SpaceX and the Future of Aerospace Law

Episode Notes

Transcript

Rocky Dhir: This podcast is brought to you by LawPay.

Intro: Welcome to the State Bar of Texas Podcast, your monthly source for conversations and curated content to improve your law practice with your host, Rocky Dhir.

Rocky Dhir: Hi, and welcome to the State Bar of Texas Podcast. Do you remember the Netflix movie, Don’t Look Up? Whether you saw it or not, you might remember hearing about it. It was a 2021 movie about a comet hurtling through space toward earth, or maybe it was a meteorite apparently there’s a difference I don’t know. But if you haven’t seen it, I won’t give away the ending. Suffice it to say, though, in the face of our collective impending doom, the movie proves just how stupid humans can be across all walks of life, spanning the political and socioeconomic spectrum. I, for one, found it offensive, I mean, yes, humans can be stupid, except for me and my views. I mean, those are anchored in morality, sensibility, rationality, and stuff that directly benefits me.

Okay, so now, here’s the deal. I know two lawyers who seem to have completely missed the point of the movie. Victor Flores is a city attorney for Brownsville, Texas, and serves on the Board of the Texas City Attorneys Association. Walk down the hall from Victor’s office and you will likely run into Will Trevino, a deputy city attorney for Brownsville and a doctoral candidate at Baylor University’s Learning and Organizational Change program. Despite the movie’s title, these two dudes insist on looking up. They’re unceasingly looking up into space.

Now, why might two city attorneys be looking at the skies? Isn’t there a zoning issue or a tax they should be working on? I mean, come on, people. The thing is, though, Brownsville, Texas has become the hub for SpaceX, a private company focused on exploring and making space accessible to humanity. SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk has famously tasked his company with one day colonizing Mars, and SpaceX is not alone. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are just two other private entities with similar missions.

Now, Victor and Will are sitting at the eye of the developing space storm, and they are having to learn about this nascent area of law at warp speed. Sorry about that, I couldn’t resist warp speed. Both of these individuals have written articles for the July-August 2022 issue of the Texas Bar Journal. Victor’s piece is called Building a New Highway from Texas to Mars, and it discusses the new areas of law that attorneys must be prepared to address in a new world beyond our own. Will’s editorial, Space Hackers, cautions us about the impending cyber security issues that will invariably come with space exploration. Both of these veritable space cadets are here with us today, so let’s welcome them, Victor and Will. Thanks for being here.

Victor Flores: Thanks for having us.

Guillermo Trevino: Yeah, thank you.

Rocky Dhir: Absolutely, so, look, guys, let’s start with Brownsville Texas and its relationship to SpaceX exploration. How did that happen, and other than is there more going on besides SpaceX? I mean, update us on what’s going on.

Victor Flores: Well, definitely SpaceX is a huge partner in the economic development, just overall development of the city of Brownsville. It has its tentacles also in other supporting industries as well, and that’s what maybe the lesser red stories is all the supporting industries that support SpaceX. But just quickly, 2021 SpaceX’s impact, it employed 1,600 direct employees. It added 6,000 jobs in–

Rocky Dhir: In Brownsville?

Victor Flores: In Cameron County. Brownsville is a city of a population of approximately 180,000 residents in Brownsville. Brownsville is the kind of the seat of the county, being the largest city in the county. 6,000 jobs in Cameron County and then the investment that is coming into the region, it’s in the millions of dollars. So it’s definitely made our city react. We have to respond very quickly to all the rapid growth.

Rocky Dhir: Victor, you’ve talked a bit about this, and I assume you get to have a lot of fun with the space issues, but Will do you get to do any of that, or is Victor hogging all the fun stuff for himself?

Guillermo Trevino: He’ll throw me a piece here and there, like the 100 dogs and you just keep your mouth open.

Rocky Dhir: We all know Victor is a Marine, right? He’s like, never leave a comrade behind unless you’re having too much fun, then he just runs away, right?

Guillermo Trevino: He just runs away? No, actually for one of our it was neat because I’m new for the City of Brownsville or new to the City of Brownsville. One of the first retreats that I participated in was to take a tour of SpaceX facilities, and I don’t know if we’re allowed to talk about it. I’m pretty sure we had to sign our life’s away, but it was neat. Most city attorneys, what do they deal with zoning, elections, but we’ve had the luck and are blessed to be dealing with some space issues.

(00:05:07)

I don’t know if you know this about Victor and myself, but we’re two valley boys that grew up in the Rio Grande Valley that have returned. If it wasn’t for the SpaceX exploration, the current space race, we would not be here essentially coming back because of the opportunities that have arisen because of that.

Rocky Dhir: How did Texas kind of come to be at the epicenter of this private space industry in Brownsville in particular? I think for a lot of folks in Texas, the fact that Texas is a candidate, we’ve all got patriotism for our state, right? Some Texas prides. We’re like, of course, Texas. But how did Brownsville find itself at the epicenter of this?

Victor Flores: Well, I’ll approach it from the state level first. The State of Texas has established just great partnerships with corporations from across the country and have attracted corporate headquarters in droves. The Texas Economic Development Corporation, they’re integral partner in bringing SpaceX and other aerospace industries to the State of Texas. It really starts at the state level and I think just geographically Boca Chica, which is minutes away from the City of Brownsville, it’s out by the port. It’s strategically placed where you have access to our seaport, to an airport, and it has open space to conduct these launches. I think that was the recipe to bring it down in Brownsville.

Guillermo Trevino: And I think you also have a local government, too, both at the city and county that are very supportive of it as well.

Victor Flores: For sure.

Rocky Dhir: What does it take, I guess, for those of us that are unfamiliar with how this works, from a municipal and from a county level, what does it mean for a government to be supportive of these types of businesses? What are these businesses looking for, and for us as lawyers, if we’re trying to help guide our clients through these processes, what should we be on the lookout to find with these local and state governments?

Victor Flores: Well, I think what a lot of the aerospace industry is looking for is a qualified workforce. These are new technologies. You don’t have a pool of candidates and employees that you can really grasp from to create some of these newer technologies. They’re ever changing, like they’re constantly changing, and so what the City of Brownsville has done is it’s partnered up with the local educational institutions, college universities, technical schools, to help produce in a faster way, a bigger pool of candidates to help support ventures like SpaceX.

SpaceX through government funding and other projects, they have the funding there. They have the funding to do it. I think the biggest help that municipalities, counties can do is to partner in ways to create that workforce that they need.

Rocky Dhir: Well, and it’s interesting because Brownsville, as you said, has 180,000 people, and I’m assuming Cameron County is not going to add significant numbers to that 180,000. With 180,000 people, the City of Brownsville and Cameron County in general is trying to create a workforce that can support a really large industry. That sounds kind of daunting, but does this mean you have to attract people from outside of Brownsville and Cameron County or are you able to meet the needs with what you have on site?

Guillermo Trevino: I think it’s a combination of both because with the initiatives that Victor was mentioning to try and train the current workforce here, that’s eventually going to turn out people that are able to do the work.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Guillermo Trevino: At the same time, the work needs to be done right now. How we, the county and the city can help by bringing people in here is making generationally Millennials and the Zoomers, they all have certain things that they like parks, their favorite restaurants. Those are the things that lure young families that have those skills already to come to the Valley. I think that is one way that we can help lower that talent is by putting certain things into place so that we can open up those, like I said, amenities, if you will.

Victor Flores: I would even go more basic. Rocky, it’s a housing need. It takes time to develop some of these larger subdivisions and so as people come into the community, as we continue to expand at such a great rate, there’s a need to make sure that we’re are efficient with the way we process subdivision class, the way we process development plans and working with our planning department both at the city and the county level is making sure we have all the infrastructure in place for a city to facilitate the growth in traffic, in schools and things like that.

(00:10:20)

Guillermo Trevino: I am glad you said that housing because I can attest to that. I mean we grew it. I just moved in. I am still packing boxes but a great example of what Victor is talking about is that zero-carbon? What is it called, Victor, zero carbon emission housing Astraea?

Victor Flores: Astraea.

Guillermo Trevino: Yeah. Do you want to tell us about that?

Rocky Dhir: That sounds spacey too actually, Astraea.

Victor Flores: No, it really is. It’s a pilot program for building sustainable housing on Mars.

Rocky Dhir: Wow.

Victor Flores: But the developer, the actual engineer that subdivision is doing essentially a pilot program within the city of Brownsville so everything is going to be manufactured off-site. But then, I think we’ll be able to put up a house within a day because they’re small. They’re kind of modular type but they’re all smart houses so they’re all connected to solar panels and to micro-bridge within the subdivision.

Guillermo Trevino: Smart homes.

Victor Flores: Smart homes, right, completely smart. Everything is reconnected to smart technology.

Rocky Dhir: Well, I can live in any kind of house that smarter than I am. Okay, I just I want bricks and lumber. That’s all I’m going to — that’s all I’m dealing with. But all this brings up an interesting question. Before we started really talking about the law and what we as lawyers can do, let’s kind of talk about us, ordinary mortals in general. There’s all this cool activity going on and I think for a lot of us, it feels like well, unless I’m somebody like Elon Musk or unless I’m a Jeff Bezos, I really can’t. Well, unless I come from money and I have a big infrastructure behind me, I really can’t benefit from all this crazy, cool development. How can normal people like us get involved with something like this and really start to learn and develop and enrich ourselves intellectually, and otherwise through this whole process of space development?

Victor Flores: I would call on our going with — when we went to go take a tour of SpaceX. There was the person who gave it so that their tour guides at SpaceX are actual engineers. And so, this individual is giving us a tour and mentioned that he had kind of worked his way up and he was from the region. And so, he went to the local university. He was passionate about SpaceX years ago, and eventually got his degree in engineering, and was able to come and be a part of the SpaceX team. I think, if you’re passionate about space exploration and space, the aerospace industry, there’s a lot of information out there right now that you if you just go and Google, you’ll find opportunities to learn about it. Will just had sent me a link about LLM program and air and space. I mean, that’s clearly a higher-level education, after law, you go and do that but there are technical schools that are teaching about just welding. You can get a technical degree in welding and go out and a be a welder and be a part of one of the biggest projects in the country right now and work for SpaceX. I mean, we’re talking about SpaceX because it’s local to Brownsville but there are other, Jeff Bezos and everybody else that’s has their projects.

Guillermo Trevino: Yeah, I mean, not everybody can be an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or all those other cool smart rich people but I think that the everyday person can get online like Victor said, and find opportunities. There’s grants out there. As a matter of fact, Brownsville BTX, Launch BTX as a program that has partnered with both space enterprises as well as institutions of higher education to provide that training that we’re talking about. 

And so, if the individuals are not sophisticated to where they already have that training, they can get that training. They don’t have to be engineers. They can be welders. As a matter of fact, I met more welders at the SpaceX facility than I did engineers, actual engineers. And one of the things that I noticed was they had — they were doing out stuff old school. They had those dry erase marker boards more than it did computers. And so, there is a need in all areas. 

As a matter of fact, there was an article, I think it was a video article recently on the guy that’s selling coffee out there. There’s no coffee shops out there, right and everybody need their coffee. He was making a business selling coffee out there. And so, there’s opportunities for everyone. You just have to have the desire and the dedication and if you don’t have the information then you reach out to your local entities.

(00:15:03)

Rocky Dhir: Let’s maybe bring this back to the law now, right? Yes, the welding sounds really cool. I mean, that sounds like a cool job but we lawyers are usually mired in books and phone calls and Zoom meetings and all this kind of stuff. Victor, your article talks about the space exploration with regards to what we as lawyers need to do and how we need to kind of adapt and be ready. Can you talk about some of the areas of law that you think would be most salient in this new space frontier? What do we lawyers need to kind of bone up on or maybe learn anew to arm ourselves.

Victor Flores: Yeah, before I answer that question, it’s understanding that a lot of times log technology are run at different pieces, right?

Rocky Dhir: No kidding.

Victor Flores: Right. And so, if you think about it in the way space exploration started, it was very — from a national perspective, so you had the Space Treaty like the ‘60s which really every nation was kind of competing to see who gets to space first and then it slowly started develop and in late 2000s, 2015 around there. We started to see the commercialization of space exploration. There were different laws that were passed that finally acknowledged, okay so you get the space and you collect things from space. Who does it belong to? 

And so, it’s just now in the past seven years it really started to develop but that’s from a very high-level perspective. But I think as a lot of these startups and we’re seeing them and this is where I talk about the tentacles write-ups, projects like SpaceX. You have companies, startup companies that are turning out new technologies to support SpaceX, and those new startups are — I mean you’re talking about intellectual property, increase in services and intellectual property, so they can protect those technologies. Mergers, acquisitions, informing these tech companies on how they can better structure their business or corporations. Those are just some of the very few things that I think are niches of law that will be impacted by the new space rush.

Rocky Dhir: But like, when you talk about structuring a company to be ready for this, in my head, I’m kind of thinking offhand that how would the structure change and whether it’s an LLC or whether it’s an S Corp or whatever you’re doing. Structuring the company is structuring the company. Why would that change if you’re in a space paradigm?

Victor Flores: Well, I think it relates to all the technologies, right? I mean, if you want to protect your patents and a lot of these companies, they wanted to diversify their, I guess, how they protect each area of the other business. And so, that’s where I would see like just the strategic planning in how you set those subsidiaries or whatever it might be to better protect the overall company’s interest.

Guillermo Trevino: I mean it’s a great way for them to also build that barrier for liability, because the space race is there is inherent risk involved. I mean, I think all of us are young enough or old enough to remember the —

Rocky Dhir: The Challenger disasters.

Guillermo Trevino: Yes, exactly. And so, there’s inherent risk and that was government but now we have commercial space flights. And so, commercial space flight over cities, over bodies of water, and so, definitely, there’s going to be an area or an effort I would say to create that barrier for liability. When you talk about sole proprietor, I mean I wouldn’t have a sole proprietor go out there and start with that.

Victor Flores: And also, is commercial data and the financing portions that come with it, because these are high-risk industries and the cost, you have to have a lot of financing behind it. It’s really set helping companies strategically set up the financing and their risk mitigation.

Rocky Dhir: In terms of getting the legal realm ready for all this, are there any Texas law schools that have started to really embrace this idea of space law or incorporating space into their other programs or is this something that our law schools need to start looking more deeply into?

Victor Flores: I’ve just rolled off at Texas and Lawyers Association Board. I’m no longer a lawyer. I’m a, I would say, older wiser lawyer. Now, all of you would say that.

Rocky Dhir: But I would say welcome to the club except I don’t really fit into the wiser part, so that’s fine.

Victor Flores: But no, with team LA, we’re very involved with all of the laws. Was that I’m not aware of a Texas law school right now that has specialty kind of extensive training in air and space law.

(00:20:02)

Guillermo Trevino: I mean it’s funny you say that or ask that because like Victor, I’m not aware of any law schools in Texas that are offering. Earlier, Victor and I were shooting off on some programs out-of-state that were offering on space law. But I have noticed cybersecurity been an uptick in a lot of the business schools.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Guillermo Trevino: And there’s a few programs to offer LLMs and cybersecurity, but I think that’s one area — this is where you’re getting to, I think that’s one area that needs to be improved is the law schools especially because of Houston. I mean Houston – there’s no excuse because we have Houston. That is already a space-faring area while our law school do not have programs on space law. And so, I would hope that some of them have, but I mean just like Victor, I’m not aware of any.

Victor Flores: For a lack of trying r being engaged, I think it is just because the law has not changed yet and so to develop a program like that, providing the article for the Texas Bar Journal that’s going to be out in July, it was difficult to find the most updated law because it really hasn’t — like I said, just in the past seven years, it slowly started to recognize the commercialization of air and space, not just because before it’s just on the public sector, the government sector. Now, it’s actually private corporation going up and trying to —

Guillermo Trevino: And that makes you wonder rally like why. I mean, NASA has been in existence for a long time, why hasn’t the law changed. It is not only because commercial is involved a little bit more, but you know Victor is on the right course of saying that nothing much has changed. And just recently really, two weeks ago, Biden signed a couple of legislations dealing with cybersecurity that has some impact in space. I mean, there’s a bill that’s pending in the U.S. House that would declare space a critical infrastructure. We have 16 levels of critical infrastructure and space isn’t one of them and that just tells you we’re behind the curve or behind the ball as far as the law on the space race.

Rocky Dhir: Well, it is interesting because the question that becomes vis-à-vis other countries, vis-à-vis our rivals, the European Union, China and possibly India to some degree. How does the U.S. fair on these issues? Are we behind them? Are we ahead of them? Are we neck and neck? I don’t know how many private entities are doing space exploration in any of the rival nations, but maybe you guys have some insight on that.

Guillermo Trevino: Well, I don’t have any insight on that, but I’ll just go back to maybe a further point about linking law schools to this need to develop law or the practice of aerospace law, is you drive down the local highway interstate and see all the billboards of personal injury attorneys, family law attorneys or criminal law attorneys, and there’s always a need for that type of service. But for law students coming, graduating in law school, getting their law license to BAR card, this is a fantastic area to develop a niche at the ground level as the law begins to develop.  It is because you’ll be one of those foundational attorneys that has experience, that has developed a practice in aerospace law and I think that’s a great sell for law schools.

Rocky Dhir: I don’t want to neglect the issue of cybersecurity because I know, Will, that was really the focus of your article about cybersecurity and how it’s changing. How does cybersecurity relate to space exploration in particular? I mean, to a lot of us, those would be two separate issues, you’re getting a cyberattack or you’re exploring space. What’s the link between them?

Guillermo Trevino: I mean, for all the satellites out there, we rely on them for everything, from manufacturing to GPS, and GPS essentially is 24 — I believe it’s 24 atomic clocks that pick up the differences as you go throughout movement. And so, if you have some kind of — and you can literally throw off a whole nation, really send it into a disaster if some of those satellites are infiltrated or breached.

The same thing goes with commercial flights. I mean if a lot of the technology that’s in place now, maybe not 50 years ago when we landed on the moon, but a lot of that is based on how we connect with computers. Things are wireless, so you have a lot of technology that’s using Bluetooth, they’re using Wi-Fi, they’re using satellite communications. And so, I think the technology as far as that has increased exponentially, a few years ago, we didn’t think we’d have cell phones that we can record like this particular podcast.

(00:25:03)

But now, we have the technology and unfortunately, so has the ability for those that want to cause harm, that has increased as well. And so, as we continue the space race, whether it’s national or commercial, the danger therein has also increased and I think that’s one of the reasons why the UN, for example, has a committee right now that is looking into cybersecurity and a component of that is for the space, as well as the U.S., they’re looking at that as well. Quite frankly, too, it’s proprietary along with the technology that’s SpaceX is using is proprietary as well as the other competing companies, and so, a simple breach can easily expose what their technology is.

Rocky Dhir: Well, this actually brings up kind of another question. Before we get to it though, this question is really about our national preparedness for something like this. Before we get to that, we need to hear quickly from our sponsors and then when we come back, we’re going to continue talking about cybersecurity. Stay tuned. We will be back in just moment.

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We’re back. Now, we left off talking about cybersecurity and its relation to space and really, the question now becomes, Will, in your article, you talked about a particular cyber breach that appeared to involve a foreign actor who’s advocating Russia’s position in the war with Ukraine and it really begs the question why isn’t the U.S. better prepared to defend against such attacks, and moreover, what do we as lawyers, what role do we play in helping the U.S. and our clients kind of prepare for such eventualities?

Guillermo Trevino: That’s a good point. Why aren’t we as prepared or maybe we don’t seem as prepared as other countries, and I think that one of the things that has helped is, like I said, President Biden signed two pieces of legislation recently. One is the State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act of 2021. He signed it on June 21st of this year, so a couple weeks ago and the whole point of that is to basically have the federal government provide training to state and local agencies and that might be an effort to increase cybersecurity because when you think about it, I mean all these local governments, they’re the ones that are being hacked. The one that we’re talking about was a municipal airport.

And so, it’s not just the fact of training, but it’s also there is a component of not having the money for it too. The municipal airport in that particular city, what they tell about their constituents? We are spending all this money for infrastructure you can’t see versus we’re going to fill the potholes. That’s what I really break it down to is when state and local governments, they take care of the day-to-day. They’re the ones that interact more with the citizens. And so, at the end of the day, a council member or a commissioner is not going to go to their constituents and say, “Hey, we’re really beefing up our cybersecurity. We’re going to protect you guys.” Maybe in Oldsmar, Florida where they have that possible poisoning of the public water. 

Rocky Dhir: Sure, with the line.

Guillermo Trevino: They probably care about that now. But before, they’re probably more concerned about their potholes.

Rocky Dhir: So then, do you think we’re going to get to a point then when along with space exploration and this issue, are we going to kind of tie space exploration with the issue of cybersecurity and then create more of these types of governmental grants to get people onboard with cybersecurity alongside space exploration or maybe as a subset of it. I mean do you see the two issues getting tied from a developmental standpoint?

Guillermo Trevino: I do see that and as a matter of fact, there are some repairs that would have been out in space but at some point, we’re going to have manufacturing done in space. Just, was it Victor a couple weeks ago, FAA has cleared SpaceX to continue launches?

Victor Flores: Yep. You’ll probably see a space launch in a couple of months.

Guillermo Trevino: Yeah, we should all go out there and check if we’re allowed. I don’t know. Plan a fieldtrip, but —

Rocky Dhir: New podcast episode, live space launch. It’s going to be great.

Guillermo Trevino: It will be live, catch us then. No, but in all seriousness though we’re getting to the point where we are getting ourselves situated to where we can do commercial flights out in space. I know that SpaceX’s goal was to reach Mars, but at some point along that mission that they have, there’s going to be manufacturing out in space and all of that is going to be done through communications here on earth and how do they communicate with earth.

(00:30:08)

They don’t communicate with radio signals anymore like the way they used to. They’re going to communicate through satellites and that is going to be cybersecurity intensive.

Rocky Dhir: That’s where the Starlink system kind of comes into play. Yeah, Victor?

Victor Flores: Rocky, I was just going to share a fact that it kind of sets the tone here as we’re talking about funding, state federal funding and how much money is out there and it’s going to be required to invest into this new commercialization of space. Morgan Stanley recently put out a report that said, “This global space industry could generate a revenue of more than a trillion dollars by 2040, up from 350 billion currently. There’s a lot of money out there being invested into this new aerospace industry. If the local, state and federal governments are going to be a part of that, they’re going to have to start allocating more funding to that.

Rocky Dhir: I want to ask the same question about cybersecurity that we did about space exploration and the commercialization of space, which is for a lot of lawyers, cybersecurity is just way too many syllables to put into your practice area. As lawyers, how do we learn more about this subject, especially if we’re already practicing. If you’re in law school, okay, maybe you can start focusing yourself, but for curmudgeons like me, who are old, not wise, and lawyers, what do we need to do to kind of bone up on cybersecurity and make ourselves better advocates for our clients?

Guillermo Trevino: I have a quick story for that. As attorneys, we’re supposed to know the law and help clients through that, whether it’s because they are using it to get to point A to B or because they are trying to avoid some kind of criminal (00:31:58) penalty, right? That’s usually the foundation of our practice.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Guillermo Trevino: When it comes to cybersecurity, and I think this is what happens with a lot of corporations is cybersecurity, you think about it, you think, oh, it’s an IT issue. IT is the one that’s going to be responsible for that. Some techy guy who plays video games at night, during the day, he works as an IT, he’s the one who’s going to protect us. The problem is, a lot of CEOs, they also have that perspective where we have IT, why we’re going to spend billions of dollars on certain infrastructure for the network systems when we can just put a firewall or we can do X, Y and Z.

To your point though, as an attorney, I think it’s imperative because if you have a client, whether it’s municipal or corporation or even individual, that suffers from a cybersecurity breach through identity theft, you’re going to want to walk that client through the various laws are already in place that puts requirements on that entity to either do notice, pay fines, et cetera. There are already laws out there on data privacy and there are laws out there a little bit on cybersecurity. But as an attorney, I think it’s incumbent upon us to know and you do have your attorneys that do personal injury. I wish we could all be like the Thomas J. Henry and I don’t know if now we have to give him some kind of sponsorship.

Rocky Dhir: I think he’s going to owe us now that you’ve mentioned him, so we’re going to send them an invoice, that’d be fine.

Guillermo Trevino: But we can all be the Thomas J. Henry’s, but I think when it comes to cybersecurity law, I think you need to be able to guide your client through whatever obstacle they have encountered, whether it’s a company that has suffered a breach like Target or if it’s a client that has been the subject of a breach through a company like Target.

I haven’t been both. I’m not a rich Target owner, but I have been the subject of rage from Target, where my debit card was hacked, or Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, where their database was hacked. I’m getting all sorts of calls about my driver’s license and my car warranties and God knows what else because of that. I think as an attorney, you need to know the laws. You need to be able to walk them through the different faults that are there.

Victor Flores: I also think that corporations are looking more to their in-house counsel to be more than just attorneys. They’re looking for their in-house counsel to be the VPs. VP and general counsel having more of a partnership role, and so I think as lawyers, we can share the legal knowledge that we have in these areas of law as also being a partner in the operations of it, I think that’s critical.

Rocky Dhir: So, Victor, actually, I think you gave us a perfect place to mention that, looking at the clock, we are kind of at the end of our time together, although it’s gone by very fast, I think there’s a lot more we could cover, a lot more to talk about. We’ll definitely save that for a follow up at some point because it sounds like there’s a lot more to discuss and you guys are doing some great work down there in Brownsville, so congratulations to both of you.

(00:35:07)

Victor and Will, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us and for telling us about all the wonderful things that are happening in Brownsville and Cameron County. Thank you, guys.

Guillermo Trevino: No, thank you, it’s a pleasure, and we can continue to show at that live podcast.

Rocky Dhir: Yes, at the launch, we’ll just have to talk really, really loud yes. So again, thank you both, and of course, I want to thank you fortuning in and I want to encourage you to stay safe and continue to be well. If you like what you heard today, please rate and review us in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app. Until next time, remember life’s and journey, folks. I’m Rocky Dhir signing off.

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The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by, the State Bar of Texas, Legal Talk Network, or their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders or subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.

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