Jeremy Evans on Leadership, Breaking Away, and Knowing When to Pivot

Episode Notes

Transcript

Amanda Arriaga:

Welcome to the next episode of Leading the Bar, brought to you by the National Conference of Bar Presidents. I’m your host, Amanda Arriaga, chair of the 21st Century Lawyer Committee. With me today is Lynette Paczkowski, vice chair of the 21st Century Lawyer Committee. Today we talk to Jeremy Evans. Jeremy is the CEO founder and managing attorney of California Sports Lawyer, where he writes a weekly column and hosts the California Sports Lawyer Podcast. Jeremy is a past president of the California Lawyers Association, the Voluntary Bar Association in California, and now serves as president of the California Lawyers Foundation. He also serves as a special advisor to the American Bar Association on the standing committee on bar leadership. Jeremy has all the degrees and is a graduate of UCLA, the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and received his MBA and LLM at Pepperdine. Jeremy Lynette and I serve on the executive council of NCBP, and we’re happy to chat today about bar leadership and branding. Welcome you guys.

Lynette Paczkowski:

Happy to Be here. Welcome, Jeremy.

Jeremy Evans:

A pleasure.

Amanda Arriaga:

I thought we would give people a peek behind the curtain of how we met. The three of us met at an NCBP dinner and immediately became best friends like a person would in the third grade on the playground. So if the audience wants to know why we giggle and why we have a good time together, it’s as if we’ve known each other now our whole lives. That

Lynette Paczkowski:

Is true.

Amanda Arriaga:

So with that framework in mind, we’ve also now become these fancy Leadery Bar president, he people here to share all of our knowledge with you. So I’m going to start with Jeremy. There’s been a lot of discussion about mandatory state bar associations versus voluntary state bars and what that means. In 2018, the California State legislature created the California Lawyers Association splitting off the voluntary educational Association advocacy activities for lawyers from the state bar of California that licenses and regulates lawyers. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about why and how that happened?

Jeremy Evans:

Sure. Well, Amanda and Lynette, absolute pleasure to be with you as always and looking forward to seeing you in Toronto at our annual meeting. So the state bar in California was established back in 1927 in California, and it was soon after that they sort of established the sections of the state bar, which was essentially what you would sort of refer to as practice areas, so your litigation section, employment, labor law, that sort of thing, ip, so all the practice areas and the state bar pretty much functioned like that up until 2018. So from 1927, 2018, they had that sort of model and the sections were meant to be the voluntary arm of the state bar. And the major concern that popped up every year was advocacy. How do you advocate on behalf of the profession when you’re a government entity? There was not only state laws that really forbid this, but it was sort of an awkward situation to where imagine if the three of us are working for a company, but then we file a lawsuit against the company or we established some major complaints against the company, obviously not the most ideal situation.

And so this is something that had been talked about for years. And so the state legislature got together and at the time we had a lawyer who was essentially the chair of the assembly, the head of the assembly, the speaker of the assembly, and then we had the mayor, not the mayor pro tem, but the senator pro tem, the sort of leader of the Senate who’s also a lawyer. And so they understood some of the implications and issues that were going on. And so they got together with the Supreme Court of California who oversees the state bar and decided to draft legislation to make it so that the California Lawyers Association could exist and allowed for advocacy education, really a voluntary bar. And I think we’re starting to see a lot of bars across the country do this as well so they can speak on their own behalf, issue statements and just feel closer, I think, to lawyers as opposed to what the state bar was sort of founded to do, which was regulation and discipline. So that’s sort of how it all came about and still going strong and that’s where we are today.

Lynette Paczkowski:

Was there consensus among the lawyers or were there people who were pushing back and saying, this is how we’ve always been, this is how we should stay?

Jeremy Evans:

Such a good question Lynette, and thanks for that. I think that there was definitely people who were scared and frightened that we were starting this entrepreneurial operation. It’s a pretty scary thing when you go from a mandatory to a voluntary bar because ultimately you have a lot of things as a mandatory bar that are guaranteed that you will have members, you know that people will be going to law school and taking theBar exam and doing all that. But I think that within that guarantee there’s not a lot of leeway. And as an entrepreneur, myself and a small business owner, I saw the excitement in building something new. So I would say that a good, I don’t know, 90% of the lawyers in the state were in favor of starting a voluntary bar. I don’t know of too many people that spoke out against it, but I also think the legislature was set on splitting the two entities. That was kind of the history of it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Was there some sort of event that was happening that made the legislature think it was important to have those two components?

Jeremy Evans:

I would say that probably not. I think it was more of a series of events over the past, let’s say 30 years, 40 years, to where you had the sections that were getting really good at advocacy and going to the state legislature and offering advice on different bills that were coming in, giving real live feedback on legislation and being able to advocate. I think that was something more of a long tail where people saw that versus one individual event. But that being said, I think that the state bar as well has had its series of challenges, and that’s not me saying that that’s, even the state bar would admit that there’s been a lot of challenges. So I think that there was this sort of dual idea or dual approach that one, we needed advocacy and two, to get away from all the requirements as a government agency, it’d be better to have a voluntary state bar that can do a lot of things quickly and not have to move through so many regulations. And it’s been an awesome journey since we’ve made the split.

Amanda Arriaga:

There are currently still 31 mandatory state bars and now there are events that may be causing some of those mandatory bars to want to be able to do things that are more advocacy based. Since you’ve been a lawyer under both systems, what would your advice be for those 31 mandatory state bar leaders

Jeremy Evans:

Do it? I just think that the mandatory bar is good for licensing and for discipline, but it’s very, very difficult to have a government entity overseeing and doing volunteer type events and for lawyers to be volunteering with the mandatory bar if you’re looking for advocacy and to be able to speak without being thought that you might be disciplined or thought that you might be speaking out against a government entity and also be working within that entity, I think it just makes more sense to split. But I will say there may be some states that just have a really great relationship. I’m no longer president of this California Lawyers Association, but we always had a great relationship and you get along and you do the best that you can. You don’t always agree on everything, but that’s part of it. That’s politics I guess. But there may be some smaller state bars that don’t need to split and maybe they have a great relationship and there’s not many contentious issues.

But I just think that in general, the better model or you have the state bar that does licensing and discipline, and then you have the voluntary bars that do all of the volunteer education, the advocacy and everything else. And the other piece, I’ll add to this one thing that I really advocated for from the state bar side, I don’t know if other states have this, but in California you can get a specialization license to where if you take the test and you can be, you’re a family law lawyer or whatever the other categories are, I’ve always advocated that they should really expand upon that and you should be able to get one for other practice areas, and that could be another opportunity for the state bar to do licensing or what have you. But anyway, that’s my thought. I think in general, the better model is voluntary to handle volunteers, the lawyers education and advocacy and the mandatory bars focus on discipline and regulation.

Lynette Paczkowski:

Where did you look to when you were starting up the voluntary part of this? Did you look to other voluntary state bars or how did you get your organizational structure in place?

Jeremy Evans:

I would say that my involvement was limited to, I had been appointed to the solo and small firm section of the state bar of California in 2015 through a colleague of mine that recommended that I apply. And I had been involved in other bar associations, the Sports Lawyers Association, the A BA and some local bar, San Diego County bar, LA County Bar, that sort of thing. And I was looking for an opportunity to get involved with the state bar, had some interest in leadership, and so I got involved with the solo small firm section, had a wonderful time. We put on some great programs, met some great people, and at the time there was this thing called the Council of Sections, which is now basically the board of Representatives for the CLA. So at the time I had a colleague that was looking to move away from her role as the solo small firm rep on the council of sections, and she asked me if I’d be interested.

And so the executive committee for the solo small firm put my name up. I was approved. And of course the second that I got approved, maybe one or two meetings later, maybe even less, there was news that was coming out that the legislature was introducing and it had been going on for quite some time, but it really came to a head maybe about two meetings in. And the idea was that we were going to split from the state bar. And I was like, oh boy. I was like, what an amazing time to be involved in this. You first get appointed to a position and it’s like, oh, by the way, we’re splitting off. But I looked at it as an opportunity and immediately got elected as secretary for the CLA Board of Representatives and then moved up the proverbial chain, I guess corporate ladder and then became vice president and president. But I think at the time there was people who were working on it and there were people that were having these discussions, but I think it really came to a head when ultimately the legislation was introduced. But that was kind of the history of it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and it seems like a big jump to go from, I will chair the section to, I’m going to be the president of the State’s Bar Association. Why did you want to take that leap and did you understand how much more of a big time commitment that was going to be for you?

Jeremy Evans:

Yeah, no, good question. What’s that saying? If you want to get something done, you ask the busiest person in the room generally going to be committed to getting it done. I will say that I have gotten better at saying no, and I am still working on that and continue to say no to things. I think it’s a great skill to have. Someone once told me that the more that you say yes to things, the more you have to say no to things. And I’ve realized that now that it’s like you can volunteer too much and it’d almost, it’s better to go deeper than it is to go wider. And I definitely see that, and I’ve always tried to go deeper into things as opposed to wider and specifically things that I actually enjoy. So I think for me, I never looked at it as work.

I looked at it as an opportunity to serve and to really build something cool. I realized early on in life that I like to build things and I like to build relationships. I like to build companies, I like to build people. And so to me, I was like, what a great opportunity to do all three. And CLA is a private organization, so I helped get to build a company, I get to hire people. I got to all these really cool things, and even though it was voluntary, I got to meet a lot of great people and really got to see and experience a lot of great things that I wouldn’t have been able to do as a sole practitioner running California sports lawyer. So I also think that it was an opportunity, maybe as an organization, as something gets bigger and broader and stronger, maybe sadly there’s less opportunity for people who aren’t deeply involved. But I think at the time there was an opportunity for me to serve and I accepted the request and served and I think served well, at least no major controversies. So that’s good. But yeah, I enjoyed it. No regrets. Had an amazing time. And I look back on time very fondly.

Lynette Paczkowski:

You mentioned earlier how you were going from the guarantee of membership to building, as you like to say, you were building this organization. What challenges, if any, did you encounter in developing that membership base and growing this new opportunity?

Jeremy Evans:

Oh, a great question. Yeah. I think part of it, you can go as granular as what’s the marketing? What does the logo look like? That was a big process on its own deciding between whether we wanted to have a bear on or an outline of the state of California on the logo or we went through a lot of different discussions in that whatever the bylaws might be and how the bylaws might look and what does the Board of representatives look like? What does the president, vice president positions look like? Who do we hire as a CEO and executive director? There was a lot of different challenges and opportunities that were presented. And then the members piece, I mean, when you’re going from a guarantee to having to basically get out there and sell and convince people to join you, it created some challenges. But I will say the state legislature, the state bar, the Supreme Court, were all very supportive. And having all four working together to push this forward and keeping a good relationship, I think were of the utmost importance. You’d be in a very difficult place if you try to do this on your own and not have the support of the mandatory state bar that you were leaving the state legislature and the Supreme Court, assuming that’s the way your structure works. But again, we had the support and I think it worked out well.

Amanda Arriaga:

And so your experience, even though this association has now become one of the largest, if not the largest voluntary bar association, this is something that organizations are facing all the time that are creating brand new bar associations for their affinity group, for their county, for their city. At what point did you learn about NCBP and did NCBP help with the growing of your association? And then why did you decide you wanted to serve on the council?

Jeremy Evans:

I think for me, this is sort of, and you both may laugh at this, but I had not heard of the National Conference of our Presidents until about my first year into my presidency. And of course, the presidency for the CLA is two years long, so it’s a two year commitment. And by my first year in, I was approached by our executive director and CEO and basically who’s a really good friend and enjoyed working with him. And he says, have you heard of the NCBP? And it’s alongside a BA, you’re going to be at the A BA anyway, I just got this notification that basically they’re having applications put out, which of course is fortuitous because doing that right now as we’re recording this, there’s applications out there for people to join. I thought what a terrific opportunity. My role as CLA will be done shortly in another year, a great way to be around other presidents, which is a very distinctive position.

And it’s very interesting to be in that role of each of us have experienced very rewarding, but also can be very lonely too. And so ultimately I was like, Hey, I’ll give it a shot and I’ll put it in there, put the application in there. And oddly enough, and maybe even in a funny way, when I got approved to be on the executive council and the more I started to research NCBP prior to applying, and as I was going through the process, I was like, well, this is a really cool organization and I like what’s going on and I want to be around other people who have been through similar experiences and to be able to share that knowledge across the country. And so we got in there and it was funny, I talked to a couple folks who had been in the sort of approval committee or whatever you want to call it, and they were like, Jeremy, you came in and we had no clue who you were.

We had never heard of you before. And I thought to myself, well, I’m glad you guys chose me. And they were like, well, yeah, we made some phone calls and it was quickly made apparent to us that you were a decent guy. So I was like, all right, well thanks. But I’m so happy to have been involved in, I’m coming up on the end of my three year term. Obviously we, we’ll still stick around and we’ll see what the next sort of pathway holds. But it’s been an awesome journey. And of course, even if it was just that I got to meet you two, that would’ve been enough. But it was even more than that. It was all the relationships, all the great experiences, great conferences, and lots of laughter and lots of good work being done.

Amanda Arriaga:

It is interesting for our audience to know that it sounds a little bit like NCBP is a very well kept secret because I also didn’t really get involved until I was president. And then at the time that I met Lynette at our first council meeting, we both had the same challenges, but we didn’t know who to talk to about it. So we have this great network of untapped resources that we really wish emerging leaders would know about and know that a lot of us face the same problems, whether you’re a metro bar, a large bar, a tiny bar, a brand new bar well established, the challenges that we face are pretty darn similar. And if you knew that upfront, you wouldn’t feel so lonely at the top.

Jeremy Evans:

I agree. But I think we’re doing our part though. I think we’re getting the message out there and we’ll continue to grow, but I agree.

Lynette Paczkowski:

And so what do you think the biggest challenges facing bar leaders today are?

Jeremy Evans:

Well, I think this might be the controversial part of this interview. There’s really two things that come to mind. The number one is how to be relevant, which really boils down to how do you keep members and recruit new members. I think we need to go into the law schools. I think we need to be present. I think we need to open up leadership positions to younger people that are going through law school or even if they’re older students by age. But in law school, I think we need some international presence, probably particularly for our neighboring countries in Mexico and Canada. I just think we need to be thinking beyond the traditional structures of what a Bar association is. I think the two of you are instrumental in getting this podcast going. I think that’s fantastic. We’ve talked about some other ideas about how to monetize and how to bring in more education.

I think those things are very big issues and it’s all boiling down to membership. How do you keep members involved and active? I think the second issue is whether to speak or not to speak when it comes to statements. This is an issue that’s been brought up a thousand times before and it’ll be brought up a thousand times. Again. I have been a big proponent of not speaking on political issues and being very strict on that. And I think bar associations are in the business of education and not in the business of advocating for political positions. And a lot of people don’t agree with me on that, but that’s just was my experience and we had a lot of success with that. And we had membership growth and people seemed to be happy with it as opposed to being upset. And I think that politics can be taken too far in this voluntary context.

I think if people want to get involved in politics, they should run for office, they should get involved with their local city councils. They should do those sorts of things as opposed to relying on a bar association to promote a certain political opinion. And by the way, there’s still are ways that you can do this. You can have education, you can put on a program that talks about these things. You can write an op-ed. There’s all these different avenues people can do, but I think the reliance on the statement is not a good strategy, but that’s just me. And that may be the most controversial thing I’ll say today, but we’ll see how much longer we go on this podcast.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, there’s also so many different kinds of bar associations that are so at such different levels of so sophistication. So some of us are the baby bar association, I need a board, I need members and I need money. There are basic needs we need to address. So even a discussion about having statements, that’s a higher level problem because if you’re still at the point of I’m just trying to start my county’s first ever association, that’s for all mothers. Well, statements might be the last thing on your mind. We’re still trying to figure out when do we meet, how do we make sure that we can survive in general? So for bar associations that are or aren’t making statements, it really shouldn’t be an indictment on how much you care as a person. Because like you just mentioned, there’s a whole bunch of ways that you can show how you care as a person. But organizations are all at different points in their livelihood and they might not be able to do that. They might have members with wildly different opinions because by the way, the worst people to try to wrinkle are lawyers we’re the worst. And so to try to speak for all the lawyers of all the land has to be just a mess for anyone trying to do that.

Jeremy Evans:

I agree. And then the whole mandatory versus voluntary issue that we talked about at the top of the podcast, it’s just very difficult when some groups can’t speak out. Or even worse, some people are afraid to speak out or to oppose something because it may hurt their chances at a future position or being ridiculed or what have you. So it’s a difficult position. And my point has always been stick to the basics, stick to education, stick to advocacy when it comes to legislation in the courts that are directly affecting your members and put on social events and be available for lawyers and provide good benefits. I think you do that. You’re running a good bar association, but I will definitely still judge you by the coat that you wear, whether it’s velvet or not, when it comes to a gala or whatnot. So there’s still that aspect.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, I mean you’re also going to judge whether or not people are making brand Zeno from scratch and posting about it to show off their culinary skills.

Jeremy Evans:

That’s correct. If you’re not cooking brands, what are you doing? Exactly. Yeah. So don’t even call me at that point.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, you are doing a lot of things. You not only have been in charge of the largest bar association in the land, you also have successfully branded yourself as the California sports lawyer and you have a weekly column and podcast. How did you successfully brand yourself into this person?

Jeremy Evans:

Well, thank you. Very humble beginnings. I grew up in a big family, youngest of nine kids. All my brothers and sisters had gotten married by the time they were 17, 18, 19 years old. I’ve got 15 nephews and nieces now, and I think 10 great nephews and nieces, if that’s what they’re called. I love all of ’em. They’re great. And people always ask me, do you remember all their names? I do. It gets a little tougher with the greats, but definitely the nephews and nieces I remember, and I try to keep in touch with a lot of ’em. But I mentioned that part of sort of my beginnings because what I sort of saw on television is where my mentorship came from. My parents both graduated from high school and then my dad became a salesman and my mom became a registered nurse, so she ended up getting her aa.

But so again, what I didn’t have lawyers to look up to, so my sort of vision was, alright, I’m going to go to law school and become a DA because that’s what I saw in law and order, and that looks like a cool job. But once I got enough experience in law school and worked for the public defender, worked for some civil litigation firms, I worked for a very large law firm prior to law school, Quin Emanuel, all great experiences and it all taught me things. All those experiences taught me things about what I liked and what I didn’t like. And what I quickly came to realize was that I had a passion for entertainment and sports. I had a passion for deal making and peacemaking and bringing people together and building things. And I thought, well, as Judge Judy would say, it’s not just about what you’re passionate about and I’m paraphrasing, but it’s about what people are willing to pay you to do in terms of your passion.

And in that regard, I thought, well, I’m great at negotiating, great at relationships. I’m good with contracts. What kind of job could I have that would be in that space? And I had competed in a international arbitration competition at Tulane Law School down in New Orleans, and it was a fantastic experience. And after it, this was my first year of law school, which now I think the ABA has changed the rules to where you have to be a two L to compete. So this was prior to the rules being implemented, and I competed all three years in law school. But that first year, remember I came back from the experience, we didn’t win, but I took it as a positive and said, you know what? Let me learn from this. I ended up building my own competition called the National Sports Law Negotiation Competition and held that at my law school right after I graduated in 2011 and then ran that through until about 2017 and then ultimately turned it over to the law school and moved back to Los Angeles because I needed to be where the industry was at for entertainment and sports.

But it was that experience in law school that really kind of taught me, wait a second, I can do what I love and make money at it. And that may seem obvious, but my idea of what a lawyer was, again, very humble beginning was you either worked for the government as a DA or you were a criminal defense lawyer, or you worked for a company or you worked for a big law firm. That was kind of my understanding of it. I really didn’t know much else. And so when I got to towards graduation, I had had these experiences served on a bunch of student. I was the Student Bar Association president, was the editor in chief of the student newspaper. All these things really kind of opened my mind up to what I should be doing. And I thought, well, okay. So I ended up becoming a graduate LawClerk for the court.

And after I took that position, it gave me a lot of time on the weekends and at night and to where I’m sitting there going, okay, what’s the next step? This position’s not going to last forever. And I had this competition going and I had interest in sports and entertainment and I thought to myself, well, I’m passionate about entertainment and sports. I did some acting as a kid in a couple plays, loved watching television and film, loved any sort of theater appreciation class or film class in college. Tried to wrap my mind around any kind of education or experience I could get in that regard. Loved playing sports, loved baseball, loved other sports, loved watching it. And I thought, man, if I could find a position where I could make money in this and find a career in this, that’d be great. And sure enough, I was naive enough to launch my own practice right after I left my clerkship with the court.

And I remember my boss at the court came to me one day and she said, Jeremy, we have some budget cuts unfortunately with the state and the court is going to take a hit. And basically you’re the lowest on the totem pole. And I remember at the time, the way this office was set up, it had this corner office, which it was kind of funny because we all had offices, but nobody wanted this particular office. It didn’t have a window. And I was like, I’ll take it. It’s got a huge desk and it’s big. At least I can feel somewhat important in this office. And so I took this desk and oftentimes it’d be kind of funny because I’d have my feet up or my boots up on the desk or something, but she came in and we had a good relationship and she’s laughing at me and we’re having a good chuckle about it.

And she goes, well, we have to let you go. And she goes, but why are you laughing? And I said, well, you just gave me the kick in the pants. I needed to go out and start my own practice. I’ve been thinking about doing it and this is the shove that I needed. And so I’m so glad that that happened. And ultimately when I sat down with myself specifically to your question, Amanda, I thought, okay, if I’m going to practice law, which is already difficult and it is not easy, but it is a profound and honorable profession, I thought, well, if I’m going to do this, I might as well do what I like and what I love. And I thought, well, I love entertainment. I love sports. I’m just going to do that. I did not think about the implications or the problems or anything.

Again, very naive and just thought, this is what I’m going to do. And then my second thought was, okay, practically speaking, how am I going to find clients? And I’m like, well, everybody goes to the internet these days. Everybody’s on Yelp or Google or whatever, and they’re out there searching and they’re going to literally type in Google search term, I need a criminal defense lawyer in such town or such city, or I need a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles, whatever it was. And I thought, man, if I could get a trademark and I knew enough about IP to where I thought if I could get a trademark or a brand, how can I distinguish myself? And so immediately began to do some research and I thought, well, if somebody is looking for a sports lawyer in California, what would they search? And I thought, well, the literal search term would be California Sports lawyer.

And I thought, there’s no way that this hasn’t been trademarked. And sure enough, I go to the US PTOI search it, had not been trademarked, so got the name secured, launched the business, got the name secured. And I will tell you that the name has been great. I’m definitely a branding guy and I love branding and marketing, but it’s also the backup to that and it complimentary pieces. You got to have the content too. There’s a great quote by a guy named Jonathan Perman who used to run a sports agency and now he’s with CAA after his agency got bought out and he would say, content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants. And the quote is meant to be somewhat funny. But at the same time, it really highlights the fact that lawyers need to be good at content, particularly if you’re on your own and you need to be marketing, even if you’re a big firm, you got to bring in clients.

And so that’s really what I focused on was geography, branding, community. I knew I needed to be with the action was in Los Angeles and in southern California. I knew because that’s where Hollywood and 10 different professional sports franchises were, at least just in LA area, not counting San Diego and other places across the state. And I thought, okay, I’m going to launch this. I’m going to do it. I’m going to create content. I always liked writing. I’ll write columns. And that’s really just how it started. Sorry for the long-winded story, but hopefully it’s helpful.

Lynette Paczkowski:

No, it’s a great story and I think you had a certain amount of flexibility because you took the leap and went out on your own to do this. You can imagine people who are not out on their own but who are working at a firm, I think we’d all agree on this call. You still need to your point to bring in clients and it would still be beneficial for every lawyer to have some sort of identity of their own, but they may not have the flexibility that you did. There’s a podcast I listened to from a practicing lawyer who goes by an alias on her podcast because it to some extent conflicts with her day job. So what of the things that you just talked about, what are the key tips for somebody who may not be able to just go out and do all the things and trademark the name, but that internally at a firm they could still use to build their identity and their brand?

Jeremy Evans:

I had the benefit or curse, if you will, of not being married and not having kids. And on the one hand, it created a lot of free time and the ability to go out and build things, and I didn’t have to work with a big law firm and do all these things, right? On the other hand, that can be lonely too, but that’s where you find friends and you keep yourself busy and you find purpose in life as well too. So that can go both ways. But I would say that I was born in the right time when it came to the technology that was available. So if you would’ve come to me and you would’ve said, Hey, let’s launch a practice together 20 years ago, I don’t know if I would’ve done it because I think that part of it was being naive, but also part of it was timing.

When I launched, I didn’t have an official office. I had an office address, but I worked from home and I saw that as an opportunity for a tax write off, but I also saw it as an opportunity to save cost. And one of the things that I did when I started my practice, and this is a piece of advice I’ll share with everybody else, is I literally went to Google and I typed in how do you open your own law practice? And then from there, dialed down the research and then read books and did a lot of writing and research in that regard. But one of the greatest piece of advice that I got from one of these books that I read was make a list of five lawyers you look up to and have a call with them, have dinner with them, lunch with them, send text messages, whatever, have coffee with them, send an email and just make that list and then ask them for five more names.

And so I ended up making this list and I ended up meeting with about 60 different lawyers in three months and everything from coffee to dinner to lunch, sometimes they were even group dinners or group lunches. And I just asked a simple question of how did you start your law practice and what can I do to be successful? And I got so much information from that saved a lot of headache and heartache over the years. And one of the pieces of advice I got was, keep your costs down. Don’t go and buy a bunch of expensive computers and phones in an office lined with mahogany wood. You don’t need it. You’ll know it when you need a secretary or an assistant or another lawyer or a partner. So I followed that advice and frankly, it was practical. I started my practice with $0, actually less.

I had debt from law school. And so ultimately I thought to myself, okay, well I’m going to stick to this. I’m going to work from home. I like working from home. I’m a disciplined person. Found out I was a lot more disciplined than I thought I was. I learned a lot about that through theBar exam as well. You have to be so dedicated to pass that. So that’s kind of the pathway that I took. And ultimately I think the fact that I had more time that I was able to do that, but I think anybody can do this, but I don’t think everybody should do this. And what I mean by that is that to be an entrepreneur, to be a small business owner, you almost have to learn to embrace the uncertainty. And I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I actually like it. I actually enjoy the uncertainty. I enjoy the unknown. I enjoy not knowing. And that’s what makes it fun and exciting.

Amanda Arriaga:

But the advice that you and Judge Judy have that is universal for lawyers is to find your passion, right? Because I’m sure that all of us know many lawyers who are unhappy and who will tell you how hard they work, how difficult the clients are, the long hours, and you can just tell they are unhappy about what they do. And every time I run into those people, I say, well, then change what you do. I mean, there’s a lot to do in the law. My passion wouldn’t be Texas sports lawyer because I don’t know nothing about that. If there was Texas pop culture lawyer, maybe. But there’s no reason if what you do is work at least eight hours a day, you shouldn’t be unhappy and sit in that all the time. So I do like the advice of find your passion, and maybe it starts as a side hustle or an extracurricular activity like running your bar association, but you got to do something that gets you out of just that muck of being unhappy at work all the time.

Jeremy Evans:

Yeah, I agree completely. And I’m surprised frankly that a lot of people stick with it when they shouldn’t. I think that there’s a difference between not giving up and learning when to quit, and I think that that potentially could be a fine line. But yeah, it’s definitely, I hear that lawyers are unhappy. We did a report a few years ago with the DC bar, and it was found that lawyers had the highest level of suicide, and that should not be the case. I mean, lawyers go to law school to learn how to read, write, comprehend, communicate, talk with other people. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening. I think we’ve made some strides in that regard, and we’ve gotten more honest about mental health and honest about being honest in terms of our feelings and how we deal with things. But I also think that people also need to be stronger and have more courage and just to stand up and say, I’m not going to do this.

I’m going to change. I don’t know how many people I’ve talked to over the years, Amanda, where they would tell me, oh my gosh, I love what you do. But they don’t do it. They’re with a large law firm or whatever, and it’s the whole golden handcuffs thing or whatever you call it. But I think people sometimes are scared to do it, and it doesn’t mean everybody should be a solo or go out on their own or start their own business. Sometimes you need a partner and somebody that can compliment you very well. But I will tell this quick little antidote to kind of highlight this. When I was in law school, I attended a sports law society entertainment, law Society event. I was a one L, and I remember we had about 400 people at this event, and the question was asked, who wants to be the next Jerry McGuire?

Of course, famous movie modeled after Lee Steinberg, and ultimately everybody in the class raised their hand, that’s me. I want to be the next Jerry McGuire. I want to be the next sports agent. By the time that I graduated three years later, I was the only person in my entire class of almost 400 people that was pursuing a career in sports and entertainment. Nobody was becoming a solo, nobody was getting into sports. And I had a few colleagues that got into entertainment working for studios, which is a very difficult process by the way too. But I just mentioned that because a lot of times people will say what they want to do, but I really want to see and encourage people to have more courage to do it and to go out and try it. We have so much technology now, and with artificial intelligence, the ability to reach people, the ability to call somebody and text somebody is not even something that many of us even had in high school.

And so the ability to adapt, when I started my practice, I started with three principals. I want to be accessible to my clients. I wanted to be easily movable in terms of if I needed to move around or be adaptable to circumstances, I wanted to be able to pick up the phone when my clients called. I didn’t want to be in a situation where clients call you and retain you and then they’re talking to somebody else. It’s one of my biggest pet pet peeves. When you have a law firm, go out and recruit and get clients in the door and be the face of the organization and then turn around and pass you off to another. At least stay involved or at least Sosa show some sort of support. But that’s kind of what I started my practice on and I wanted to stick to. I guess the third piece is I wanted to stick to my practice areas and I didn’t want to venture outside of that. I had experienced enough in other areas of law that I knew I didn’t have interest in it. So

Amanda Arriaga:

If you call a California sports lawyer, you will get Uncle Jeremy.

Jeremy Evans:

That’s correct. You might get a voicemail too, but that’s okay too.

Amanda Arriaga:

So with all you do for work and all of your extracurricular activities, how do you decompress?

Jeremy Evans:

I definitely realized that I live a blessed life and I love my life and I love my family and my friends, and I’ve definitely had some great experiences and I have to work hard. And I’ve also been blessed and probably been blessed more than I should be. But I would say this, I love entertainment. So anytime I can get into a good television show, a good series and be able to watch it and analyze it and pick up on certain things is great. I love writing, enjoy podcasting. I love travel. The crazier the better, the more unplanned the better. And it’s just the ability to go see the world and exceed the country and experience different parts of it and take the time to really reflect and experience what you’re seeing is just nothing better. Those are some big things for me. Obviously giving back in my community, I consider that as sort of a downtime opportunity where you get to serve, but there’s not the added pressure of being a lawyer and having to deliver on a certain project. You’re there, you’re volunteering, you’re helping out, you’re giving back. So those are some of the ways that oh, and I love reading and I love listening to podcast. Those are my ways to keep sane.

Lynette Paczkowski:

So we know we’re going to have a listener to all of our episodes, not just this one. And it’s going to be Jeremy Evans with the first click and download every episode. How many ballparks have you hit? Have all of them yet?

Jeremy Evans:

Yeah, I’ve got 30 for 30, and I get reminded of it every day in this little closet I have. It wouldn’t be a closet, it’s like a cabinet, but it has a glass front to it so you can see what’s inside and in there, I have all these little mini helmets that I picked up that you get ice cream in, right About half of ’em had ice cream the other half. I did not. And I think you get to a point where you’re just like, look, I don’t need any more ice cream. Just give me the helmet. And so I have these little helmets in this glass case, and they’re organized by division and by league, American League, national League. And so every morning I wake up and I get to see that. And I think it just reminds me of like, Hey, if you have a plan, you can stick to it and you can do it.

It took me 15 years to do it. I wrote an article about all of my experiences. It ended up being about 36 stadiums because I had to go back to some of the ones that were rebuilt. And the big gap in between was really law school and building a law practice. And you don’t have much money flowing around when you’re in law school and building a law practice. And so what an experience. Oh my gosh, definitely some surprises in there. Detroit’s ballpark come America Field was outstanding. They’ve done a really good job with rebuilding that city. Obviously Wrigley Field, Fenway Park. I know that’s close to your heart, Lynette. I mean, and I’ll tell you a little quick little story about Fenway. I had a buddy, still good friends, I don’t see him as much, unfortunately lives down in Georgia now. But his father had a friend who was the pitching coach for the Seattle Mariners at the time.

And he would often call us up and say, Hey, do you guys want to come watch us play in Boston or whatever the city was, San Diego or whatever. So we would jump on the opportunity. So I fly out to Boston and lo and behold, we’re sitting behind the plate in the old wooden seats and we’re getting to watch Kurt Schilling and Pedro Martinez pitch back to back nights. And even that night was able to go out and have dinner with some of the players and some of the coaches and just had a fantastic time. Lots of funny memories and stories that were told for years in the locker room after that was just fantastic. But a lot of great ballparks, a lot of great experiences and glad I was able to get it done.

Amanda Arriaga:

So our final question is if you weren’t a lawyer, what would you be doing?

Jeremy Evans:

Great question. And this is something that always gets me kind of sad and somewhat happy. I guess at the same time, I guess I would say probably three different things, some of which are still possible. Other ones, I think the ship has sailed. Look, I would’ve loved to be a professional baseball player, but I realized early on that I didn’t have the mental focus at the time, didn’t really have the God-given talent to do it. And so ultimately moved on. So that would sort of be one. Two would’ve been a detective. I would’ve loved to have worked as a detective. Solving crimes, just always was interested in that. And that’s probably what interested me in the DA aspect. And I guess third would’ve been an actor would’ve loved. I did a lot of plays as a kid and really enjoyed that. But I think I also realized that as a lawyer, you’re doing a lot of acting and whether it’s in court, even though I’m not a litigator, but you’re doing a lot of acting and you’re doing a lot of preparation, which is similar to acting.

And a lot of times like in acting, you got to show a certain face. And I think as a lawyer you do too. You cannot wear your emotions on your sleeve and you have to protect your client. And so I think those are some interesting things. But I think going forward, some things that I still have in mind that would love an opportunity to do would be GM in a front office of a baseball team. I just know I would be terrific at that job. Not to sound arrogant or cocky, but I love the sport so much and I know it well, and I would have good relationships. I think we can make money ball happen. So we’ll see. And then politics, I definitely have an interest in politics down the road. I’m involved with my local city council and serve on the Planning commission, the advisory committee for the planning commission. So

Amanda Arriaga:

I mean, I think the way that we get you to do all of those is you’re in California, you need to be an actor on some show where you get to be one of Quantum Leap, like another reboot where you get to be a new different version of this every day. That sounds like great fun.

Jeremy Evans:

I agree. I’ve done a couple television pieces talking about sports and some other stuff on podcast and on live television and some other things, which are always a great experience. I think, funny enough, one of my claims to fame was I got asked to appear on a real estate show and immediately after appearing, I was presenting an award on behalf of the local Chamber of Commerce to a business that was opening up. And this business happened to have a very well-known television show. So I appeared in the last episode of one of their seasons. So immediately after being on the episode, I didn’t realize how big the show was, but immediately after it happened, I’m starting to get phone calls and text messages from colleagues at work to wherever is that Jeremy? People from New Jersey, from Florida all across the country are like, there was even somebody in London that was like, Hey, I watched that show and I saw you on there. So anyway, pretty funny.

Amanda Arriaga:

So we need to get you on Bravo and have it be like the Real Lawyers of Newport.

Jeremy Evans:

Yes, that would be. Oh boy. Yeah, definitely have to get some non-disclosure agreements. Oh my gosh. Oh boy. Yeah, we’ll work on it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, thank you for being here with us. I think that the audience has learned a lot. They’ve had a lot of fun, and we really appreciate your time.

Jeremy Evans:

My pleasure. It’s always great to see you both, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

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