Beyond CLE, Training for Life and Living as a Paralegal Professional

Episode Notes

Transcript

Tony Sipp:

And welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp and I’m here with Eda Rosa. On today’s show, we’re going to be joined by the powerhouse behind Eda Rosa, LLC for consulting meet education and training. She’s the creator of the Limitless Paralegal Academy and the upcoming paralegal, limitless Paralegal Tour 2026, helping legal professionals build, grow, and thrive without limits. So get ready for insight, strategy and a little ire wit please welcome at Rosa.

Eda Rosa:

Hey, yay. So happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Tony Sipp:

So happy to have you. It’s been a while. It’s been a while since I had you on either of our shows. I know we’re fellow podcast hosts, so it’s really great to have you back on the show and you’re doing some amazing things this year and going into next year. And you just said your birthday last week, if I recall correctly, and you were talking about the Etta era. I love that. Tell us a little bit about that and how you came up with that.

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, so I am originally from Puerto Rico. My family is all Puerto Rican. I’m married a Puerto Rican, so we are 100% Puerto Rican. I was just having that conversation with our son because he’s like, wait, we’re just Puerto Rican. I guess that’s not normal anymore. Yeah. And we’re like, yes, mommy and daddy are both Puerto Rican. But anyways, I was in Puerto Rico in January, counting down the year and going into the Three Kings because it’s a big celebration in Puerto Rico. We actually celebrate more the three Kings Day than we do Christmas or anything else. And so my family in particular, we have what’s called lapa, which means the promise. And every year it started with my great grandparents. And every year our family basically comes all together in one place, whether that’s Chicago, New York, Florida, and this year happened to be Puerto Rico.

And we all gather around together, we all do our little petitions and we do our traditions and all the things. And so for that, I said, I want to spend more time on my island. I miss my home, I miss my culture and I want my kids to kind of experience what I experienced. And so we did. We made a whole deal of it. We were there for a couple of weeks and on the countdown surrounded by my favorite musicians in the Hawaii world, some of the best artists known to Puerto Rico, and just really the culture and the vibe and getting those homey feels again, I looked up, I saw the big countdown on the screen and I said, this is it. This is the EDA era. This is my time to shine. This is my new chapter my last year in my thirties, and I’m ready to just take on the world and do a lot more with my family and just everything in between.

Tony Sipp:

I love it. I love it. I think that’s so great. When you have that moment and connecting with your family and showing your kids the roots, it makes a difference. I mean, letting them know, especially with everything going on in this world right now. So you describe at a Rose, Rosa, LLC as a hybrid consultant training and education company. What inspired you to merge those three worlds under one roof?

Eda Rosa:

So like a good entrepreneur, I guess I would say. I did my research and I’ve been in the industry for 20 plus years. Prior to that, I was a paralegal, I managed teams, I did business development for law firms. So my background in those 20 years was very diverse and from literally the beginnings as a billing clerk to ultimately the event planner and everything in between the CEO paralegal, all the things to our executives and everything at the law firm. So I had a very wide range of experience, but all through those years I was collecting data, is what I always do. And I realized that there was a lot of bottlenecks in the law firms and that had a lot to do with lack of training and continuous training, but it also had a lot to do with a lot of momentum. A lot of paralegals were either getting burnt out, anxious, and it’s because they were going through their own things.

Life was getting to them and there was no accessibility, there was no tools, there was no mentorships, there was no counsel, nobody to help them get through it, which is what inspired our book that’s coming out hopefully next month. And in that process, I said, there’s a lot of things missing in our legal industry, and funny enough, we are servants to the communities and we actually provide our services to our communities. It’s like we need to humanize the legal industry again. That’s where I got my slogan, which is changing the legal industry from the inside out. Now our season six of the Let’s Talk paralegal podcast is humanizing the legal industry. I was very excited about creating something that just the market needed. We often go to CLEs for ethics and research and writing and all the mundane stuff that we need to learn and we need to keep up with, right?

Obviously. And now with ai, we’re going to learning more about AI and legal tech and all the things, and that’s great, obviously necessary. But what about all the other stuff? What about our emotional intelligence, secondary trauma, empathy? What creates the burnout? What creates anxiety? Why is that one client always triggering us and making us frustrated or difficult? Or why is that colleague, why am I not able to work well with them? All these questions that we just kind of push aside, those are the questions that we answer through our training. While we are training them with the hard skills and the soft skills and all the skills in between, we always want to include that mindset element because it’s necessary.

Tony Sipp:

That’s a great point. And to your point, you mentioned rewriting the rule book on legal operations. What one rule do you think is desperately needed in rewriting? In our industry,

Eda Rosa:

We need to continuously train our staff. It cannot stop at the 90 day taking your highest producer, having them shadow you kind of portion. There’s no official training, there’s no recap or anything like that when it comes to that. And then once you do do that, you put that employee in either a sink or swim situation, and then in addition to that, you then don’t continue to feed them with training and skills and things that they need. All of a sudden you throw out new systems and new CRMs, or now we have more hires and the team is getting bigger and the loss in translation gets bigger, the bottlenecks get bigger, the deficits in profits get lower. And so everything is just out of chaos. And that can easily be fixed with continuous education, continuous training, team building exercises. It doesn’t have to be a whole thing. It could just be a one day event where you’re just making sure that your team is aware of what’s happening, of the changes, getting their feedback, getting their buy-in, things like that. It’s so funny, I think of the legal industry, kind of like, well, football, it’s football season, so let’s go with the football theme.

Tony Sipp:

Let’s go with it.

Eda Rosa:

Every single player in the football, and I’m going to kind of just make a base for those of you that are not football fans, but every single player in the team has their part, right? They have to. If the quarterback fails, if the kicker fails, they all fail. Nobody wins. Nobody gets the touchdown. So that’s exactly how every team is, right? Every team has their part, has their position, has their role, and if somebody is not well-equipped or not feeling well or not properly trained, the team loses. And so the team is, it’s the entirety, it’s the entire law firm, it’s the entire attorney, it’s every single person. And we don’t look at it that way. I have no idea why in the legal industry, we don’t look at the strength in numbers and the strength in teams. And the stronger your team is, the better. And that doesn’t mean with strategy, it doesn’t mean with the best legal research or anything like that. It means coherence. You have to work together, you have to make it happen. You have to have those roll up sleeve moments where everybody has to come together and get the strategy and get the trial and all the things in between.

Tony Sipp:

Wow, I love it. That’s pretty, I mean, you can kill an entire business just by not client back or somebody doesn’t answer the phone. It’s an excellent point. And good analogy. Your approach blends like savvy expertise and wit. So how does humor and your personality play into transforming law firms and legal professionals?

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, I struggled with that for a while though. I mean, we’re going to have an honest moment here on this podcast, but I did. I struggled with it. I struggled with identity, right? Because I was a female in a male’s world. And that kind of came up early on in my career when I first got into the legal industry because like I was telling you, I was a billing clerk for an air conditioning company, and then I started being a billing clerk for a law firm, and that’s how I got my foot in the door. From there, it escalated and I fell in love with it, and I loved all the things, legal industry. But my dad, the day I called him up and I said, pa, I got this position at the law firm. And he’s like, it’s everything you’ve wanted. And I said, yeah, it is.

I want to be at a law firm and I want to see where this takes me. And he goes, I just want to let you know two things. You’re going to be entering in a man’s world because it’s heavily dominated by men and you are a female. And then I want you to remember the second thing. I never disrespected you. I never mistreated you, and I’m your father. Don’t let anybody else do it. And those two things, I took on a trophy and I just kept it going, kept it going, kept it going fast forward 20 something years later, I’m building my business and I said, what do I want at a Rosa LLC to look like? And three years from now, because I knew I had to start somewhere. So the company first started as freelance paralegal. I was offering my services to several small to mid law firms, and it worked out great for three years.

I learned a lot. I learned more about operations, and I learned about bottlenecks, and I was building up to what it is now, consulting, training, all the things. And through that translation though, I suffered a lot because I didn’t know how to dress. I didn’t know how to feel comfortable in my own skin because I am Hispanic at heart. And although I am in south Florida and there’s a lot of Latinos here, there’s a lot of Brazilians, there’s a lot of multicultural people. I didn’t see where I fit in. I am a female. I was not young enough. I was not old enough. I didn’t have a law degree, but I had degrees and I was loud and proud and opinionated, but that wasn’t allowed in the meetings. And so it’s like, where does eda Rosa, where does she fit in this puzzle? So I ultimately started getting very awkward and I started pulling my hair in a ponytail and I started putting on suits that I didn’t like, I hated, and I struggled that whole back and forth, okay, who is EDA and where can she fit in?

And ultimately, one day I literally just woke up. This is a true story. I woke up at three o’clock in the morning and I said, forget this. I’m just going to be me. I’m going to dye my hair red. I’m going to wear my wild colors, I’m going to wear my blazers, and I’m just going to be me. And either you accept me or you don’t. That’s it. You’re not my client if you don’t like it. And I swear to you, it was about a struggle for three years. And from that third year, I just went, that was it. Everything just went, fell into place. I went into events, I was more comfortable. People realized that I was more confident. And a good friend of mine always said, she says, there’s nothing sexier than somebody that’s confident. And so that’s exactly what was happening. I was attracting the right people.

I was attracting the sources and everything else because I finally fell into my category, the OSA category. I didn’t need a category. I am osa. I am loud and proud. I can be funny, I can be serious. I can talk about mindset just as much as I can talk about hard skills, and that’s really what everybody likes. I’m an all in one person. You don’t have to hire anybody else. I’m right here. I could do it all. And so that’s really was our selling point. Nobody was really doing or still is not doing what we do. And so I said, well, that’s why I don’t have a category. There is no consulting firm that strictly focuses on tailored team training and provide a full on academy and courses and all the things that come with our brand and can talk on a stage just as much that can talk in a small room filled with people that are willing to learn and train.

So I just said, this is the OSA category. I don’t have to fall into something. So every person that comes to me and says, Hey, what are you? What is et rosa? And I said, we’re a hybrid. That’s what we are. We’re a cross between what it should be a consulting and training firm because that’s what we need to be. You can’t have the consulting without the training. I can give you the process and operations all day every day, but if your team is not ready and willing to actually be implementing the process and operation, well then what Good was all that for?

Tony Sipp:

Excellent point. An excellent point about just really being your authentic self. A lot of people think that you have to fit the mold. I struggled with that myself as well. But let’s talk about that and some of the other things you did to advance your career on the other side of this sprint. We’ll be right back after this commercial break, and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp. I’m here with Eda Rose Eda. We were just talking about your plan and how business grows and once you became your authentic self, your company just grew. One thing I think a lot of people know about you is that you went and got your jd. So did you always plan to use your JD outside of traditional legal practice rules?

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, so I ended up going to law school, like a crash course of law school. I actually did a juris master. I didn’t do the Juris doctrine because I didn’t want to, but I did do a Juris master and I graduated through FIU Florida International Law School. My degree has FIU law and it’s great. I have all those cute little pins and everything to make me feel better about spending all that money. I loved it. It was definitely a crash course to law school though. So it’s kind of like if you don’t want to go to law school because you don’t want to be a lawyer, but you still want a master’s degree to the UMP level, then go for it. And so I did, and that’s what I wanted. I also wanted to go into universities and teach, and you need a master’s degree to do that.

So that was another reason I did that. And then secondly, I wanted to just get my feet wet. My last degree was back in 2011, and I wanted to come back to a university setting and kind of see what’s going on, what that looks like after the pandemic, and really get my feet wet and really hands-on experience because I’m all about practicing what I preach. There’s no way that I ever saw myself being a lawyer in recent. Right, of course. I always contemplated about it when I was a little girl back in the day. It was either you were a doctor, engineer or a lawyer. That’s how you made money. Right,

Tony Sipp:

Exactly.

Eda Rosa:

And so I chose to be a lawyer and I always said that I wanted to be a lawyer, lawyer, this lawyer that, and my father literally passed away in his deathbed saying that I was a lawyer, my daughter’s a lawyer, you better take care of me. And I wasn’t, but it is what it is that I love him. God rest in peace. But yeah, never was a lawyer. But I did go back. I did want a degree within law school and I wanted to have that under my belt. And it had nothing to do with I guess acknowledgement or recognition or status because like we were talking before, I am not about that life. I’m in my own category. I live my life and I’m in the edit era now, so it doesn’t matter. But for me, it had everything to do with having a degree under my belt that I was proud of as an adult after being a mom.

I don’t know if that makes sense, but I became a mom nine years ago with my oldest and now I have a 7-year-old, and I always said I wanted to go back and I wanted to get my master’s, and I was very adamant about it and I put it on pause for a while. So for me it was more of a self-fulfillment and with bonuses. So now I can actually teach and now I can actually do other things that I’ve always wanted to do and get into rooms that I may not have. So FIU Florida, if you guys don’t know what Florida International University does, they’re actually the most diverse university out of all the law schools. And so what happens is they bring a lot of international students and everything else, and that’s really what attracted me to the university. Aside from the program, of course, I love the program and I loved all the elements of it, and it’s very rare that you see a Juris master, you’ll see the LLMs, you’ll see the masters of law and all that. And none of them really interested me until I saw this one, which was a juris master, which I appreciated. I also got to concentrate in education, which is what I love. I love to educate. So it was like win-win for everybody. It was completely virtual hybrid model where I can actually speak to everybody but not have to drive all the way to Miami because if anybody knows Miami Life, you do not want it. Okay, you might. Traffic sucks.

I grew up in Miami, so I can say that, but other than that, it was a real pivotal moment in my life and I said, it’s only one year that I can dedicate and prove to myself that I still got it, that I can still do this and still graduate and still be a mom, still run the business, still do all the things. And I did. It was a rough year. I traveled a lot. I attended a lot of my classes in either Puerto Rico, Orlando, because that year for some reason, my whole family decided they wanted to travel and that’s exactly what we did. It was a great unique experience that I will never take back. It was also a way of showing my kids that nothing in life should stop you, that everything that you want you can accomplish if you just put your mind to it and you really dedicate yourself. I ultimately graduated as the president of the program, so that was exciting.

Tony Sipp:

Congratulations.

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

That’s cool.

Eda Rosa:

And still class president. I love it. And so we went for a reunion a couple weeks ago and they’re like, there she is. There’s the class president and the dean and everybody knew who I was. All the professors still remembered me. Obviously I’m very memorable. And so I go, it was great and it was a beautiful moment. My daughter was able to spend time with us at the Limitless event this year and my son as well, and they were able to help and it was just great. It was just all around. Yes, aha moment.

Tony Sipp:

It gave you a competitive edge, really getting the master’s degree and you have that flexibility it sounds like. I mean, you’re able to travel and still work. That’s fantastic. I think you’re living the dream, really. This is really,

Eda Rosa:

I try.

Tony Sipp:

That’s what it’s about, making all of these things happen. Are you planning on the business? Are you doing something now? Is there a book or anything that you, I mean it seems like you seem like a writer is there, so

Eda Rosa:

I’m going on my third book.

Tony Sipp:

Your third book.

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, I just have to do that. Why not? Why not? But this one, I always like to explain it. The first one was a co-author. It was basically memoirs of paralegals. The main author was the one that reached out to several of us, and we were able to share our story and share our journey, which at that moment wasn’t really much of a journey to share. In all retrospect. I was like, I would’ve loved to write that book now because I’ve done so much more than there. But I’m so proud. I’m all about celebrating little and big wins, still proud of it. It’s called Beyond the Oath, and it was really great experience. It was a first experience of me writing and going through the editorial process, which man, if you want to a humbling moment, go through the editorial process because it is rough.

Anyways, I have my blunt for punishment. So I went for the second round and I wrote my book on my own. That’s called Let’s Talk Paralegal, which is an extension of our podcast. It’s a little guide, it’s a hundred page, very short read. It has notations in the back where you can write your own notes so you don’t have to find separate pieces of paper. That person that doesn’t like to ruin the book. So I am like, well, you’re not ruining it. It’s a whole page. You could just write it. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I thought of myself as the reader and then I created that guide, and we also offer it for our consulting clients. It’s included in the package. And so it’s just a great little guide. For me, it was just a collective of information, putting it in one little thing and making it literally a guide.

That’s what it’s called. And so anyway, now I’m what I call now a serious writer because what’s happening is I’ve been doing some research, I’ve been interviewing paralegals and therapists and everything else, and we’re talking about a topic that’s really not being spoken about too much. Yes, it’s being promoted on mental health month and it’s doing that, but we’re focusing more on the in-between moments. What I was alluding to in the prior of this conversation where we talk about anxiety and burnout, like a good thing, we’re just gloating about it. Like, oh, I’m so overworked, underpaid, ha ha ha,

Tony Sipp:

2,500 hours,

Eda Rosa:

Right? And it’s not a joke. The moment that you wake up at two, three o’clock in the morning freaking out if you sent that notice or if you did the right trial prep, those are sure signs that you’re going through some trauma that you’re going through what’s called the secondary trauma, where you’re reliving the experiences of your client, where you are under stress and under duress with the environment around you. And that can just happen even in a good environment, which I think a lot of people don’t realize that even if you are in a healthy working environment where it’s very open door policy and you get along with all your colleagues and your clients are amazing and your manager’s understanding and all the things, you can still go through secondary trauma. It’s not actually a uncommon thing. So the reasoning why I started this book was rewind, I think it was about four years ago, four or five years ago.

I’m not quite sure exactly, but I was working with my client as a freelance paralegal, but I also, he onboarded me for consulting. He was actually my first official consulting client. He obviously trusted me. I had worked with him for three years. So he’s like, yeah, I’ll go for it. But there was this one case, and we always have that one case that will just stick it to our hearts forever. And this is my one case, I call it the Little Girl case in the book because obviously we have to stay confidential. It’s called The Little Girl Case, and it’s what stir this entire book where my book was born. And so the idea and the concept came from this one story where I went to my therapist and I had a conversation with her and she was very gentle about it obviously, but she said, you’re going through secondary trauma, and I had no idea what that meant.

And she goes, you’re taking this case to heart because it’s close to home. The little girl was very close to my daughter’s age. It was an accident that shouldn’t happened. It was irresponsible of the adults, and it’s something that could have easily happened to us because where it happened is where my husband grew up. We knew everybody there, and it was just a humbling experience. And so I took it to heart. I got her the best treaters, I got her the best providers. I made calls. Luckily my father-in-law was still working in Shan’s Hospital, which is really popular in Gainesville. I got all the help they needed and all the things and just access to everything that she needed in order to really rehabilitate. We can never say to normal because that’s not going to be a thing, but we can rehabilitate her to where she can learn to walk, talk and do all the things.

Again, she was a very gifted child, much like my daughter. I cried myself to sleep as soon as I was assigned this case. It was with the firm for a while. I was the only one that was able to close the case. And so I think my client just was in awe with me because I literally gave it my all. I gave it my tears, I gave it my everything. And till this day, I follow up with the family. I make sure she’s okay. If they need anything, I’m there. We are on a one-to-one basis. I’ve visited the family many times. We’ve zoomed call and she calls me Ms. Ed, and it’s just that one case. It’s just that one case that just sets you on fire and it reminds you this is why you do what you do. You don’t have to be a lawyer to make the difference.

You can be whatever role you’re in as long as you’re passionate about it and as long as you truly care what you’re doing, whatever that is, I’ve seen the best customer service I’ve ever had is somebody that really loves what they do. And that can be an attendant at a grocery store, that can be a waiter, waitress, that can be a receptionist. It has no boundaries as to what you want to do, what you want to do. You know what I mean? As long as you’re passionate and as long as you care, everybody will see that it’ll transcend throughout. And that’s really what this book is about. It’s about you breaking through the barriers, breaking through your obstacles, the mindset, obstacles that we put on ourselves, the excuses that we put on ourselves daily. And I catch myself all the time being perfectly aware of what’s happening, and I’ll write the list and I’ll write it to myself, EDA, you failed yourself because you did this, but then you went ahead and you did that.

And so those things and those conversations we need to have, and we don’t talk about it enough. We talk about mental health, we talk about awareness. We donate, we do the walks and the runs and all the things and all that is great, but we actually need to take action, real action. We need to have these conversations publicly. We need to extend our hand when we see that top producer. One thing I tell my managers or my leaders in general, especially when we’re consulting one thing, you need to be aware of a big red flag. It’s not about the profit. It’s not about the bottlenecks. Of course, those are going to be there. We can fix those. Data can give us that in a snap, but the one thing that you cannot fix overnight and data will never give you is if your top producer stops producing that is a problem. That’s a red flag. What happens? Where did we fail that producer

Tony Sipp:

Before that happened?

Eda Rosa:

This is what I mean, right? That’s true. So it’s like, what did we not put in place? We’re so focused on the profit, we’re so focused on closing these cases or getting more cases and getting more clients, and yes, I understand at the end of the day, it’s a business. We are not nonprofits, right? We are in it for the profit. However, we need to start taking care of our profit makers and the people that actually run the front lines and the people that talk to our clients day in and day out and probably know them better. And so understanding that that’s a red flag, that is the number one red flag. What happened? Where did we fail them? What is happening? If they went in bereavement, what did we do for that? What did we do to help them get through this difficult time? If they went on FMLA, did we support them? Did we support them enough? What did we do for that? These are the questions that people are not asking themselves, and these are the little things that we can do in order to move the needle forward. Because you know that saying happy wife, happy life, whatever. Right? Happy employees, happy profits, okay. Because the happier your employees are, the better that they feel taken care of,

The more money you’re going to get because they’re going to organically promote your law firm. I work for the best law firm ever. When I went on FMLA, my manager sent me a love basket with diapers and white bees and this and that, and it’s like,

Tony Sipp:

That’s a good point. We don’t think about these. Everybody gets into the profit and the billing if you’re in the billing area, but we don’t talk about our mental health that way. It’s always, like you said, the walks, the talks, the t-shirts, but we’re not actually talking about the burnout and the real stuff. I mean, some of the best paralegals from that story you just told me, are that connected to the case? That’s what makes them so good. That’s why all the attorneys want that particular paralegal because they know that case in and out. But the burnout, I mean, I was on a case and fortunately I was the manager and I could delegate, but we had a case that was with, I call ’em the church cases, which is when the priests were molesting the children. But it takes a tough, tough person and tough mindset to be able to deal with that. I mean, that’s every day you’re looking through stuff that is just, it makes you want to cry. It’s really rough, but it’s your job, right? It sounds like your book is addressing the other side of that, how you deal with that and how you process that. I think that’s incredible. What’s the name of the book again?

Eda Rosa:

It’s called Silent Burdens because of what it is for the legal professionals. I wanted it to call something powerful like me. I pride myself in leaving every conversation with impact, and I always lead with intention and I make my choices from here on out with intention. And I say from here on out, because if you would’ve met me 10 plus years ago, I was not the same person. And we live to evolve. We live to create. We live to really change and adapt to different surroundings, and that is what we need to do. We need to start doing that. But I wanted it to be a title where it would be eye-catching, but also very intentional. We have these burdens and we live with them silently. Right? So I said Silent Burdens is probably the perfect description.

Tony Sipp:

It’s an excellent title. You got me on the story alone, so let’s take a quick commercial break and we’re going to come back and ask at a 21 questions. We’ll be right back on the other side of the spring, and we’ll talk to you guys soon. And welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp. I’m here with EDA Rosa. This is the EDA era. And eda, I have 21 questions for you. Yes or no questions? Okay. Are you ready?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Alright. Speaking of coffee, do you drink coffee before checking emails in the morning?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Okay. Have you ever finished an Netflix series in one weekend?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Do you keep a secret stash of snacks in your office?

Eda Rosa:

Yes, I’m the snack lady.

Tony Sipp:

Would you rather work barefoot than in uncomfortable shoes?

Eda Rosa:

Yes, barefoot.

Tony Sipp:

Get out. You really, literally folks, if you can see it, she literally just shut her feet. It was hilarious. Do you talk to yourself when brainstorming ideas?

Eda Rosa:

Yes. I’m my best employee.

Tony Sipp:

Right. Have the best answers too. Have you ever secretly enjoyed writing an SOP?

Eda Rosa:

Yes, I have actually.

Tony Sipp:

All right. Do you think lawyers could survive one week following paralegal schedules?

Eda Rosa:

No. Absolutely not.

Tony Sipp:

Ever wanted to tell a client Google it?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Would you make billable hours disappear forever if you could?

Eda Rosa:

Absolutely. Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Have you ever fixed a problem before anyone else noticed it existed?

Eda Rosa:

Often. Every day.

Tony Sipp:

Wow. It’s so true though. That’s very true.

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Do you prefer aisle seats over window seats?

Eda Rosa:

I like windows.

Tony Sipp:

Have you ever worked on a project while sitting on a bench?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Would you ever do consulting sessions from a coffee shop just for fun?

Eda Rosa:

I did. I did that once. You did do it? Okay. I know it’s a yes or no, but I have this cute little cafe that I go to in Deerfield Beach with this really cute little town. They have a beautiful outside patio, and it’s just so refreshing and welcoming on a nice semi cool day in Florida. And so yes, I did. I did do one of those.

Tony Sipp:

Awesome. Do you collect souvenirs when you travel?

Eda Rosa:

Yes, I do.

Tony Sipp:

Did you get something from Puerto Rico?

Eda Rosa:

Yes.

Tony Sipp:

Have you ever gotten lost in a new city and turned it into an adventure?

Eda Rosa:

Oh yeah. I travel a lot, so I do that often. I tend not to do the tourist stuff. I like to go and the local route, and so I’ll ask around and

Tony Sipp:

Right. I love that too. That’s the best, especially if you have friends that are in the area or in that different country or wherever.

Eda Rosa:

Oh yeah.

Tony Sipp:

Do you prefer podcast over TV shows?

Eda Rosa:

Yes. Well, I’m a podcaster. I love

Tony Sipp:

It. Have you ever left so hard during a Zoom call that you had to turn your camera off?

Eda Rosa:

Yes, yes. I started crying and it was not a good time to laugh. It wasn’t really appropriate to laugh, so that was even worse. I don’t think the guy realized that the camera was still on, and so, oh no. Yeah, we’re not going to get into that story here, but yeah.

Tony Sipp:

Do you believe office plants have personalities?

Eda Rosa:

I do. I have one. Her name is Puerto Rico. That’s the name of the, yeah, it literally means Puerto Rico. And so I didn’t know that when I bought it. My mom was the one that told me when I brought it home and she was like, that’s a Puerto Rico plant. I was like, what do you mean? I thought she was making a joke. And she’s like, no, no, no. That’s what it’s called. It’s called Puerto Rico. It’s called Puerto Rico. And I started cracking up. So anyway, I have her. She’s very sassy, very picky and very particular. I have always had to move her because she doesn’t want to be in the same place at once. Sounds like her owner.

Tony Sipp:

Oh god.

Eda Rosa:

Funny. Constantly drinking water.

Tony Sipp:

Alright, just a few more questions. Would you ever say yes to karaoke at a legal conference?

Eda Rosa:

Oh yeah. I like dance parties too.

Tony Sipp:

Do you think paralegals are the real superheroes of the legal industry?

Eda Rosa:

Absolutely. 100%.

Tony Sipp:

And last question, if you had the chance to press a reset button on the legal industry, would you press it?

Eda Rosa:

No. I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and I think we need to learn the lessons so that we can actually value the actual solutions and the actual product of whatever’s happening.

Tony Sipp:

All right. Go through it. All right, I got it. All right, well, those are the 21 questions. You did an excellent job. Gold star for you. That’s fantastic.

Eda Rosa:

Class president over here.

Tony Sipp:

Yes. Yes. So listen, I know we could talk forever, but people listening to podcasts may have not met you. This is their first time hearing about you and learning about you, and clearly you’re intriguing and very interesting person. So where can they reach out to you if they want to ask a follow-up question or just keep in contact with you?

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, so for contacting, definitely LinkedIn. I live on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn, and it’s my name, EDA, EDA, Rosa, ROSA. You can also visit our website if you want to look at what we’re up to about the academy or the book or anything that we spoke about in this episode. It’s ww dot again, Eda, EDA, Rosa O-R-O-S-A-L-L c.com. I keep it simple. It’s my name. I’m the brand, so everything has my name on it.

Tony Sipp:

I love it. Any positive last outgoing statements or remarks that you’d like to share with the audience?

Eda Rosa:

Yeah, stay true to yourself and never give up. I feel like sometimes when we’re at our worst is when we want to give up, and I think that’s when life is telling us to keep going because something better is going to happen, so just keep it going.

Tony Sipp:

It truly is the EDA era. I’m one of your biggest fans, so do it. We’ll be in touch folks. Have a great day. And that’s me signing off from the Paralegal Voice. Have a great day.

Continue Reading