Each half of the former firm has a new phone number.
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Joe Patrice is an Editor at Above the Law. For over a decade, he practiced as a...
Kathryn Rubino is a member of the editorial staff at Above the Law. She has a degree...
| Published: | March 10, 2021 |
| Podcast: | Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer |
| Category: | Legal Entertainment , News & Current Events |
Quick, what was the phone number for Cellino & Barnes? A lot of you probably got that right immediately. But the firm split up a few years ago and the two entities it spawned have dueling jingles now. Which came out on top? Joe and Kathryn also discuss Davis Polk’s extra bonus program and what it means for Biglaw and attorney wellness generally. Also, Texas AG Ken Paxton may want to take a break from social media for awhile and attorneys still need to hit mute on Zoom more often.
Special thanks to our sponsors, LexisNexis® InterAction®, Lexicon and Nota.
Above the Law – Thinking Like a Lawyer
Who Wins The Jingle War: Cellino Or Barnes
03/11/2021
[Music]
Joe Patrice: Hello. Welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer. I’m Joe Patrice from Above The Law.
Kathryn Rubino: Hi.
Joe Patrice: Hi.
Kathryn Rubino: How are you?
Joe Patrice: I’m all right. That there what you’re hearing is Kathryn Rubino who also works at Above The Law and is the co-host of this here program.
Kathryn Rubino: Fine podcast, 200 plus episodes strong.
Joe Patrice:.Yeah. At some point we’re going to have to stop just leaning into the 200th then. But I mean not.
Kathryn Rubino: It’s probably more than two episodes from now.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. Fair enough. Well, so what do we have to talk about this week? We’ve had a?
Kathryn Rubino: I don’t know, man. My brain is kind of mushed, I don’t know what happened.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. Well, I mean — okay. Yeah, so a lot of things went down over the last week. It’s an exciting week for me because we’re going into ABA tech shows.
Kathryn Rubino: Fancy.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: So okay, you cover a lot of these tech shows. What makes for a truly good one versus an average one versus a terrible one?
Joe Patrice: Yeah, you know that’s actually a great question. I feel as though — I don’t know, vibe, like they can become very stale very quickly as you might imagine if you ever talk to somebody about technology.
Kathryn Rubino: There’s a lot of the same buzz words? Yeah.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. But no, like a show that’s big, lots of folks, lots of entertainment, emergence.
Kathryn Rubino: So online, it’s super fun.
Joe Patrice: Online has not been the best. That is true, but we’re going to have an in-person show in August.
Kathryn Rubino: Well I mean I think by August; most people should be vaccinated.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, I mean it’s going to be more of a hybrid situation, they’ll offer both.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure.
Joe Patrice: But yeah. No, I will be going to a show again really easy.
Kathryn Rubino: That is kind of weird.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Did you see the CDC just put out new guidance for fully vaccinated folks?
And it’s pretty much what you expect. It’s like grandparents who are fully vaccinated can hug their grandkids.
Joe Patrice: Good.
Kathryn Rubino: That’s the headline that I read. So I think the fully vaccinated post is coming of course fast and furious.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Future is coming.
Joe Patrice: Well, so we have a bunch of stuff to talk about this week as I said. So let’s get started. I think what we should start with is an exciting — certainly for the people for whom it applies. But I actually thought it was an interesting story that you wrote beyond that which is Davis Polk offered some “bonuses.”
Kathryn Rubino: Thank yous, yeah.
Joe Patrice: But they aren’t really bonuses, but like let’s talk that through.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure.
Joe Patrice: So what they do here?
Kathryn Rubino: So okay let’s give a little background first, right? Davis Polk is the law firm that actually sparked the whole — well, was instrumental in sparking the whole COVID appreciation bonuses. If you’ll recall in the fall of 2020, it actually started with Cooley who offered their associates an extra special thank you. You know, we’ve talked a lot on this podcast about how the legal industry, all things considered, has weathered the pandemic fairly well. And rather than just kind of pocket the — the largest firms have, folks have big, big — well, there you go.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: So instead of just like pocketing the money, firms have been giving extra bonuses to their associates. It started with Cooley and their bonuses topped out or initial
bonuses had topped at around $7,500 for senior associates. Davis Polk responded by starting their junior associates bonuses at $7,500 and they topped out at around 40 grand for senior associates. And that’s kind of the scale that has been the new kind of top of big law average or standard I guess I should say, not average. So they’re very keen to say thank you to
their associates. And what they decided to do is to give extra bonuses and it was an email sent out and associates get to pick a gift and they range — they’re about $1,500 worth of prizes, I don’t know, gifts and they can select what works for them. I think there are some workout equipment, Demure you can get, that’s about $1,500. You can get $1,000 travel credit plus some very expensive luggage as another gift. So there’s a whole range of things kind of depending on what works best for you and what you like and what you need. But you know, they’re nothing to sneeze at. They’re quite expensive and folks have the opportunity again to pick what they want. So it’s nice.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. Now, what was interesting about it from my perspective is obviously as — if you’re an associate, you are most likely in debt and you often — these bonuses we talk about how big they are, but you don’t really experience how big they are because what you do is you get it and you immediately dump it into servicing your debt and then never hear from it again, and you’re also not any closer to being out of debt. So it’s just this sad event really in a lot of ways to get your bonus. When you get shorted, you just know that’s longer you’re going to be stuck. But I mean you’re just dumping it in.
What I thought was interesting about this is, on one hand, you would say as somebody in
that position, “Thanks a lot, I really could’ve used more money to pay down these bills.” But on the other hand I actually thought this was a very smart — I don’t think it should replace
bonuses personally as a whole.
Kathryn Rubino: No, and again, it doesn’t add.
Joe Patrice: And it doesn’t here, but I thought it was very useful especially in a pandemic
world where I think people are frazzled and working themselves constantly and you know, because there’s that pull to just dump your money into a thankless pot of debt servicing, it’s kind of nice to force the associates to do something.
Kathryn Rubino: For themselves.
Joe Patrice: That is for themselves.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.
Joe Patrice: But you don’t have a choice. You do have to take this vacation or you do have to buy this thing, this luggage for yourself or whatever it is.
Kathryn Rubino: Right, yeah and I agree with you. I think that it is kind of a nice way to help people focus on themselves and you know that’s kind of been one of the big criticisms of the COVID-19 world, is that there’s no off switch. You work from home.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: You live from home. You do everything in the same bubble and especially in big law when the hours, especially for some practice groups, continue and the demand for your time and your services is as strong as ever. You know, when do you say, “Okay, I’m done for the day.”
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: When you’re in the same location. You’re in the same workspace. So yeah, it’s difficult sometimes to say, “I’m done.” Or it’s difficult to say, “I need this time for myself.” A lot of people didn’t take vacations in 2020 because there’s nowhere to go. Some employers are like, “No, really take the time, just unplug for a while.” But you know, it’s hard if you have a bunch of big clients that have, you know big deals or important cases or whatever. This
is a way to kind of say, “You are more than just the hours that you’ve billed.” We love those. Don’t get us wrong.
Joe Patrice: We still like them.
Kathryn Rubino: We still love those, but you know, here’s something just for you, that you — you know, there’s no choice, but to kind of spend it on yourself and whatever that means for you.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, no. So you listed some of them. Did we get a comprehensive list of all of all the —
Kathryn Rubino: No.
Joe Patrice: Okay.
Kathryn Rubino: Tipsters have said that there were I think 13 different options available and we’ve just heard a few people — I guess, the ones that were most exciting to them.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Are the ones that I’ve heard about, or also the ones that were most easy to quantify their value. I think also were some of the ones that were shared with Above The
Law because it was like, “This is how much its worth.”
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: You know, like I talked about Demure, right?
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: That’s I think that workout equipment and we know how much that
costs, right?”
Joe Patrice: Yeah. Getting a personal shopper to go to Nordstrom with $1,000?
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: It looks like there’s a Samsung 50-inch, the frame, that version of their TV. So yeah. I mean lots of cool stuff. I almost feel like we should — if we did get a whole list of these, we should put out a listicle ranking, ranking how you should be using your Davis Polk money.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. Davis Polks associates if you are listening, go ahead and send us a full list of all the different options you got to choose from. You can send it to [email protected] and we’ll give you our opinion on the best value for your money.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, we’re not going to make fun of any of these.
Kathryn Rubino: No, they’re all very great.
Joe Patrice: They all seem good.
Kathryn Rubino: They’re all pretty good.
Joe Patrice: But like obviously there’s — I mean you depend on us to give you what the
right answer is I’m sure.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, obviously.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, well no. I mean that’s great. It’s something that I feel a lot of firms don’t think of.
Kathryn Rubino: Correct.
Joe Patrice: A lot of firms think, “Here’s your money and or worse, here’s not your money, but here’s your money, go on.”
Kathryn Rubino: And listen, to be clear money is the best way to say thank you for associates because they still have those loans.
Joe Patrice: Of course.
Kathryn Rubino: Whether you know — that is the best way to show your associates that you care. I want to be very clear about that. But the other thing is — you know Davis Polk is
not just meeting the market.
Joe Patrice: Right.
Kathryn Rubino: They are pushing the market.
Joe Patrice: They’re beating the market. Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Right. They’re pushing it forward also for not just for their associates, for others as well, right? So they’re already doing their part. They’re giving lots and lots of money to folks. That’s great, but also it’s sometimes important to say, “You need to start thinking about when you can travel again” because you will, hopefully fairly soon. So let’s focus on
that and work towards a world where — you know, you are taking care of yourself a little bit better.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. So Davis Polks certainly doing well. If you’re wondering how have law firms weathered previous economic downturns and come out stronger on the other side?
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Yeah. So another fun event of the last week involved the attorney general of Texas getting into a fight online which you know that’s the sort of thing that you would assume an attorney general would do. I mean that’s the sort of mature thing an attorney general does.
Kathryn Rubino: I basically assume Twitter beefs are like your like your number two priority as an attorney.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, exactly. Ken Paxton who basically uses his job for not really responding to the needs of people of Texas, but to sue Pennsylvania for having their electoral votes count. It’s really just a performance piece for him to just keep himself relevant to Fox, and you know, I think our columnist was — I made this argument in an article at the time and I think is true that a lot of these lawsuits Ken was making during the Trump administration were really just
angling for a pardon because of course Ken is facing a few felony charges.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. He almost forgot about that though for a minute it?
Joe Patrice: He did. You know it actually has been impressive that those have been going
for several years now and probably will for several more.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.
Joe Patrice: I mean this guy could very well drag this out 11 years or so before he sees the inside of a courtroom which is impressive. Yeah, I mean inside the courtroom as a felon or defendant in a felony case.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: Not inside of a courtroom as an attorney general which he also doesn’t do. So Paxton though decided to get in a fight with Houston’s police chief which whatever, and it didn’t go well.
Kathryn Rubino: Over what?
Joe Patrice: It didn’t go well. So one of the things that Ken is working on — one of the key issues to protect the people of Texas in his mind, he’s suing San Antonio to force them to fire their police chief because back in 2017, I think it was, the San Antonio police detained a bunch of people randomly who seemed remotely ethnic and then because they didn’t have anything to hold them on, let them go.
Kathryn Rubino: So he’s mad because they detain people that they shouldn’t have?
Joe Patrice: Whether or not they had the ability, the right to detain them temporarily, Paxton’s argument is — well given that ethnicity, you should have called ICE and brought the feds in to like do this.
Kathryn Rubino: So the opposite of what is actually to cool off?
Joe Patrice: The argument is even though San Antonio had no reason to continue holding people that it had picked up, they should have referred it to the feds to make this an ICE case. The San Antonio police not believing that they can be deputized by the federal government without any reason said, “No, we arrest people for things in San Antonio and if they aren’t chargeable in San Antonio, we let them go in San Antonio” basically.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: But Paxton is filing a lawsuit.
Kathryn Rubino: So how did Houston get involved?
Joe Patrice: So Houston’s police chief also went.
Kathryn Rubino: Those are different cities.
Joe Patrice: They do remain different cities. He also went onto Twitter to say that it is somewhat disgraceful that the top law enforcement officer of the state is using that power to attack other law enforcement officers. You know, a lot of times the whole honor among police thing is used to cringe-worthy effect.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, the long blue line.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Not something I get excited about.
Joe Patrice: Right, this was one of those instances where it made a little bit of sense. He just said that as somebody who’s doing the same job, it seems disgraceful that the person who’s theoretically the top cop of the state is using his power to attack police.
Kathryn Rubino: Politically yeah as opposed to.
Joe Patrice: And that could have been the end of it, instead, Ken decided to get in a fight with him and Ken fought back and said some stuff about crime rates going up in Houston which is true as far as it goes. But that’s one of the things I’ve noticed over the last year, it’s just sad, sad state of remedial math. Like remedial statistics, like these folks — there’s a lot of coverage. You know, murder is up 20%. It’s like, “Well yeah.”
Kathryn Rubino: There’s more people or is that it?
Joe Patrice: No, but I mean, being up 20% when the year before was a striking low, like an all-time low. That 20 % now puts them back — you know in online with the average for the last 20 years.
Kathryn Rubino: Oh, just because we were all in lockdown for 2020?
Joe Patrice: I don’t know what necessarily the reason was.
Kathryn Rubino: Okay.
Joe Patrice: I mean one can hypothesize all sorts of stuff.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.
Joe Patrice: But the issue is when you start talking in percentages, it’s important to remember — percentages year-over-year, it’s important to remember that that doesn’t necessarily make a trend. If you told somebody in New York City in the ‘80s, “Murders are
up 20% this year.” That would be a very scary number. If you told somebody, “After a 50-year low in crime” that things are up 15% to 20% then, you know that might not actually be all that scary.
Kathryn Rubino: Still lower than — the trend line still go in the right direction.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, exactly. So anyway, he goes off like this — and honestly to the chief’s credit, he doesn’t — he pushes back on the politicization(ph) of the office, but you know, it kind of stays away from certain subjects which honestly the sandbagging going on here is impressive. Like when you have something good, like a good comeback, you usually –you spit it out immediately, right?
Kathryn Rubino: Sure, leave it your best. Leave it your best.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. I mean that’s great litigation advice. But the chief held back and four or five days pass, you know, you think everything’s over.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure. Yeah.
Joe Patrice: And Ken comes back, man.
Kathryn Rubino: What did he say?
Joe Patrice: He comes back with some stuff about how Houston is all about letting criminals go by calling for bail reform, which again the cash bail reform thing is also a complete mischaracterization of what the argument is, “You’re letting violent felons go by asking for bail reform” which is, the not at all how that operates, but whatever. He just had to go there talking about felons and people being out on bail. You almost feel as though you could sense the point where this was like that fastball coming right down the middle and he’s like — the chief must have been a little nervous after four or five days of not hearing back from Ken. Like I had this great line I never got to use it, but here comes Paxton and he was able to come back with what — honestly, wouldn’t be letting violent people accused of violent things go. That’s now bail reform works. What it’s about is, if the court has already made the determination that somebody could be let go at any price, then maybe we don’t put a price on it.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: If they’re safe enough.
Kathryn Rubino: That’s another thing you buy.
Joe Patrice: Yeah if you’re safe enough and not a flight risk and whatever, safe enough for the courts to let you go at all, then you should be let go and if you aren’t, then you shouldn’t be. But like that’s kind of the argument of it.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure.
Joe Patrice: But he makes a point. He says this and then he adds you know as you would well know, attorney general, that how personal recognizance bonds work, because you know, you’ve been out on one for several years now because you’re facing felony charges — it chef’s kiss.
Kathryn Rubino: It’s almost like Paxton brought a knife to a gun fight he like told — he like knew it was going to be a gunfight or should have known.
Joe Patrice: I mean I get that analogy, but it’s worse. It’s like he brought the gun to the party and then handed it over, like there was nothing that could have possibly gotten him in trouble other than bringing up felonies. Just the dumbest possible thing. Actually I saw somebody on legal writing professor on social media retweeted my story, with some advice — like students, like, “You should check out, like this is a good blow by blow of how not to engage.” Yeah, real mess. Anyway, so that was one of our bigger tales of the week. I’m just trying to figure out a way to transition seamlessly here, but I don’t see it.
Kathryn Rubino: Sometimes there’s not a transition, you know? You’ve got to let go. It’s okay. Be like Elsa.
Joe Patrice: What?
Kathryn Rubino: Be like Elsa, let it go.
Joe Patrice: Oh Elsa.
Kathryn Rubino: You know, Frozen, it was a very, very popular.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, well but I thought you were saying ELTA like the legal tech sharing.
Kathryn Rubino: No, we don’t all just talk about legal tech all the time.
Joe Patrice: Or maybe that you were saying IOLTA like the legal trust accounts. You know, speaking of which, this is sponsored by Nota and powered M&T Bank. You went to law school to be a lawyer, not an accountant. Take advantage of Nota, no cost IOLTA management tool that helps solo and small law firms track client funds down to the penny. Enjoy peace of mind with one click reconciliation, automated transaction alerts and real-time bank data. Visit trustnoda.com/legal to learn more. Terms and conditions may apply. The last thing that I have on my agenda — I don’t know if you have other things on yours.
Kathryn Rubino: Let’s go through yours first, see what happens.
Joe Patrice: Okay, or the last point I had on my agenda was — you know, we have these online trials that are a bigger deal now. You know, obviously we’re coming to the end of this pandemic, but that we still have trials that are taking place and hearings and so on. I think
most folks have gotten a facility with how to use Zoom at this point. Others, I mean we do occasionally get a cat filter in there, but more or less, people get it, but that wasn’t quite the case in another Texas court last week.
Kathryn Rubino: Oh yeah, what happened?
Joe Patrice: Well after giving some instructions to an attorney, the judge just heard the attorney reply with, “Sneaky bitch.”
Kathryn Rubino: That’s not okay. The judge was a woman, right?
Joe Patrice: Oh yes. Yes. So she stops the hearing.
Kathryn Rubino: As you would imagine.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. She stops the hearing. Judge Miscal stops and says, “You know,
You’re not muted, sir.”
Kathryn Rubino: Yikes, that is like the most — like a restrained way of calling someone out for saying “sneaky bitch” to a judge.
Joe Patrice: Well, that’s a good question. Does this attorney say this to a judge? And the coda to the story is that apparently according to Judge Miscal’s social media, apparently,
immediately after this, the lawyer went into, “Oh God, I’m sorry, my dog just pooped on the rug.” And it’s okay.
Kathryn Rubino: Okay.
Joe Patrice: It’s a reminder.
Kathryn Rubino: But here’s the thing, whether if that isn’t true, right? And you were just making up some great excuse, that is a fast response.
Joe Patrice: One, true.
Kathryn Rubino: Fast, fast answer.
Joe Patrice: Ten points, yeah. That was just an excuse, but assuming that it’s true though.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. I mean I would be like, “There’s my dog, see the poop. I’ll show you a picture of the poop.” I promise.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: I just called my dog a sneaky bitch.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, well it got me thinking that like we deserve to remember that lawyers are very precise with their language.
Kathryn Rubino: Can be.
Joe Patrice: It’s like, “Oh, that kind of bitch.” Right.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: That also happened.
Kathryn Rubino: This is how it got started, this work.
Joe Patrice: Anyway.
Kathryn Rubino: That’s hilarious.
Joe Patrice: Yeah it was a good little distractor from the week’s events.
Kathryn Rubino: So like, I don’t know, I’m super paranoid on Zoom. I’m constantly checking whether I’m muted or unmuted. I have two ways of muting myself on Zoom and I’m always like double checking to make sure whatever. I don’t do it. I don’t say “sneaky bitch” under my breath very often. I’m just like begging for some Zoom disaster to happen to me, aren’t I?
Joe Patrice: Yeah and I know that seemed like you were jinxing.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, I should knock on some wood. I’m very superstitious.
Joe Patrice: Yeah?
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. I don’t know. Like I didn’t realize that I was particularly superstitious until my sister said something once and she’s like, “Oh yeah, our entire family is” and I was like, “Do other people not do these things like spit when you say something that’s like jinxing or throw salt over your shoulder or knock on wood? Like don’t do that it’s bad luck.” I don’t know, we’re always very, very mindful of — when all with where your luck is going to go.
Joe Patrice: I’ll knock on wood, but mostly performatively, so that other people see that ‘m like, “I understand we shouldn’t, but I don’t really believe it does anything.”
Kathryn Rubino: I don’t know if I believe it it’s true, but why would I risk it?
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: I guess how I feel. I don’t know, but yeah, my family is very, very, very superstitious as these things go.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. No, I mean you go to do what you can to get your job done I guess.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.
Joe Patrice: Let’s hear from our friends at Lexicon.
[Music]
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Kathryn Rubino: It was less click.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. I mean whatever.
Kathryn Rubino: It’s okay. I mean you’re working on it. You’re trying.
Joe Patrice: I feel as though I’m doing a really good job.
Kathryn Rubino: I know you do.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: I’m very aware that you think that you do a good job all the time.
Joe Patrice: So what else is out there? Anything? You have anything else to closing thoughts?
Kathryn Rubino: I don’t know, man, it’s almost spring.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. So I have one that I’ve been sitting on for a while. A sad story about legal advertising.
Kathryn Rubino: Okay.
Joe Patrice: Unfortunately, I don’t have all the materials that I would want to have in order to have this full discussion and it might involve me having to improvise a little bit.
Kathryn Rubino: You are a generous improv partner. So yeah, confident.
[Music]
Advertiser: Cellino & Barnes Injury Attorneys 800-888-8888, don’t wait.
[Music]
Joe Patrice: Right.
Kathryn Rubino: Do we introduce sponsors, is that what you’re trying to tell me?
Joe Patrice: No. Obviously that firm no longer exits.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: But that jingle was obviously quite famous in legal circles. It’s great. I mean it’s catchy, it’s an easy number to remember. You sing this for years. You could pull somebody off the street and say, “Hey, what’s their phone number?” They would know.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. They may just start — yeah.
Joe Patrice: But the deal is, now that the firms have split.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: And obviously Steve Barnes has now died, but even before that, they had to split. They’ve got new phone numbers like nobody won the phone number in the course basically and I’m like — listening to them, they’re just kind of sad.
Kathryn Rubino: Well then what happens if you dialed?
Joe Patrice: Well I don’t know what would happen if you dialed that, but what you get here.
[Music]
Advertiser: The Barnes Firm Injury Attorneys 1-800-0000.
[Music]
Joe Patrice: So eight million. I mean kudos to trying to keep the same song I guess.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure.
Joe Patrice: But like it just —
Kathryn Rubino: But it’s almost worse because unless if you dial the 888-8888 number, goes to — like I think I would just be confused.
Joe Patrice: Cellino’s version, I unfortunately do not have audio clip of, but it is something to the effect of Cellino Law, like the same kind of voice as that and then it falls into — it’s like 800-555-5555, and so it’s all five.
Kathryn Rubino: I think that’s better.
Joe Patrice: It’s like a TV show number, but I wish I could find any clip of this, but it’s not catchy. Now I get it. Yes, saying dial like you’re trying to dial Superman in a TV show like 555-5555. Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, 555-5555 exchange.
Joe Patrice: But it’s just it doesn’t sing the way that 888-8888 does.
Kathryn Rubino: Well nothing will.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: That’s why I think — I must think going with the fives route is the better option because you have to kind do a hard turn, right? Be like, and I also think don’t try to make it like your old jingle.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Like you’re never going to catch that lightning in bottle and it only confuse people and think that the — it gets you the wrong number.
Joe Patrice: I guess you’re right. Even though the song doesn’t sound right, saying now you just dial all five, it’s a lot better than trying to make somebody spell out million.
Kathryn Rubino: Right.
Joe Patrice: Which is a tricky-ish word in this country.
Kathryn Rubino: List of the letters in there.
Joe Patrice: I would not be shocked if there a lot of people who think there’s only one L in that, yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Because a lot of times you might abbreviate it, it’s like MIL.
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: So like I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that people were wrong about it.
Joe Patrice: So you’re giving your points to the Cellino firm.
Kathryn Rubino: Close decision but I’m getting into Cellino.
Joe Patrice: All right, yeah. I think that’s probably right.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. I mean like I think it’s hard to create an ear worm, right?
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: So I give my —
Joe Patrice: We’re not all those people who wrote the Agatha all along song.
Kathryn Rubino: Oh my gosh, Agatha all along was fantastic. I would just say we’re not over Rebecca Black, but I wasn’t sure that was — Rebecca Black, remember the Friday song?
Joe Patrice: Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: Yeah.
Joe Patrice: Well, the anniversary of that was just a couple of weeks ago, I saw a story. Yeah.
Kathryn Rubino: But my point is, you know, you have time to kind of figure out and to come up with your ear wormy jingle, that that might take some time. You know, you can have many iterations of that thing, but you really only get it one chance to get this new phone number out there and into like the hearts and minds of people, right? So I think that you got to try something completely different that will be as memorable, and I think that all fives does it better than eight million.
Joe Patrice: I think that’s right.
Kathryn Rubino: Because like eight million, like not nine million? Like there’s nothing specific about eight and million that links them together.
Joe Patrice: I think they want to be eight.
Kathryn Rubino: I mean I get what they want.
Joe Patrice: Yeah and then million is independent of that.
Kathryn Rubino: Sure.
Joe Patrice: But it sounds like you’re only going to get eight million. I mean that’s fine.
Kathryn Rubino: But you know, whatever, and my point is I think that’s kind of doing something totally different and trying to figure out in time how to make the all fives catchy, is the better option.
Joe Patrice: Yeah. All right.
Kathryn Rubino: But I’m not a marketing genius.
Joe Patrice: All right. Well, so thank you all for listening. You should be subscribed to the show, give it reviews, stars, write something, just the act of writing some words makes it show that you’re more engaged and that makes the algorithm — algorithms dominate our lives now. They think that we are more important and therefore recommend us to more people and get more people as part of the Thinking Like a Lawyer family. You should be listening to the Jabot, which is Kathryn’s other show. You can check out Legaltech Week, the Legal Journalists’ Roundtable that I do. You should listen to the other offerings of the Legal Talk Network, always be reading Above The Law, that way you’ll see these stories as they come out and have some background. It’s like doing the reading before class. You don’t need to, but you’ll be more engaged.
Kathryn Rubino: You can participate more fully in the conversation.
Joe Patrice: Yeah, exactly. So do all of that. Two, you should follow on social media. I’m @josephpatrice. She’s @kathryn1. Yeah. Thanks to Lexicon, Nota by M&T Bank and LexisNexis InterAction. And with all of that said, I think we’ve said everything we need to. All right.
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Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer |
Above the Law's Joe Patrice and Kathryn Rubino examine everyday topics through the prism of a legal framework.
