges. There’s a vociferous crowd, but there’s a twist. Everyone really hates this one baby whose name is Bart Harley Jarvis. He’s dressed like a biker, so I think they were doing a Harley Davidson thing here. So they bring in a pediatrician who talks about the baby’s medicals and he’s absolutely disgusted by this baby. Someone in the crowd yells, I hope you fucking die, Harley Jarvis, none of the judges vote for the baby. Then the sketch takes a hard left turn as these skits often do, and one of the judges randomly shares that one of the baby’s dads gave oral to another judge to try to get ahead in the competition.

Of course, then they do an imm segment and when one of the judges complains, the host says, calm down. They’re old ones. They don’t stay babies forever, idiot. And then he calls ’em a fucking stupid asshole. Then they start naming how each of the former contestants died, and it’s one of the other judges say normally in the immemorial, they don’t state how the people died. So you get things like tiny dinky Daffy 92 pancaked by a drunk dump truck driver in the middle of the segment, the imm segment, an audience member rushes the stage to try to shoot the baby and she’s tackled in the end of the show. So yeah, every single segment is that whack and it veers off in a million different directions. And if that sounds like your cup of tea, well, I think you just found your new favorite streaming show.

Now, I don’t want to spoil a whole show for you, but I would like to highlight some of the other sketches that I really like, even though, I mean technically they’re all my favorites. Now you’ve probably seen this one on social media, but there’s this sketch where Tim Robinson crashes into a building wearing a hotdog suit while driving basically the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile and tries to convince people he wasn’t the one who did it. He says, yeah, we’re all trying to find the guy who did this and give him a spanking randomly. Then he just steals a bunch of shirts and pants while naming porn sites. Yes, that’s correct. That’s how the sketch goes. Then you’ve got Calico cup pants, which are designed with three dots on the crotch to make it look like you pissed your pants in order to give you plausible deniability for what you actually have.

That’s actually really clever. I own several PIRs, not to be outdone. There is the TC top from TC Tuggers, a shirt with a knob on the front to pull it out from your belly, but they’re not a joke. You don’t make jokes about them. Plus, if you need a gorilla to attack you and rip off your toupee so you can be bald again, Wilson’s natural hair loss system has got your back. Then no one will ask What happened to the head of hair you had yesterday? Was that a to pay you piece of shit? Then there’s the guy who actually doesn’t know how to drive, which plays brilliantly on this trope of one driver yelling another driver, do you know how to fucking drive in this case? And I think you should leave. The response is, no, I don’t know how to fucking drive. I don’t know what any of this shit is, and I’m fucking scared.

You can say, well, I like this show so much. Right? I think you should leave also has the workplace situational comedy down. As in the last season, the Tim Robinson character tunes out his coworkers while playing a computer game where he feeds eggs to an egg-shaped character with Bush. By the way, when he wins the egged character in the game, then drops trow and shows its butthole in front of the Robinson character and his coworkers. His explanation when asked what he’s looking at, I don’t know, I’ve never gotten this far before. Then we should be able to look at a little porn at work. Then there’s a guy in the dating show who only wants to use a zip line and the horse ranch that specializes in offering horses with small dicks. Some men don’t feel inadequate. That’s Fenton’s Stables and Horse Ranch if you’re interested.

No judgment. And the guy at the Ghost Tour who only asks inappropriate questions and the party gets to eats a receipt, don’t ask. That unfortunately has some mud pie on it, and if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for a child that weighs over 60 pounds, Tammy craps the doll who defecates and lies about it may be your perfect gift. So I think you should leave in a nutshell, a rather large nutshell, admittedly, and if you watch that and you want more Tim Robinson, there’s lots of lists online about non, I think you should leave sketches that he’s in, including from his show, Detroiters, from SNL, from documentary now and other places. If you’re going to go down that rabbit hole, I would start with Carl Winslow, a homicide detective. Yes, that Carl Winslow from Family Matters. Saunders, you said come an awful lot and you know that you’ll get this when you watch these sketches.

Trust me, it’ll be worth your time now, if you’re not yet sold on, I think you should leave. Maybe you should just consider canceling Netflix and moving to corncob tv and its flagship series Coffin Flop, which is a show. It’s just hours and hours of footage of real people falling out of coffins of funerals. There’s no explanation, just body after body busting out a shit wood and hitting pavement. Alright, I should probably stop now because I could go on for another 40 minutes because I have to go get sloppy steaks when my guy Tandy. I mean, I used to be a real piece of shit I said was I’ll see myself out. I think I should leave now. Now, before we get to our interview with Emily Gordon about the non-legal tech Tech, let’s hear a little something, something from our sponsors. Then we’ll get into a rump roast that puts middle names first. Finally, right. Okay, everybody, let’s get to the meat in the middle of the legal podcasting sandwich. It’s the interview. Today’s meat is bologna as a card carrying Portuguese. Man, I ate fried bologna sandwiches at least three times a week when I was a Portuguese boy and I liked it. All right then. Let’s interview our guest today we have a what is really a long overdue appearance of a first time guest on the Legal Toolkit Show. That is Emily Gordon from Amara Law LLC. Emily, welcome to the show. How are you?

Emily Gordon:

I’m doing great, Jared. Thanks for having me, longtime listener. So this is very exciting.

Jared Correia:

Excellent. Okay, so let’s get to it. I want to talk to you about legal technology, which is one of your things I would say among many other things that you do and are known for, but you’ve got an immigration law practice that you started up and still run as a Solo attorney. So can you talk about what it’s been like to start and run that business?

Emily Gordon:

Exhausting? Does that count?

Jared Correia:

Sure, we can go with that.

Emily Gordon:

Jokes aside, that’s one of the reasons I love legal technology because it’s helped me work and be able to deliver services and represent my clients in a way that’s practical and affordable and realistic for a Solo attorney. So it’s been interesting to see the evolution of legal services and how techs played a role in that and how when I started having a remote office or used to say virtual office was pretty controversial, I’d say at least in my neck of the woods since we’re working with families and I represent a lot of children, a lot of minors, and it requires a lot of sensitivity, a lot of interaction, and you get to know your clients. I’ve represented some clients now for almost a decade since I started because unfortunately some of these cases take that long, and so that type of legal work requires you to have a hands-on accessible experience with your client, but that tech in remote work doesn’t always line up with that description. So I had to try and find a way to bridge the gap.

Jared Correia:

So I think a lot of lawyers that I’ve talked to still would be like, it would be hard to create those personal relationships using technology, but you haven’t had that problem. It sounds like it’s actually advanced the relationships you have with your clients. Would that be fair to say?

Emily Gordon:

Absolutely, yes.

Jared Correia:

Okay. So you start your immigration practice, use a lot of technology, and you start out by using legal technology, which you alluded to. So walk me through that. How did you pick that? How did you start? How’d you get down that road?

Emily Gordon:

It’s one of my favorite stories. The early days when I was, I had an office, but I made this decision sitting in my studio apartment in Boston because the rent here is just a little crazy.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, just a little.

Emily Gordon:

And my IKEA table that my parents bought me as a gift when I went to law school. So we’re keeping it real. And I think it was about four months out, three months out from becoming a licensed attorney in Massachusetts and my first client hired me and I made a promise with myself. When I started practicing, I realized I couldn’t check all the boxes and if I had the mentality that I’d check all the boxes or all the boxes that tend to be told we need to check as lawyers, which

Jared Correia:

Is a great, great point by the way,

Emily Gordon:

Going to make it.

Jared Correia:

I think a lot of lawyers do the check the box thing.

Emily Gordon:

I agree with you, and I think part of the reason is because we’re institutionalized to believe we have to check the boxes, but I knew I couldn’t have a full-time assistant. I couldn’t have some fancy office because I couldn’t afford it, but I wanted to practice law and I wanted to have my own office. And so how was I going to do that? So I had a little conversation with myself and I said, there are things I’m good at, there are things I’m not good at Everyone else, there are things I can do and there are things I can’t do, and so what are the things that I’m good at? And I said, well, I like technology. I’ve always liked technology and I like innovation and I like adding a little creative spice to something that is traditional and something that has been told for years.

It needs to be a certain way. ak the practice of law, one of the most rigid careers you can go into. And I said, how can I make this different and make it work in my unique circumstance? And so I decided to lean into technology and one of the boxes that I definitely wanted to check was having practice management software. I promised myself, when I have my first client, they deserve to be put, their data deserves to be put into software. I will not put them in Excel or put them on no knocks against Excel. That’s actually,

Jared Correia:

We can trash trash excel here, you’re in a safe space.

Emily Gordon:

But I said, I want to use legal software. And I knew I had a feeling that once I started having clients that it was hopefully going to take off. And so if I implement a new system six months in a year in, it would be chaos. So I wanted to build a house right from the beginning. So even if I couldn’t have the fanciest house, I still wanted the house to be built the way that I thought was appropriate for me and my practice and my clients and in a way that would work and in a way that I could live in it for the foreseeable future. And so I sat down, let’s look at sat down that kitchen and I sat down that kitchen table and I said, let’s buy practice management software. And I read articles. I read about the company’s bar associations we’re talking about, and I made a choice. And one reason I picked the company that I picked was because I also realized

Jared Correia:

You could name it if you want, was it my case?

Emily Gordon:

It was my case, yes. Yes. Okay. And actually Nicole Black who works for my case, she

Jared Correia:

Wrote Nikki Black friend of the pod,

Emily Gordon:

Nikki Black, one of my personal heroes, professional heroes as well, because she changed my life. She wrote an article from the American Bar Association about cloud computing. So I’m going to take you back. This is two 2014. Nikki was talking about how this is the future and it’s sustainable and you can still do this and do it in a way that complies with ethics and that this is not a bad thing. This is actually a good thing. And when I was reading her article, I said, this is the future and I like the future. I then put two and two together that she worked for my case and she was an early influencer before we used that word.

Jared Correia:

Oh, she totally was. Yeah.

Emily Gordon:

I was reading about my case and I liked the philosophy. They were the first company as far as I know, that had a client portal.

Jared Correia:

That may be true, I don’t recall, but that could totally be true.

Emily Gordon:

I believe you and I later found out at EBA tech show when I spoke to the person who created my case that he was also criminal defense lawyer and he wanted a way to easily share police reports in a secure way with his clients. And for those who don’t practice criminal law, sometimes police reports have a lot of PI in them. There’s social security numbers, dates of birth, and so it’s very important for documents like that for them to be shared in a secure way. And so I realized that I didn’t have an assistant who could, if my client showed up the office and said, I want a copy of my file, or I want to see that police report or I want to look at it before I meet with Emily, I didn’t have a human who could produce that document. So I needed to use technology to do it. And that was really what drew me to my case and their portal because it allowed my clients to be empowered, which allowed me to be able to do my job in a way that was affordable and realistic.

Jared Correia:

And you even talked to Mass Spiegel too, we’re name dropping.

Emily Gordon:

Everybody I did we’re name dropping every that is who I talked to. Yes.

Jared Correia:

My case founder, a Lawmatics founder. Yes. So you.my case that goes well. And then you start to bring on some other legal technology tools, right, as well.

Emily Gordon:

I had a few, an immigration lawyer. A lot of us use document or forms automation software. So I use Docket Wise, which is now also owned by my case parent

Jared Correia:

Company. Funny how that works out. Yes.

Emily Gordon:

It’s just sometimes you think you’re moving to a different town and then you see the same people in life just continues. So it all kind of works out. So I did use Docket Wise for a while solely for immigration forms. I didn’t use their other features because I had my case and then I was using the typical, we’ll call it off-label Legal of G Suite and Zoom and all those accessories. But my case was the heart and soul of my practice for years.

Jared Correia:

So here’s where we get the twist in the sixth sense. You’ve also started to adopt non-legal tech now. And I think this is really interesting because I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that legal tech software is kind of in some cases knockoff versions of other softwares that may be better. So how did you get to that point where you were like, okay, I did the legal tech thing, now I’m looking outside legal tech

Emily Gordon:

Before I go down this road. I’m a firm believer in, and this is the beauty of having your own practice and also this industry and this time is that find something that works for you and what a few years ago thought was the solution. That’s not my answer anymore. And that’s okay. And so this is an evolution, which exactly. And it makes it fun because we can tweak it into something that works for us as we evolve and our practices evolved. So for me, what was happening was I started, I was lucky enough that I had a speaking opportunity with the ABA women, legal tech, and then one thing led to another, and I ended up going to ABA tech show in Chicago. And that’s where, if you haven’t been, the expo hall is pretty incredible. So it’s this basement if you haven’t been with a ton of vendors, it’s basically my happy place.

I can talk to all of these vendors, people who work for companies that I use and admire and tell them my problems and they can present solutions. So I started walking around and learning more about different companies. And then I also, and I think learning more about legal tech empowered me and gave me the courage to leave Legal Tech because I said, hold on a second. This is how the software really works. And it’s not this, when I started practicing, it was something that was almost on a pedestal that I couldn’t reach or understand, but now, eight, nine years in the game, I’m starting to understand how software companies are working and how these companies are being built. And so I felt much more comfortable to reassess my situation. At the same time I started going to conferences and speaking, and last time I checked, the days were still 24 hours long.

So I need to find a way to be able to speak and present and do all these things that I absolutely love, but still run my practice. So my solution was what if I could run my practice from my phone or a lot more of it than I was already doing? What if, what was holding me up, what was the bottleneck? The bottleneck was that a lot of what I was doing, I needed a computer for, I needed two monitors for. So if I’m sitting in Chicago and I don’t have my computer on me and I have an iPad and a phone or just a phone and I can’t get back to my Paralegal in real time because I need to go all the way back to my hotel room and open my computer and hope it’s charged and I can find it. And then by then she’s done working for the day and I lost the new client.

They hired the person who that story goes. So that’s was what motivated me. And fast forward, I found technology and software that no, can I do everything from my phone? Absolutely not. But I can do a lot more. I can interact a lot more with my clients, frankly, putting aside getting more done, it’s helped me understand this concept that I’m somebody who’s, I think like every lawyer, I work probably too many hours and I’ve teetered on the brink of burnout and exhaustion. We started talking about that and I think it’s a very real thing and it’s important topic. And so I sit and think the solution for me was never quitting because I love what I do. So I said, how can I make this more manageable? And I’ve realized that responding to my Paralegal through my phone and using emojis and audio recordings to tell her something, when I don’t have the time or the energy to write out a to-do list, it still gets the job done, but I’m preserving my energy or I’m doing it faster. And so it’s allowed me to get more done, allowed me to still keep my wellbeing intact as best as possible, but also allows me to do some of the other work that I so enjoy doing without having to sacrifice quality. And frankly, I think that our quality and our production, our deliverables are way up, including client satisfaction. People seem a lot happier lately.

Jared Correia:

Awesome. And you are too. So that’s a perfect combo.

Emily Gordon:

There we go. Everyone’s happy.

Jared Correia:

Alright, so let’s talk a little bit about what you switched to. If I remember correctly, I think one of the big products you made, the move to was front for email management, which I don’t know if you still use that or not. So let me know what you did when you moved from Legal Tech to General Tech.

Emily Gordon:

Well, front was, I’ve always been a big believer in using a paid third party software for email management because I think we all struggle with inbox management and inbox fatigue in this industry and in life. And so I’ve always been a big believer in using software that helps me navigate my inbox more efficiently. So I used to use a program called Superhuman, which has premised the idea of going through your inbox faster using keyboard shortcuts, and it was great, but then I realized I needed more and front delivered that, so I implemented front for email and then I added in integrations. That has basically resulted in front being our communication hub. So it’s for the non-client, such as when I need to email people who aren’t clients in some internal communication. And then we’re also using it for texting.

Jared Correia:

Cool. And so front, if people haven’t used it, like it’s external and internal and you could use it as a ticketing system within your practice. So it sounds like that’s worked really well for you.

Emily Gordon:

Yeah, it’s great because you can do a lot more than just email, even if you’re dealing with email or text. So I really can’t stand for it in emails. So because it’s clunky and you don’t know who’s getting what, who’s seen what, it’s kind of annoying. And so this is a way that you can tag your team and they can take over a message. Another great thing is, a big topic right now is how do you manage remote workers and stay in compliance? So I can see if my Paralegal writes a text or an email, I can take it over. So I can take, she could draft an email as though she’s me, but I of course don’t want her sending that until I review it. And so I can take over the email and clean it up in the way I want. I can also review an email before she sends it and instead of saying to her space between paragraphs, that’s a big thing I have, I’ll just do it. And then she can take it back and do what she wants and send it from her signature. So it allows this collaborative work that it replicates in-person work in a remote field. So that’s just one of the many reasons. I love it. I also hosted our number from, I have a VoIP phone, and so our main number, I hosted it over to Twilio, then I have Twilio pushing into

Jared Correia:

And that’s a texting app.

Emily Gordon:

Correct. So very, you kind have to know what you’re doing to set it up, but once you do, it’s very easy. And so I can see texts and emails all within the same platform, and I have some other integrations built in.

Jared Correia:

You are using Panda Doc as well, right? So you’ve gotten into alternative document assembly tools.

Emily Gordon:

I love the Panda. It’s the greatest thing.

Jared Correia:

We may get some new sponsors out of this. All right, great. Tell me a little bit about Panda Doc and then I have one more question for you.

Emily Gordon:

So Panda Doc, if you Google it and look at it initially, you’re going to say, Emily, this is document automation software, which it is, but I realize I’m going to go slightly off Jared, but I’ll come back, I promise. That’s fine. I like to solve problems, especially when they have to do with customer service and business and practicing law. And so I realized we were spending a lot of time communicating with clients, and not that I don’t love my clients, but texting them about the status of their case is not helping me get their case done faster or do a better job representing them. And so I realized I needed to reinvent the way I was interacting with my clients. And Panda Doc lets me do that. So what I do now is I have our payments are attached to documents. So in Panda Doc, you can integrate with different payment processors.

I use Stripe. There are other ones such as Square. And so what we’re doing now is instead of asking for payments based on calendar time, which frankly is a made up phenomenon, unless you’re doing subscription-based services or on a payment plan, I’m not doing a traditional payment plan. And so maybe one case will take four months to finish because of the client complexities, et cetera, and the same type of case you could do in a month. And so I realized why should the person whose case takes four months to get to step two pay on the same timeline as the person on whose case takes a month. And so what we do now is, for example, I do a lot of special immigrant juvenile visas, and a big part of those cases in family court is the affidavit. And so once we finish the affidavit, I consider that the middle point of the case more or less, and that’s when I ask for a second payment, client signs the affidavit and then they get a link to payment and the client feels empowered because they almost, it’s like, this is my affidavit and my lawyer did all this work and I like my affidavit and I just okayed it and went through all these versions and I signed it.

I’m ready to make another payment. And it cuts down a communication because instead of clients saying, I need another month to pay or a few more weeks, or what’s the status of my case? I’m finding, hey, if you are not ready to pay, assuming there are no deadlines, we’re facing the client’s okay with it. When you’re ready, sign your affidavit, review it, and we can go to payment and we go to the next step. So it cuts down on some of this back and forth communication that I don’t think really ends up helping the case necessarily. And I get why clients are asking, but it’s a lot to manage as a Solo attorney. So that was really my motivation. PandaDoc also has a new feature in beta that I signed up day one because I was excited for it. And it’s called PandaDoc Rooms. And so it allows us to create, it’s almost like a portal and we can share documents, you can hide some folders if you just want them to be internal. Within that room, there’s a welcome page, which I’m using to welcome clients, onboard them, set expectations, but also to keep track of updates in the case, almost like a log. And then there’s a task feature which is similar to your traditional workflows.

Jared Correia:

Awesome. Emily, tremendous job. Thank you. Thank you. Will you stick around for one last segment, even though you have no idea what it’ll be about?

Emily Gordon:

Oh boy. Do I need to sign a waiver through Panoc? Yeah,

Jared Correia:

We’ll take care of that. Don’t worry,

Emily Gordon:

I’ll be here.

Jared Correia:

Alright everybody, we’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear what our sponsor companies have in terms of their latest service offerings. Then stay tuned. As always, for the Rump Roast, it’s even more subtle than the Roast Beast. Welcome to the rear end of the Legal Toolkit podcast, everybody. That’s right, it’s back. It’s the Rump Roast. It’s a grab bag of short form topics. All of my choosing. Why do I get to pick? You may ask. Well, because I’m the host. So Emily, one thing we didn’t talk about that people may not know about you is that your law firm is named Amara Law and they’re probably like, well, why is that the case? That’s your middle name.

Emily Gordon:

That is correct.

Jared Correia:

So cool way to fashion your middle name into a brand name. How did you get that middle name? That’s a relatively unique name. I would say.

Emily Gordon:

You did your homework Jared. I try. I try Impressed. A lot of people think it’s a cool name because it’s actually, it’s a word in ibo, which is a prominent in Nigeria. I believe it’s also a word in Arabic or close to a word I’ve been told in Arabic. So a lot of people will ask me, they’re confused on close

Jared Correia:

Enough,

Emily Gordon:

They’re like, what’s going on here? And then they start asking about family ties, et cetera. And I say, well, actually my parents opened a book and found it, but it means a lot. You asked me that. I never told this story publicly. I had an uncle, it’s a little sad, but I had an uncle who passed away a few months before I was born. He was a wonderful person. My parents were very close to him and he was a doctor and went to medical school in Italy and my grandparents were from Southern Italy. And when he passed away, his first name was Anthony. And so when he passed away, my parents wanted to honor him and they decided that my middle name would start with an A. And so they opened a book and looked at the A’s and Amara stood out. And so when I was naming my firm, there are a few reasons I picked that name, but one was to honor my uncle and let his legacy live on and all the wonderful work he did helping his patients. So thank you for asking that. That’s really

Jared Correia:

Cool. That’s really cool. Thank you. Now I feel bad that I’m going to launch a trivia question on you because you told us that story. Okay. It’s all good. I’m going to do it anyway. Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to play a new game. I just invented it for you. It’s called Stuck in the Middle with you, with apologies to Steeler’s Wheel. So what you’re going to do is identify which of the people in each of these groups I’m going to mention go by their middle name. So these are people who use their middle name as their first name. How about that?

Emily Gordon:

Got it. Okay.

Jared Correia:

Are you ready?

Emily Gordon:

I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Jared, I’ve been waiting for this moment.

Jared Correia:

Okay, I got five questions. We’ll see how you do.

Emily Gordon:

Okay,

Jared Correia:

This author uses his middle name first. I’ll give you three choices. Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, or Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens Samuel Johnson. Which one of those gentlemen use their middle name as their first name?

Emily Gordon:

I’m going with Charles Dickens Jared.

Jared Correia:

That is a good guess, but unfortunately incorrect. Okay, I’m not surprised. I didn’t know this. I didn’t know this. Red Deer Kipling’s. First name is actually Joseph, just old Joe Kip link.

Emily Gordon:

Just Joe.

Jared Correia:

Lemme try another one. Number two. Okay, this one’s kind of hard actually. Now I feel bad. Okay, we’re going to go forward anyway, this Beatle’s first name is actually his middle name Beatle, Ringo Star. John Lennon, Paul McCartney. So I only left out George Harrison. Which of these people uses their middle name is a first name,

Emily Gordon:

Ringo Star.

Jared Correia:

Good guess also incorrect. Ringo Star’s. Real name is Richard Starkey. Paul McCartney’s. First name is James. His real name is James Paul McCartney. Interestingly, Paul McCartney’s son is named James McCartney and he does a great cover of Neil Young’s old man. If you want to take a listen to it. Let’s keep rolling. See you. I’m glad this is

Emily Gordon:

TheBar exam.

Jared Correia:

No, no. Well, I kind of wish it was. I might be

Emily Gordon:

In trouble.

Jared Correia:

All right, number three. This Saturday night Live actress Saturday Night Live actress uses her middle name for a first name. Amy Poer. Tina Fey or Kate McKinnon. Amy Poer. Tina Fey or Kate McKinnon whose middle name comes first.

Emily Gordon:

I’d like to disclose to everyone. I’m refusing to cheat, so I’m really winging it here. Yeah,

Jared Correia:

You got to be noble about this. I know everybody

Emily Gordon:

Got smartphone. I’m being, I love it. My results may not be great, but I’m being noble. I’m going to pick Tina Faye solely because I really, really like her and it’s a real close tie with Amy Poer. I’m giving up on actually getting these questions right and just hoping I can share with you all my love for pop culture. So that’s where I’m taking this. This

Jared Correia:

Is the route you should go because you are correct. Tina Fay. Yay. Tina Fay’s. First name is Elizabeth. Interesting. That’s awesome. Kate McKinnon uses her middle name is her last name. Her real na name is Berthold. I guess I understood why she changed this. Okay, so I threw one of these in for you. I feel like this is right up your alley.

Emily Gordon:

I’m excited.

Jared Correia:

This princess takes her middle name and places it First Princess Kate Middleton, Megan Markle or Anne Charles sister Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle or Princess Anne. Oh boy.

Emily Gordon:

I kind of have a memory that Meghan Markle Megan is not really her first

Jared Correia:

Name. Yeah, maybe you should stick with that. I don’t know.

Emily Gordon:

That’s my final answer, sir.

Jared Correia:

You’re correct.

Emily Gordon:

Walking it in.

Jared Correia:

Yay. Meghan Marco’s, real first name. Rachel.

Emily Gordon:

Rachel Markle. Yes, that’s right. And you’re good because my name was going to be Rachel in Jewish culture. So much about you can’t name someone after someone who’s alive and my great grandmother’s name Rachel. So if it wasn’t for that, I would’ve been Rachel Gordon.

Jared Correia:

That’s so interesting.

Emily Gordon:

Look at that.

Jared Correia:

Look at this recovery you’ve made though. It’s amazing. You’ve now got two in a row. All right, I got one more last one for you. These two US presidents, two US presidents elevated in their middle names into the first place. Ulysses S, grant, Warren, Harding, Kelvin Coolidge, Ulysses S, grant, Warren, Harding, Kelvin Coolidge. Two of these presidents use their middle name as a first name. You can get credit here even if you don’t get the whole thing right.

Emily Gordon:

Ulysses s Grant.

Jared Correia:

Okay, give me one more. Warren Harding or Kelvin Coolidge. Who you got?

Emily Gordon:

Warren Harding.

Jared Correia:

So close. Alright, you finished. You finished 500 in the rum row. No shame in that. No shame in that.

Emily Gordon:

And I would like the record to reflect counselor that any question that had any remote connection to pop culture, I got correct because that’s where I live.

Jared Correia:

Plus precisely why I avoided pop.

Emily Gordon:

I would like do the Andy Cohen version of this. Next time we have

Jared Correia:

You back to do that much better. Ulysses as Grant, his real first name was Hiram. Hiram Ulysses, grant, initials being hug, a little bit more intimidating to be US Grant and Kelvin Coolidge from Massachusetts. His first name was John Warren Hardings. Middle name was Gale, by the way, which is something I had fun. I hope you had fun.

Emily Gordon:

I had a blast. Thanks for coming back and I’m smarter now. So thank you for having me.

Jared Correia:

We learned so much here on the Legal Toolkit. Emily, thanks for coming on. We’ll have to do it again sometime.

Emily Gordon:

I’d love to. Thank you, Jared.

Jared Correia:

Alright, thanks. Take care. If you want to find out more about Emily Gordon and her work at Amara Law LLC, visit amara law.com. That’s a MAR law.com. Amara law.com. You heard the beautiful story Emily told about that. The least you can do is check out the website. Now. For those of you listening in Dingley, Dell, Massachusetts, we’ve got a Spotify playlist that stuck squarely in the middle. Sadly, I’ve run out of time to talk about the ancient aliens live shows that are crisscrossing the country right now. And that’s too bad because I have a theory about who planned this aliens this Jared Correia reminding you that his father didn’t need to do the oral, and that is why this is so tough for me to tell about the oral. But that was a lot of inside jokes.

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