Why Big Law Is Broken (And What It Teaches Us About Freedom) with Bill Reid – EP 258

Justin Donald: What's up, Bill? Good to have you on the show.

Bill Reid: Good to be here.

Justin Donald: You know it's fun. We get a chance to be in your studio for one of the first recordings ever, and I appreciate the generosity to have me here to do my own show in your studio.

Bill Reid: Well, it's finally good to put it to some use.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, that's a nice studio here, and excited for the future podcast that you're going to do. And really, I'm just thrilled that you have written a book. We've talked about this for a while, and I want to get into it, but for those that don't know you, you are one of the top attorneys, one of the top litigators out there. You've won an award basically every year for like the last decade of being one of the top attorneys on planet Earth. And you've made a career going after some of the Goliaths in the space, banks and corporations, and big groups that most people can't win against that have what feels like unlimited funds, and you've made a career out of winning what's called blockbuster cases. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Bill Reid: Well, thanks for the flattering comments. I think that lawyers think more highly of themselves than sometimes reality would suggest. But let's get our terminology straight. So, first of all, litigators and attorneys are people that push paper. Trial lawyers go to court. I'm a trial lawyer.

Justin Donald: I like it.

Bill Reid: And so, I teach my students, I teach at UT Law School to use exactly that nomenclature because there are actually few lawyers that go to court and many more lawyers that push paper. So, when people say litigators and attorneys, I think that's exactly the type of person I don't want to be, and I don't want to be thought of as one of those people. Alright. So, bottom line is yes. I wrote a book called Fighting Bullies, which describes what I do, which is fighting really more institutional wrongdoers, corporations, big law firms, big accounting firms, banks, people like that.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, someone needs to be in the space of doing it, and actually, we have mutual friends who you've represented. So, I've actually heard all about these cases, and it's been fun. You're quite the wine collector, and so we've had some incredible bottles of wine and your personal collection, your cellar, some DRC and some Petrus, all kinds of wonderful stuff, hearing about these incredible cases. Now, one of the things I want to talk about is the career that you have built. You basically have created both meaningful financial success, meaningful business success, but you've been able to do that with purpose and prosperity. So, you're helping others do it, but you have really kind of built what I would call an epic life, and I'd love to hear your thoughts around that, too.

Bill Reid: So, like a lot of things in life, I think that I got lucky in a lot of ways. And so, some people say you make your own luck. I think there's some truth to that, but the reality is that I think a lot of professionals that I know, lawyers in particular, are unhappy in their careers largely because they chased the early higher salary to the exclusion of their passion and gaining experience at what they do. And so, that's why when you sit here today and roll the tape forward, so many litigators and attorneys and lawyers, as you've described them, have like just extraordinary levels of depression and substance abuse and suicide and divorce, sleepless nights, and the rest. And I think the reason that is, is because so many of them are doing work that, yeah, makes them a good paycheck, but doesn't really give them much meaning or reward.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like you've talked about kind of falling in the trap of big law, and kind of the shackles that happen there. You're moving up the corporate ladder, you're trying to make partner, the pay gets better, the hours get crazy, and you've kind of charted a different path. And I'd love to kind of hear your conveyor belt thoughts around what typical big law is versus what you've been able to experience here with your firm.

Bill Reid: Okay. So, I just left a speech, my inaugural speech from my book at UT Law School.

Justin Donald: Hey, congrats!

Bill Reid: Thank you. First of all, it's a passion of mine to give back to the profession that I love, right? And when I was a law student, and I don't think things are too much different now, there isn't just a law. There are no books. There's not really any online resource. There's nothing available to students to really see the big picture and to understand how to navigate this world that they're about to enter when they enter law school. And so, this is where the nefarious part comes in. On campus interviews, otherwise known as OCI, is the kind of, let's just say the structure set up at law schools for law students to meet future employers. But no one tells those students that that OCI process is largely a feeding ground for big law.

And it used to be that OCI was, law school's three years, it used to be that OCI was in the kind of beginning month or two of your second year of law school where you would interview for your second summer job, which even today, largely, in most cases, becomes your first starting full-time job as a law student.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Makes sense.

Bill Reid: Well, OCI is moving earlier and earlier and earlier, and now I just learned it's now in January and February of a law student's first year, even before, in some cases, they've got their first semesters…

Justin Donald: Before they know anything.

Bill Reid: Yes. Yeah.

Justin Donald: Wow.

Bill Reid: So, why is that? Right? And this is part of what my book goes into. So, big law is, I call it a pyramid scheme, right? They think about this from just a pure business standpoint. I know your listeners are largely not lawyers, much less trial lawyers, but I think they're probably business-oriented, given that you're the casual investor, has to connote some level of business.

Justin Donald: For sure.

Bill Reid: Alright. So, think about this. What business do you know that makes more money, generates more revenue, makes more bottom-line profit, the more inefficient it is, the more that it throws 20 bodies at a five-body problem, the more that it over-devotes its resources, the more money it makes? That makes law firms, big law firms anyway, very rare in the business world. My prediction in the book is that AI is going to maybe not end that practice because I think there's a lot of kind of just legacy thoughts and just people in the business that will be the last to give it up. But as AI forces efficiency, and as the 20-person mission is no longer justifiable in the technology world that we're entering, I think we're kind of there in some ways, then I think the pyramid, as I've described in my book, the pyramid becomes more like a wine bottle.

And in today's presentation, funny enough, when I use the graphics for that, I used the bottle of Petrus to describe the wine bottle, where instead of having 50% or 60% of a large law firm's makeup be associates, I think that goes down to 20% or 25% over the next 3, 5, 7 years. And as the associate ranks shrink, I think then law firms might find themselves in a world in which maybe adopting the general business model of every other business in the world, where being more efficient is now more profitable. So, let's be clear what I mean. Instead of charging pure hourly fees, it may be the case that big law finds it prudent to go to some sort of flat fee or monthly fee, or subscription model pricing.

The moment it does that is the moment it no longer needs to devote 20 lawyers to the five-lawyer problem. And that's a problem for law students and law schools because they can't then employ the legions of graduates who get on this conveyor belt to big law at OCI.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that's interesting. And by the way, I've seen AI really disrupt at least aspects of law or big law, I mean, even from the standpoint of like contract law. You can do a lot with AI. It's actually really impressive. And I've actually run some things through AI that caught mistakes from attorneys that were sending me things, and I was blown away. And so, I mean, obviously, there's going to be areas where that is kind of redefined and re-engineered, and just completely restructured, right, innovated, and whatever. That's not going to be the case for trial lawyers. You're always going to need a person to do that. Maybe AI can support them in their findings and check data points, help search for cases, make the prep work a little bit easier.

But I'm curious where you see, where does AI, basically, make certain aspects, sort of parts of law attorney practice, irrelevant or unnecessary? And what parts are always going to need someone that is top-notch?

Bill Reid: So, first of all, great question. I agree with the notion that trial lawyers are not going to get replaced by AI, but what you need to understand is that in big law today, and it's very common to have in the litigation that I participate in where I'm the plaintiff's lawyer suing the big corporate wrongdoer, institutional wrongdoer, it's very common to see $10 million, $15 million, $20 million, $50 million budgets, okay? And the vast majority of that money is spent pre-trial like sifting through, I just literally got 8.2 million documents produced to me this week in one of my cases.

Justin Donald: Oh, my goodness.

Bill Reid: So, it's very common to see huge databases of records. And historically, some person or team of people had to go through those documents and review them for relevance and privilege and determine what got produced and what didn't get produced. So, imagine that is a huge money maker or has been for big law.

Justin Donald: Sure.

Bill Reid: Well, that's all getting automated with AI. So, can I tell you that you won't still need lawyers? No. You're going to need lawyers, but you're just not going to need 20 or 30 or 40. You could probably do it with three or four or five. The same is true at trial. So, I don't know if you know John Quinn from Quinn Emanuel, one of the biggest firms in the country. He has a podcast called Law, Interrupted. I just appeared on his podcast Tuesday earlier this week. But he did a podcast about two or three months ago in which some lawyers from his firm got hired four weeks before a trial that some other law firm had basically prepared for trial.

And they, through the use of AI, were able to essentially review a very large database of records and come up with the most important records, hone their themes, et cetera. So, all I'm saying is that, yeah, the person talking to the jury or the team of people talking to the jury in any trial, in any case, is at most three, four, at most five people. But behind those three or four or five people are typically, or at least historically, have been, in some cases dozens of lawyers, and it's there where AI will make the greatest impact. Rather than needing dozens of lawyers behind the standup lawyer, the trial lawyers are always going to be necessary. It's all the menial work, all that hourly work that adds up to revenue in the big law pocketbook, is I think on the margins going to get cut back.

Justin Donald: Well, it's amazing to even think that a team could come in last minute or be reassigned and in four weeks take the type of data that you were talking about, a data dump that is that massive and be able to run with a case. I mean, that's mind-boggling. I mean, that's true disruption right there because in the olden days, you couldn't do that. There are only so many man-hours, right?

Bill Reid: Well, look, the law has really, so if you just look at research, when I was a young lawyer, lawyers went to the library and actually they pulled books off the shelf like I did as a young lawyer. And then this thing came along, there was LexisNexis, and there was Westlaw. And so, the early stages of what is now artificial intelligence were really even available 30 years ago, and automated legal research has now become the standard, where we all use computers and natural language searches and Boolean logic and blah, blah, blah, blah. But that never really was a thing for document management and databases.

And candidly, between that and pleadings drafting and all the motions and all the things that lawyers draft, and I'm only talking about the world of trial and discovery. And you earlier talked about the world of contracts. But like an example of that, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman, had a post on LinkedIn, I want to say a month or two ago. And his post effectively said, and I could be slightly off, but it used to be that a prospectus for a public offering would take lawyers six to eight weeks and all the man-hours associated with it. And he said, "Now, they can do that same work in a couple of hours.” So, just think about what that does to the big law model when, basically, things become highly streamlined.

Justin Donald: Well, and for anyone that's thinking about getting into law, this is important to know what is this new reinvented law program or law industry, right? I mean, you're going to hire less people, but the best people are going to be the ones that get hired. They're actually going to need skills, not just in law, but actually in AI and in research, right? And it's a skillset beyond just learning law.

Bill Reid: I think that's right. I think you're right. And so, here's where I think law school is just falling behind. And here's where the lawyers that fall into the trap of big law salaries and take the job on the theory that they'll just pay their loans back later, they're falling behind because those jobs are not… Well, first of all, the reason why those salaries are so high is because those jobs largely suck, if you ask me. The young lawyers are not getting trained, even though they're told they'll be trained. The only thing that those law firms care about is how many hours these young lawyers bill. So, those lawyers right now are at the worst time to take those jobs because in three to five years, having done nothing and being in an environment where there's no incentive to adopt AI, those lawyers are going to get harmed the most.

Whereas alternative paths exist to go to firms like mine that do success fee work, that will actually be able to take advantage and harness the true power of AI and make themselves more successful and more profitable, I would suggest to you lawyers at those types of firms will advance more quickly, gain the type of experience that they need to live in the world we're about to enter, et cetera.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I think that makes sense. I think it's wise. One of the things that I've noticed in being in your office, you've had me here a number of times, and I've gotten a chance to interact with your staff, interact with other attorneys on the team. You guys have an incredible culture here. People have fun, but they work hard. And this is a totally different setup than what my friends in big law have experienced. And I have a ton of friends that have felt like they've been stuck on the hamster wheel just trying to move up. Eventually, they move up. They hit partner. I mean one friend actually had a real mental breakdown when he was supposed to hit partner, and he did not, and literally like just mentally broke. And then other friends, once they're there, they're just locked and trapped.

But the culture that you have built here is different. And some of this is going to be like some of the fun things that you do, but I would love to hear what you've done to make this such a great place to work. So, like Reid Collins, I walk in here, people are having a great time. You have very personable staff. One of my neighbors is actually one of your top attorneys. And so, I've gotten some inside scoop from him on just what it's like to work here and work with you. And I've just heard from people over the years like how much they have enjoyed working here. So, what is that secret sauce? How do you create the culture that is Reid Collins?

Bill Reid: So, first of all, your neighbor, like me, is a trial lawyer, not an attorney. Second of all, I created this firm. My goal was to create a firm that I wanted to work at as a young lawyer and to cultivate a culture that promoted essentially responsibility, gaining experience, so giving people the autonomy and the responsibility from day one, because frankly, we don't have that. We have 42 lawyers. So, if I was to create a firm in which people were dependent upon folks above them in the hierarchy to get anything done, we'd never get anything done, right? But more importantly, back to the fun factor, there's no reason why you have to be miserable with the people you work with. You can have fun.

But I think part of it starts with the nature of our practice. And so, these are the questions that I ask in my book. What would you rather do with a career that could be 60,000 or 80,000, or 100,000 hours, depending on how many decades you work and how many hours you work a year? Would you rather, and these are accurate questions because they're actually answered in the real world, would you rather have been the lawyer who, even the lead lawyer, even the top lawyer, who defended all the banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and saved these banks from billions of dollars in extra liability by coming up with creative arguments about how to limit their exposure to the plaintiffs that came out of the woodwork?

Or, alternatively, would you rather be one of the lawyers that held those banks accountable? And where would you sit in terms of satisfaction and meaning in your work, years later, reflecting on that sort of work? Those are the sorts of questions that young lawyers, frankly, any young professional ought to be asking themselves. What would make me passionate to go down this path? And if the answer is, yeah, I'd make some money, but it's not going to be super rewarding to say that I represented a bank and saved them some money. That's not necessarily as rewarding, in my opinion, as holding those people accountable. Let's ask a different question.

Same kind of question, all in my book, would you rather be the lawyer that defended the Sacklers and all those other assholes that sold opioids, killed millions of people, and yeah, made billions of dollars and effectively perpetuated their existence and enabled them to sell opioids for years longer than perhaps they should have? Or, would you like to be like my friend, Brad Beckworth, in my book, where I describe what Brad did to hold Johnson & Johnson and Teva, and all these other opioid manufacturers accountable, and effectively do something no governmental entity did or could have done on its own? Brad was one of the lawyers that stood up to these people and ended their conduct.

What would you rather be? Would you rather be Brad Beckworth or one of the lawyers that, yeah, made a lot of money, but in the end did what is objectively wrong and basically defended the unjust. Now, look, those people need lawyers, and I'm not here on my soapbox saying all those people are terrible. I'm just saying young people need to think about what path they would prefer. What would make them more passionate? What are they going to do? And this is the way I think about it, and this is all in my book. Your law license is a lot like a passport, right? And so, you can go to OCI, which is now three to four months into law school on campus interviews, and eventually you're going to get your passport and you can sign up to go to Cancun right now, and they'll give you $225,000 a year to do that.

But my question to young students is, “Why are you going to take your passport and fly to f*cking Cancun when you could go to Rome or Egypt or Nepal? Or Bali? You could go anywhere. So, why choose the one place that no one would really want to go anyway for a starting salary?” Like, think about it, what professional athlete would choose, I know there's drafts, so it's not accurate, but what young professional, in any profession, would choose where to go simply based on their starting salary versus their future earning power, their future satisfaction, the ultimate reward that they would get? These are the sorts of things I want people to think about while reading my book.

Justin Donald: Well, and I think it's important that, I mean, in order to make a good, calculated decision, you've got to think long term. The short-term thinkers are the ones that are taking the instant payday today, “Hey, they're paying me the most today,” or, “Hey, this looks the best on a resume,” versus, "What do I really want? Where will I be most fulfilled? What type of work am I doing? What type of culture am I going to get involved in? What type of leadership is at the top? Who's going to mentor me?” Like, all these questions, all of that.

Bill Reid: So, what I try to explain to students is OCI is largely dominated by big law. No one tells them that. They're just like, "Oh, these employers are coming to campus in a few months. You can get a great job, but why don't you just go check it out? Okay.” But what they don't tell those students is there's no plaintiff's jobs there. And if you want to go get a plaintiff's job, they're a little harder to find. You're going to have to do little work to get them. They may not pay as much money at the outset, but in the end, it might be more rewarding to you. But at the same time, these students need to understand, again, all in my book, what is the motivation behind big law? What is its goal?

And so, I take the example that I explained to students even today about 100 starting lawyers at a big law firm, which by the way, this is not made up. Paul, Weiss hired 184 starting 1L lawyers this past fall. So, the math is easy. Let's start with 100 lawyers billing at $1,000 an hour and the billing targets are generally 2,000 hours a year, maybe more, but the math is all easy at those numbers. That would generate $2 million in revenue per lawyer per year. Then you take 100 of them. That's $200 million. Let's say those poor schlocks stick around for three years. That's 600 million in revenue. Now, let's be generous, and let's say that the average cost per lawyer to the law firm, remember, our starting salaries are now 2.25 plus bonus.

Let's just say all in, it's $500,000, including insurance and healthcare, and desks and whatever else. So, they're going to generate gross margin of $1.5 million a year per lawyer, $150 million per year, or $450 million over three years. Now, can you understand why big law is devoting so much resource to attracting students at OCI? It's not to benefit the students.

Justin Donald: Right. I get it. Yeah. When you actually lay out the numbers, it makes all the sense that you needed to make.

Bill Reid: But no student lays out those numbers, and no law professor asks them to think this way. And I'm not really blaming the law professors, right? It's all again in my book, but top 26 law schools, tenured faculty, on average, 3.7 years of private practice experience. Think about that.

Justin Donald: Wow. So, they don't know.

Bill Reid: But they're really smart people, but I have a premise. I don't have proof of this, right? I acknowledge this in my book, but my premise is that the vast majority of professors at tenured law schools, the really smart ones, the ones that are able to be a professor, just don't enjoy the private practice of big law because they're defending the same corporate assholes that no one wants to represent. So, their alternative would be to maybe retool and go be a plaintiff's lawyer, which, candidly, I'll explain why they don't do that. It's in my book. But they just see, "Well, I'll go be a professor,” and many of them do.

But then ask yourself, "How are they equipped to tell young students about the real world? And what incentives do they have?” Okay. So, here's kind of one of the things we got to talk about. Again, all in my book, but tort reform and the perception of plaintiff's lawyers, right? When I say to you, what do you think of when you think of plaintiff's lawyers? What type of lawyer comes to mind?

Justin Donald: Probably like a hard-nosed, bulldog type of a lawyer.

Bill Reid: A personal injury lawyer on a billboard or on late-night TV asking for all the car wreck people, right? Or truck wreck people. Or you pick a personal injury, right? And that's a twofold problem. And I think plaintiff's lawyers need to blame ourselves for this because there are a lot of like Thomas J. Henrys of the world that are essentially making money off of people's misery, in my view, right? And, look, they're not all bad people, and they're certainly on the side of right, especially if you're talking about a corporate wrongdoer that has like drunk drivers or whatever the story is. But the candid truth is that the best of breed plaintiff's lawyers don't do truck and car cases. They do the sort of work I do. But no one in law school tells students about the sort of work I do.

Justin Donald: Sure.

Bill Reid: Unless of course, they take my class, right? So, that’s part of the reason I wrote my book because when most people think of plaintiff’s lawyers, they think of the guys on late night TV, the 444-4444 guy and all those people, right? But the reality is the best of breed plaintiff’s lawyers are people like Steve Susman who passed away a few years ago who was a billionaire and had a private jet and built one of the best ferns in the country, or Mark Lanier who lives in Houston and is a go-to trial lawyer and made billions upon billions of dollars and has a legion of private jets and all the rest.

So, the thing is, it’s all the question of, then you have to ask yourself why is that perception, the general perception that people hold. And the answer is tort reform. So, starting in the 1980s, asbestos defendants, soon thereafter followed by tobacco defendants, and other large groups of defendants who realized that they were being held accountable, they thought back, but not in an honest thought-out academic way. They just launched their own, what I call my book, Propaganda Campaign, aimed at vilifying plaintiff’s lawyers in the work that we do. I am not here to tell you that every plaintiff’s lawyer is on the side of right. And I’m not here to tell you that I would advocate the path of all plaintiff’s lawyers or that I would hold them up as examples to live by or paths to follow.

But I can tell you that a career in the right plaintiff’s work that, for the right person, right, like I love money laundering and fraud and stuff like that, that may not be interesting to you. You might like technology. I think technology litigation is generally boring. Fighting over patents and things like that, not interested, but that might interest you. And the question for young law students, as I frame it in my book, is find what you’re passionate about and pursue that.

Justin Donald: Yeah, I love it. Well, it reminds me a lot of the message that I have, which is you’re talking about big law and really, the command that they have. They hold the purse strings, so they’re commanding the education, the schools, the colleges, they fall in line. And the same thing happens in the big finance, right, the financial institutions. Wall Street really runs the racket of the education people get or the lack thereof that they get, so that most people are reliant upon them, and so, I love that you’re speaking the truth and sharing this other side of things, which is what I’m always trying to do with investing and for me, it’s like, hey, most people get advice from a financial advisor that’s not even investing the way that they’re advising to invest when the wealthiest people in the world, the single-family offices representing the billionaires are investing completely different. They’re investing in alternative investments with a very small percentage, 15% to 25% in the stock market. That’s it. Generally, sometimes it’s even a lot less than that because they see outsized returns, they have access, they have all these opportunities here that most of the rest of the world doesn’t even see.

And I feel like your industry is very much the same, where there is a story that’s being told. The big corporations control it. There’s a recruiting system in place. The education to get those recruits is very strong. It’s silencing out those that may oppose that big law. And to me, it’s like– and you see it in big food too, right? But you’re also seeing a lot of people waking up. There are also groups that are emerging that are speaking about the unspoken things. And it’s really cool to see

Bill Reid: It is. That whole thing you just described there about, kind of how some people don’t really walk the walk, they kind of sell it to someone else. So, this is an example in my book. So, Goldman Sachs in the 2008 financial crisis had a product called Abacus. And Abacus was basically RMBS. And what they did is they sold the RMBS to get it off their balance sheet, to get rid of it to their own clients, but that wasn’t good enough for them. So, then they figured out how to short that same product that they just sold to their clients. That’s the sort of stuff that gets me fired up. Like, that’s the sort of litigation I love. Corporate wrongdoing at its core.

Justin Donald: So, I’m not sure what we can and can’t get into, but can we get into some of the cases of corporate wrongdoing where you have emerged victorious and because I love the story of the wrongdoing and generally, the wrongdoers with the most money win? In your case, you show up and you do all kinds of work here, and I would love for our audience to hear some of the work that you do.

Bill Reid: So, candidly, the most interesting cases, the ones that I’d love the most to talk about are the same ones that my clients got paid enough money to essentially shut them up in the form of an NDA or confidentiality agreement.

Justin Donald: I figured that was probably the case.

Bill Reid: But I do have a number of examples in my book. So, one of my favorite examples, this is kind of old, but it’s probably the first real contingency fee case I made, and now, it’s like 20 years old. But a guy named Bruce Bakerman came to me and Bruce was a weak man, but he was a Harvard-educated lawyer, friend of David Boies, famous lawyer at Boies, Schiller in New York. And so, he was the general counsel of Sidney Frank Importing Company. And Sidney Frank, who was an eccentric billionaire dude, had given him 10% of a company called Grey Goose Bottling, LLC. And so, the way that the kind of Grey Goose Vodka empire evolved was that the assets that ultimately were sold to Bacardi in 2004 for $2.3 billion back then were the, as the collective assets of two companies, Sidney Frank Importing Company and Grey Goose Bottling.

Now, Sidney Frank Importing Company sold the vast majority of Grey Goose Vodka, but the recipe, the manufacturing facilities in Cognac, France and the distribution rights in, not only France, but growth markets like in Asia and Australia and places like that were owned by Grey Goose Bottling, a Delaware company that Bruce owned 10% of. So, when the management of Sidney Frank Importing Company went to sell to Bacardi, the question soon arose, how to allocate the $2.3 billion between the two entities whose assets were being sold? Okay? Now, the only shareholder who sat on only one side of the equation was Bruce Bakerman. He owned 10% of Grey Goose Bottling, and the people that owned 100% of Sidney Frank Importing owned the remaining 90% of Grey Goose Bottling. I hope you can see where this is going.

So, every dollar allocated to Grey Goose only netted the people in control of this 90 cents, whereas every dollar allocated to Sidney Frank netted them the full dollar. And they really didn’t like Bruce. They resented the fact that Sidney Frank had befriended him and looked favorably upon him enough to give him this asset. So, when it came time to allocate the proceeds, they decided to allocate $19 million to Grey Goose Bottling. Think about that for a second.

Justin Donald: Wow.

Bill Reid: $2.281 billion to Sidney Frank, $19 million to the company with the recipe, the manufacturing facility, the distribution rights and growth markets, which theoretically ought to be more valuable than the mature markets, et cetera. And they kept Bruce in the dark. And they come to him at the end and they’re like, “Okay, Bakerman, we need you to sign a consent to this transaction.” And he’s like, “Okay, well, what’s the allocation?” And they blow their top. They’re like, “Allocation. What do you mean allocation? You’re the general counsel to Sidney Frank Importing Company. You owe a fiduciary duty to us. You can’t ask these questions.” And he’s like, “But wait a minute. I own 10% of this company. I just want to know what’s being allocated?” And they’re like, they go on the hall and they come back in and they go, “Bruce, the bottom line is the allocation’s $19 million.” He goes, “That’s not fair.” They go, “This isn’t about fairness, Bruce. This is about three paths that you get to take and you can choose right now. Option one, we pay you a million dollars. We never look at your ugly mug again. You walk off in the sunset. You sign this consent. Option two, you keep your $300,000 a year job. We pay you 700 grand. You sign this consent. Option three, Bruce, if you don’t choose, one or two will be chosen for you. That option is you are disbarred, locked under the courthouse. We sue you until the cows come home for blocking a multi-billion-dollar transaction as the general counsel to Sidney Frank, and you now have 30 minutes to decide.” And the man who said this to him…

Justin Donald: That is crazy.

Bill Reid: Looked like Mr. Clean, like he’s a big muscle guy. That’ll become relevant in the story in a minute. Like, big muscle guy, not just like, he looked like Mr. Clean from the old Ajax commercial. So, Bruce is like, basically went to Harvard, but he’s like, he’s not a fighter. He’s a weak man. What he should have done is called me then, but he didn’t. So, he’s like, “Well, I need money and I need my job, so I’ll take the 700 grand.” So, he takes the 700 grand and he cashes the check and he puts the money in his bank account and he signs the consent.

Justin Donald: Oh, no.

Bill Reid: Three months later, he goes to my friend John after he went to, I don’t know how many other lawyers who all turned him down, and the idea is obvious. Like, wait, wait, you were paid, like you didn’t have to sign this. You’re a lawyer. You should have known better. You knew what you were signing away wasn’t worth that money. Well, fortunately, under Delaware law, there is a doctrine known as the Doctrine of Entire Fairness that says a self-dealing fiduciary, in other words, like the management of Sidney Frank Importing Company who are making decisions to benefit themselves do not get to rely on consent of the Bruce Bakermans of the world because in that case, the courts are going to look at, hey, if this isn’t fair, we’re not going to allow this to happen, even if there was consent.

Well, long story short, we settled the case confidentially about maybe a year or so later after we beat a motion. And Bruce Bakerman has been retired for the last 20 years, never had to work again, but it was like an intoxicating mixture of justice and making a contingency fee. And I know for a fact that I fought a fight that he could not have fought on his own. And I know also that many other lawyers turned the case down. From that moment forward, for the last 20 years, those are the sorts of opportunities to represent people that I relish.

Justin Donald: Well, and it has to feel so good. So, not only is your work, it’s satisfying from the standpoint of you’re really good at your job, right? You’re great. You’re world class at what you do. But the other side is like, you are doing such good work in the world, and then how nicely that it actually pairs up with as an entrepreneur because you’re a trial lawyer, but you’re actually an entrepreneur. Maybe an entrepreneur first, trial lawyer second, you’ve built an unbelievable business that continues to grow every single year and you live the most epic life doing the coolest stuff while having tremendous impact the entire time. It’s really quite remarkable.

Bill Reid: Well, thanks for saying that. I would say this, I am very fortunate. I have never put making money first in my life and I really feel as though, I mean, I have a lot of friends as you know, a lot of our mutual friends. I don’t know anyone whose work-life balance is more enviable than mine. In other words, I prioritize my life from the standpoint of I love what I do, I don’t even think of it as work, but I am able to leave it and then go home, be with my family and my friends and enjoy my life. And I think that all too many professionals get sucked up in the notion of, well, I made my first X dollars, I got to make Y more.

And I’ve had this kind of discussion with some friends of ours who are very successful financially. And my question kind of goes along the lines of like, well, what good is another X dollars going to really do you? Is that going to…

Justin Donald: What more are you going to get?

Bill Reid: Is that going to change your standard?

Justin Donald: You’re already up here.

Bill Reid: Are you going to drive a different car? Are you going to live in a different house? Are you going to move out of Austin? You know what I mean? Like, those are the sorts of questions that I don’t care if you’re a lawyer or a banker or whatever, you need to ask yourself those questions.

Justin Donald: Well, it’s almost like because you haven’t put money first, you’ve been able to do well with it. Like, you focus on what your passion is, and then you’ve also put boundaries around when you will and won’t work. And this is one of the big things I love talking about is how do you create a life by design? So, don’t fall into life by default. That’s what almost everyone does, is a life by default. And then it’s just like putting out fires and going from meeting to meeting versus intentionally saying, hey, I want to do this with my time. I want to spend– here’s my date day with my wife. Here’s my date day with my kids. Here’s my time with friends. For me, personally, I like to take Fridays off completely and just, I haven’t worked Friday in a long time. And often, I don’t schedule anything on Monday, right? And I try to have a Tuesday to Thursday scheduled, but that feels good to me. And I don’t like doing work too much in the morning. I like taking care of, working out and doing some hobbies and reading and all those sorts of things.

And I love that you live that life, but you’re actually showing that you can do it while being successful at what you do still, right? So, it’s not an “if/or,” it’s an “and” type of equation. And I think you’ve modeled that really well. And I think you live life to the fullest. Like, I’ve hung out with you a ton of times. You throw the best parties. In fact, let me just brag on you here for a second because I went to your home for what I think is one of the best, if not the single best house party I’ve ever been to. You throw a big Formula 1 party every year. You have your big annual event with your company that you invite all your friends to, and then you have this huge affair at your home with what I often describe to my friends is the greatest lineup of wine that I’ve ever seen served at an event. And I was just blown away. And I hope you keep doing that because people can see you’re living life and you’re attracting all these other amazing people into your ecosystem.

Bill Reid: Well, let’s touch on, so thank you for saying all that, but let’s touch on two things. First of all, when I formed this firm in 2009, and I would say the same is true today, I don’t think there’s a national boutique law firm in Austin, Texas. I literally chose and prioritized where I wanted to live first and then made my work life fall into line. And I had some luck for sure, but I was entrepreneurial in the sense of creating a firm that does some unique things, like suing law firms and taking on the bullies of the world, et cetera. We’re not the only law firm that does what we do, but we are…

Justin Donald: But it’s scary work, like you actually have to be very bold to enter that equation, I think.

Bill Reid: You call it scary, I call it interesting, right?

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, for those that don’t have the courage, I think most people are going to shy away from doing that.

Bill Reid: Well, lawyers are generally risk-averse people, right? They want the guarantee of the steady paycheck. I find that boring. It’s not even interesting to me. Okay, but let’s talk about something different. And this is just a general philosophy of life and business, right? So, I don’t really separate in my life, like that’s a friend and that’s a business relationship. To me, once you’re my friend, you’re my friend. Like, I don’t think of you as a business friend versus a regular friend, like you’re just my friend. So, that’s kind of a general just approach to life that I have.

But the other thing is like, I see people make dumb business decisions all the time in the sense that no one gives a f*ck about the artwork on your wall or whether you have some expensive lamp on your desk or the car you drive or all that bullshit, right? But people remember, if you take them to dinner and you buy them a nice bottle of wine or you invite them to your house and you’re like, I don’t care, drink any bottle of wine you want. Like, my philosophy about wine is the same philosophy I have. What’s mine– my dad was a Trappist monk. I grew up very low over middle class, right? So, I have things in my life that I never dreamed I would have, and I don’t know if it comes from my dad or just the way I approach life, but I feel obligated to share those with my friends in the sense that I don’t feel like I deserve many of the things I have, but more importantly, that is enjoyable to me. Like, opening a cool bottle of wine by myself, I wouldn’t even think of doing anyway. Like, what would be the point?

Justin Donald: Ruins the moment.

Bill Reid: Wine is something you enjoy with your friends. And so, maybe you might argue I go a little overboard with it, but I enjoy doing that.

Justin Donald: A little.

Bill Reid: It’s fun.

Justin Donald: Well, I love that. And actually, you bring up a really good point with that because you’ve created a raving fan out of me. Whenever I talk to people and someone’s into wine, I’m always referencing back to you, and I’m like, one of the best wine collections, between you and Tom Meredith, you have the two biggest and most impressive wine collections I’ve seen. And so, your generosity with it leaves this positive wake. And so, I have very warm emotions whenever I hear your name or I see you, and I’m able to communicate that to other people.

So, it is interesting how some people would selfishly not do that to keep it or it’s mine, but the mere fact that you are so inclusive and welcoming of whoever it is, even people that you aren’t that close with it’s like, what’s mine is yours, come share. I think you attract this incredible ecosystem of people with all kinds of special talents and gifts and you just have to have built some amazing friendships through that model.

Bill Reid: Well, can I just say that we are fortunate to live in Austin, Texas because…

Justin Donald: We are.

Bill Reid: Austin really attracts the sort of person that would want to be part of groups like we’re describing.

Justin Donald: Yeah.

Bill Reid: Like, our friends are– I mean, in general, people come– there’s an authenticity to Austin. People come here to be who they are. They don’t come here to pretend. And I don’t want to disparage any place in particular, but I would say San Francisco, the Bay Area, New York, those are cities people go to to play the game. I think people come to Austin to be themselves and I think it naturally attracts the sort of people we’re talking about.

Justin Donald: Yeah, I think you’re so right. Something we have to talk about, this is totally off topic. All right, but the last time we hung out, we kind of geeked out on this. And I know you know a lot in this space of health, wellness, and longevity. So, you’ve done a lot of work with stem cells, you’ve done a lot of work with plasma exchange. I’d love for you to just riff on this for a little bit because you’re doing some things that are just incredible and because of hearing and learning about some of this, I’m entering into the equation and doing and trying a lot of these different modalities.

Bill Reid: So, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

Justin Donald: Well, we got about five minutes. Let’s dig into it.

Bill Reid: Well, I’ve been dealing with back issues now for the better part of 15 years. And so, I’ve done and tried virtually everything you can imagine to combat, call it joint or back or spine issues. And I think that I haven’t figured it all out because I think it’s a journey as you’ve said. But the two most recent things are the ones you mentioned. So, I did full body stem cells 15 months ago, and I really felt like it made a huge difference. Now, my mom who’s a lifelong nurse practitioner, she’s like, it could be the placebo effect. And that’s possible.

But I just literally, nine days ago, went and did full body again and I doubled up on the dose. And they’d never done this much dose before. They’re like, we’re not really sure that it makes any difference to go double. And I’m like, I don’t care, I’m doing it anyway. So, I’ve done that. And then, but more importantly, the therapeutic plasma exchange, that could be a real game changer for a lot of people. So, based on what I’ve read, I think statins enhance your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s and brain-related decline.

Justin Donald: Which is good to know because you have here so many health professionals recommending statins.

Bill Reid: I’m afraid of them.

Justin Donald: It’s crazy.

Bill Reid: I think it’s one of the most, if not the most prescribed drug in America. It’s just nuts. So, I have refused the statin gravy train. I don’t think there’s any proven research that just lowering your cholesterol in isolation makes any difference, whatsoever. Anyway, so this has been going on for a while. Ever since I read the book Good Calories, Bad Calories, and I can’t even tell you all the details why I was convinced after reading that book in 2011 or 2012, that statins were bad and that being a Paleo guy, which I’ve been ever since, is good.

Justin Donald: And for those of you that are listening and not watching, Bill is in incredible shape. How old are you?

Bill Reid: 58.

Justin Donald: 58. Incredible shape.

Bill Reid: Well, you look like you’re in better shape than me, but you know.

Justin Donald: Well, I’m working hard at it too.

Bill Reid: Okay, but the therapeutic plasma exchange, and this is crazy, but I took my overall cholesterol from 250 to 180 with therapeutic plasma exchange. So, what they do is they take your blood.

Justin Donald: That’s incredible.

Bill Reid: And they put it in some dialysis machine and they separate the blood from the plasma. They throw out the plasma and they replace it with something called albumin, which is like, I would use the term pasteurized, but that means heating it up, I don’t think it’s heated up. But albumin comes from somebody else’s plasma and it’s cleansed. We all carry microplastics and all kinds of other toxins in our blood. Now, they can’t get rid– I don’t know why, they don’t get rid of your blood. They just get rid of the plasma. All I can tell you is that it took my cholesterol down to crazy numbers.

Justin Donald: That’s incredible.

Bill Reid: Now, the cautionary tale is, it’s not cheap, right? It was very expensive, like $8,000 for one treatment. But to me, I would be willing to pay that quarterly to not take a statin.

Justin Donald: Sure. Well, and that’s the other thing, it’s like, I hang out with a lot of people that do well and they have a hard time spending their money on these things. And I’m always reminding them, why do you, like, what greater purpose is there between, for like the wealth that you’ve created, family, friends, experiences, health, like that’s where you spend it.

Bill Reid: You want to laugh? So, I’m on a first class or business class flight. This is like, I want to say three, four, or five years ago, I can’t remember. But this older woman sits down and she’s very well dressed and clearly elegant, and she sits down and I say, “Hello, how are you doing today?” She says, “Hello.” Right off the bat, she goes, “You know why I’m sitting here?” And I go, “Because that’s where your ticket says?” And she goes, “No, no, no, I’m sitting in business class. Do you know why I’m sitting in business class?” I go, “No.” She goes, “Well, because if I didn’t spend the money, then my kids would years later. So, I’m spending the money on me.” And I go, “I love it.”

Justin Donald: That’s great.

Bill Reid: That’s perfect.

Justin Donald: That’s so great. Well, you got to pick what matters, right? And work hard, make good income, but then spend it on the things that really matter. Don’t save up for some day. I mean, save some of it for some day, but what about utility today? What about living your best life today, life by design?

Bill Reid: Amen.

Justin Donald: So, where can people learn more about you, Bill, and more about Reid Collins?

Bill Reid: Well, so I thought we’re here to talk about my book, but my web– like just William T. Reid, IV is my name, R-E-I-D. My book Fighting Bullies is available on Amazon starting Tuesday, September 23rd. I have an audiobook that I did myself.

Justin Donald: Nice job.

Bill Reid: My friend Tucker Max did the intro. You may or may not know, but he was a lawyer for three weeks after he went to Duke Law School.

Justin Donald: I did actually know his story. Keep going with it though.

Bill Reid: And his foreword is kind of funny because he’s like, “Look, if I read this book, I might still be a lawyer.” But my law firm is Reid Collins, and you can find us on the internet or wherever.

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. Well, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Besides being a wealth of knowledge, you are a great storyteller, and I’m excited for your book. For those of you that want just some insight on what law really should look like, please pick up a copy of this. And then just as my own testimonial, I can’t even begin to say how important lawyers, trial lawyers, contract attorneys, like you name it, have been in my career with different businesses, with different– I mean, both good and bad, I mean, good situations, people coming at me. I couldn’t even imagine a world where I didn’t have attorneys. I mean, I probably have 14 or 15 different attorneys that I have worked with in the last number of years. You can call that good, you can call that bad, but they’ve really helped me out in many ways over the years. So, I love what you’re doing and I love the message that you’re getting out in the world for those coming up, like, to really build a cool, epic life based on what they want.

Bill Reid: So, I don’t want to oversell it, but I have a number of friends who are not lawyers who read my book simply because they’re my friend, who’ve told me that the message actually transcends just being a lawyer. Like, there's a good message in there for young people about just following your passion, whether or not you want to be a lawyer.

Justin Donald: Well, and we need more of that. So, that is awesome. So, go to Amazon, buy a copy of this book. I’m so excited. We’re timing this launch with when the book actually launches. So, this podcast is dropping like right now when the book is launching, so…

Bill Reid: Perfect.

Justin Donald: Thanks so much for being on the show, and I like to end every episode that we do with a question for our audience. So, my question is the same every week, but what is one thing you can do, what is one move you can make, one action step you can take to move towards financial freedom and really move towards living the life that you desire on your terms? So, not a life by default, but a life by design. And what’s one thing that you can take from Bill today that you can put into action for your life? Thanks, and we’ll catch you next week.