Business Innovators Radio - Will Forero- Personal Injury Attorney- Bronx, NY

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

How To Enhance Client Experience And Succeed In Personal Injury LawIn this episode, host Marco talks with Will Forero, a personal injury lawyer, about his journey to becoming an attorney and the lessons he has learned along the way. Will shares how he got into law after wrestling in college, and how he landed a job at Pryor Law, his current firm.Will discusses how he prioritizes meeting clients in person or on video calls for a more personal connection, and offers flexibility in meeting location and method to suit clients’ needs and preferences. He also shares how his firm handles various types of accidents, including motor vehicle accidents, childhood sexual abuse, and construction site injuries, and how they have referral partners for niche cases like medical malpractice.The conversation also covers Will’s thoughts on networking and promotion, including his podcast The Bronx Attorney Broadcast and attending events such as the Bronx Chamber of Commerce and BNI. Will shares his ideas on how to improve the client experience through the use of technology such as automated email updates and partnering with medical providers who document treatments effectively.Will reflects on the importance of continuous improvement in the legal profession and shares his thoughts on how to succeed in personal injury law, from honing trial skills to attend networking events and training sessions earlier in one’s career.Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the personal injury law field, as well as practical tips on how to enhance the client experience and succeed in their legal careers.Tune in to this episode of Business Innovators for a fascinating conversation on personal injury law and how to provide outstanding client service.Website: https://bronxattorneylaw.com/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/will-forero-personal-injury-attorney-bronx-ny

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. And welcome back to another episode of Business Innovators Radio. I am your host, Marco Salinas, and I've got a very cool guest with me here today. It's always exciting when I have the opportunity to talk with one of my favorite, industries out there, which is the legal world. And I have a very bright young attorney with me. His name is Mr. Will Ferreiro. And Will works for the prior law firm in the Bronx. Is that right? Yeah. In the Bronx, New York. Will, welcome to the program. Hey, Margo. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today. That is great, my friend. And I have some questions lined up for you. And I want to get to know you a little bit better.

And really what I like to do with these interviews, Will, is I always like to know people's backstory. I think what's so awesome about every person that I bring on business innovators is that everybody's backstory is a little bit different. Everyone has a little bit of a different journey and a different story to tell all about, you know, the things that happened before they got to the place that they are today. Like I mentioned a moment ago, you are an attorney and your focus is primarily on personal injury. So we call that PI. And again, as we were just talking right before we got started, really what you're doing is you're trying to help people that have had significant injuries to find, you know, in a sense, justice, number one, you know, peace of mind based on all

that they've gone through with their circumstances as well as, let's not lie, this is probably one of the biggest ones of all, compensation, right? Right. Yeah. all a big deal because when you've been hurt, when you've been injured, you know, a lot of times it leaves you in a place where you're not able to work maybe as well as you did before. And in certain cases, some people can't work at all. And so people, again, I think people want justice for whatever it was that happened to them. They need help and they need to make sure that they get

what they deserve based on, you know, that situation. And so we're going to dive a little bit more into that. But before we go that route, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions again about your earlier journey and how you got to where you were. And so my, I think my first place that I like to start is this, Will. So when you were growing up and when you were younger, did you know that you wanted to be an attorney? Was that something that was, you know, part of your upbringing? Did you already have a family member that was in that world? Was that something that was way out of left field? So like, you know, tell me a little bit about how that came about. and tell us about, you know, how you found yourself as an attorney and specifically a

PI attorney. Yeah. So I definitely did not always want to be an attorney. I struggled with, you know, when I was later in high school and I was thinking about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and college. And, you know, I really wasn't sure. I didn't see myself as somebody who could sit behind a desk for eight hours a day and type away at the computer. And I do do that sometimes now, but there's also other components to it as

well. And, you know, when it came time to apply to colleges, I told my parents, I'm like, I don't want to go to college. I don't want to do any more school. I was so dumb with school. I didn't really even like school in high school. There were certain classes I liked, but overall, I didn't like going to, you know, nine classes a day and being taught different things and take your notebook out, put your notebook away. you know, it was, you know, I liked my extracurriculars better. And my mom said to me, she said, well, if you can wrestle in college, would you go to college? I said, if I could wrestle in college, yeah, then I would go. So we start looking at Division III wrestling schools. And I decided maybe criminal justice was something that I would be

interested in. So I filled out the questionnaires and whatever you had to do, on the online system for, you know, to be able to be recruited. And really only one school actively recruited me. And that was York College of Pennsylvania. So, so that's where I went. I went and I visited. I said, this place looks nice. They want me on the wrestling team here. And, you know, let's do it. And now, you know, I only wrestled for a year there. And after that, I, you know, got into other stuff that I was more interested in. And, you know, I didn't have that passion for wrestling anymore after that. Yeah. So I graduated and then, you know, here I was back again thinking, you know, okay, now I've got the degree, the criminal justice degree, what am I going to do with the

rest of my life now? And I had interned in the district attorney's office in York, Pennsylvania. And I said, you know what? That was, that was pretty interesting. The legal field might be something that is more appealing to me than a probation officer or corrections or policing. So, you know, I got a paralegal certificate and I started looking for, you know, law firms that were trying to hire a power legal. I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to go quite yet. But I applied to a couple places. I got a job offered at an immigration firm, you know, helping business people go to their, you know, trips to China or London or whatever. And then another job that was offered to me was in an infant lead paint poisoning law firm.

Well, that was the department they were hiring for. They did other stuff as well. And I found that to be really interesting. It was, they took cases where there was negligent landlords who, even though they had all this notice that they had lead paint. And lead paint can be safe if it's sealed behind, you know, fresh coats of paint. But if it's becoming dilapidated and those paint chips are chipping off and they're in places where children could be reaching out. and touching them or it's flaking and the powder's in the air and it can be inhaled, then it could cause learning disabilities, essentially.

And I, that's kind of where I got that love for doing the personal injury work. Okay. And so I was doing that for about a year. I said, okay, let me, let me think about law school. and I actually had, you know, some attorneys that I worked with who for the first time, I kind of was engaging with attorneys that were doing something that I wanted to be doing and were kind of, you know, it wasn't like the older stuffy attorney who isn't any fun. Like these guys were cool and they were fun and they, you know, there are people that I could see myself in.

Yeah. And said, all right, you know, I never really, you know, saw myself being an attorney, but I think I'm kind of like these guys. And, you know, I, I think I'd like to give it a shot. And so I applied to a number of law schools. I got a full ride at St. John's. So that was like no brainer, done deal. Wow. Go. And, you know, did my three years there. I actually, for the first time of my life, I actually enjoyed school. Wow. And. I think that was because I was learning things that I wanted to learn so that I could become the person that I wanted to be and have the career that I wanted. Sure. And then when law school was wrapping up, my current boss, Ted Pryor, was advertising for a first year associate at Pryor Law. And, you know, I applied for the position. I drove up to City Island in the Bronx where I had never been before.

I didn't even, I don't even think I knew it existed at that point. But I went for the job interview. I think we hit it off. And, you know, I've been working there ever since. Very cool. Very cool. And so where did you actually grow up, Will? I grew up in Mineola on Long Island.

Okay, all right. So you're definitely still in the New York area. You just hadn't done a whole lot yet in the Bronx. Right, right. Okay. Yeah, I'm only about half an hour from home if you hit the traffic right. Okay, gotcha, got you. But distance-wise, it's not far, but it's kind of a, is it kind of a different world where you're at there compared to, like, maybe where you grew up, or are there a lot of similarities?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, people, people from Long Island, when they start working in Manhattan, they might move to Brooklyn or Queens, but not a lot of people moving north to the Bronx. So that was definitely a unique situation. Got you. And now you're just pretty much a resident of the Bronx as well. You also live in one of the world. Yep. Very, very cool.

On an island that's about a mile and a half long. Right. Isn't that something? That is wild. Now, here's something that I like to pull out a little bit. So, you know, you mentioned earlier that when you were in school, it was kind of one of those things we were like, yeah, I'm done, man. Like, get me out of here. I'm ready to graduate.

You know, what kind of a student, I guess, were you, let's just say like in middle school and high school, were you a all-a's type of kid where you kind of a little bit of a rebel like where did you fall in in in in terms of that in those years because it's very different you've made it very clear if you're really engaged and it's something you love to do obviously you can you're really good at it but i understand and i can relate to like just being forced to be in public school or whatever and you're like maybe around people that are also not in the not not the best at bringing the best out of you education wise so like what was that experience like for you when you were in school Yeah, for the classes that I was, I was passionate about, maybe we were in an elective or an English class that I really liked.

And I was, you know, I could get, I could get A's in those classes. But when it came to the classes that, you know, I wasn't too crazy about, I was kind of just like, you know, how could I do enough work to, to catch a B here? You know, and, and college was, was like that to a certain extent as well. but it wasn't until law school that I started, you know, regularly getting A's. And I got put it on the dean's list for the first time in my life when, uh, when I was in my second year of law school.

Very cool. Yeah. So again, it's just a big difference between when we're engaged in something that we really believe in and, and we really, uh, you know, want to be a part of versus just kind of like, well,

we just got to kind of scratch this off the list and get it over with kind of a thing, right? Big difference there. For sure. So then what was the, what was the reaction that you received from your family members will like when you told your mother for example or your father you know your closest family member whoever that might be or even your friends for that matter hey you know what i think i'm going to go ahead and be a lawyer

i'm going to go to law school what kind of a response did you get yeah different responses from different people i guess you know my cousin had actually graduated from st john's as well but you know she wasn't in the same types of fields that i um i wanted to be in so it wasn't like it was a direct, you know, following in her footsteps or anything like that. Sure. Sure. You know, my mom was happy for me. She wanted to see me, you know, do something that I wanted to do. And my dad was super worried about money. He's like, law school is expensive. You better keep that, keep that scholarship. But, you know, generally everybody was was happy for me. And, but I don't think

anybody really, like, expected it other than, you know, the few, you know, my mom and dad that knew that I was, I was a paralegal because I was thinking about law school. Sure. Got you. Got you. So go back to the beginning of your time period when you just got hired with the prior law firm. And what were your first experiences like working for them?

Were there any cases that you came across early on that kind of hit you hard or maybe a second thought about something or maybe the opposite? Maybe we're like, you know what? I'm right exactly. where I need to be. Like, are there any things that kind of stood out to you in the early start of your beginning career as a PI attorney? Yeah, I think kind of the most shocking thing when you finally become an attorney,

especially an attorney who's in the courtroom or might be, you know, drafting documents that the clients are coming in to sign and you're the one who's, who's client facing, you're kind of, have this shocking moment where you're like, wow, I didn't really get taught. how to do certain things in law school, right? Like, you know, we take an estates class yet. We never drafted a will for anybody. We never drafted a trust. We just read case law about what the law is about these certain things.

So that's shocking, right? And then another component is when the first time that you go to court and you go to court and you might have the easiest conference to do in the world, the opposing counsel is very agreeable. You just got to pick some dates. but it is, you know, it is a kind of a culture shock to walk into the courtroom with all these other attorneys and they're all experienced and they know exactly what to do. And you're walking in and you're like, I don't know where to stand. I don't know where I'm allowed to sit. I don't know who I'm supposed to

talk to. I don't know how I'm supposed to find the other person that I'm supposed to work out my, my court order stipulation with. So that's, you know, it's like, it's a huge learning curve going from student who reads and takes notes and then gets tested on hypothetical situations to all the other non-legal components that, you know, go into being a lawyer. Sure. But I will say that one of the first trials that we had was super exciting. And, you know, it was a side swipe case where our client was the passenger inside of a vehicle and the defendant did not take any responsibility at all for the accident.

They said it was completely the other person's fault. And from their deposition transcripts, we could tell that that wasn't quite the case. There was, you know, things that they should have done to avoid the collision and to avoid, you know, the other vehicle that they collided with and different ways that they should have been driving but weren't. And so we had to establish that. And the defendants were, and their attorneys were super confident that we were going to get a complete defense verdict on that case. And we ended up getting, I think it was like $150,000 for our client. So that was like a super cool win that kind of, you know, you get that adrenaline from being in the courtroom and hearing the jury come back with an award for your client.

And that's the kind of high that you want to keep chasing, right? Yeah, 100% yeah, absolutely. Now, I know you're still relatively, you know, young and new to your, you know, your industry and as a lawyer. But one of the things that I do like to talk about is overcoming failure. I mean, we've all had some type of setback. We've all had some sort of difficulties that we've experienced along the journey. Are there any that you can say that you've, anything like that that you've experienced? I mean, it can even be just in the, in going to school or, in the education process that, you know, big hurdles or anything that you might have had to overcome that you feel like are, you know, maybe shaping who the person that you are today, you know, so far in your, in your legal journey. I don't know if there's huge, you know, mistakes or or our hurdles that were overcome, you know, but I will say that there's, every time you do something, if you're an attorney that wants to keep getting better, I feel like every time you do something, you look back on it and you say, oh, I should have done a little something a little bit

differently. I should have done something a little bit more. And, you know, you have those thoughts. And sometimes it turns out that the job that you did was fine, right? And, you know, I had that experience where I did my first deposition and I had been defending a deposition, but I'd never been the one actually taking a deposition before. And my first deposition I took, it was only like 25 minutes. And a lot of people do two hour, three hour depositions on a motor vehicle accident. And, you know, I was like, I think that's my last question. And we ended it. And I was like, oh, man, like that was so short.

I feel like I should have gotten more information. You know, I could have done a better job. But as it turned out, you know, it probably was true that I could have done a better job. Definitely true. But the questions I did ask and the answers that I did get, what were sufficient to get the defense to accept liability for the case. Gotcha. So it was like, I was like, whoof, I kind of got away with one there.

You know, the questions that I did ask were good enough to get a job done. Right. And, you know, from that experience, I was like, okay, now I've got to be a little bit more prepared next time. Sure. I got to be prepared to do followups when, you know, you get a question. So it's a little bit different than maybe what you expected. Yeah, but you still kind of hit that minimum effective dose, right? You did what needed to be done to get it done.

And maybe when you were doing it, you didn't realize that. But afterwards, you realize, hey, you know, this was a sufficient setup here. As well, I think what you were saying earlier did probably tie in to that question, Will, as far as like, you know, you go into court. It's new to you. You don't even really know the routine yet. it's all, you know, you're figuring it out on the fly. And obviously in those type of scenarios, you're going to do something wrong. You're going to stand in the wrong place or say the wrong thing.

And maybe upset some of the more senior attorneys that are in there that do this, have been doing this for 20 years or what have you, right? And so, and sometimes those people won't hesitate to let you know that, like, we know that you're new. So, you know, it's just kind of part of that, kind of that process of coming in when you're new. But then you get through that, you overcome it. And then before you know it, you're the guy that's standing there, seeing the new kid come in and shaking your head at him. So it goes, I'm sure it goes fast. But, yeah, I think that's definitely part of all of that.

Learning as you go and adjusting quickly and just trying to kind of, you know, figure things out on the fly. That's what we have to do sometimes. You know, it is what it is. It's part of the process. Now, Will. Tell me a little bit about your practice, a little bit about what you're doing, exactly what you're doing right now. as well as maybe you can talk a little bit about, obviously, you know, the people that you're trying to help, the problems that you're trying to solve. And then maybe we can even pull out a little bit of, you know, what type of industries would be a good referral source for you as well.

Yeah. Yeah. So we handle all sorts of accidents. Everything from your typical motor vehicle accident, you were rear-ended on the highway to, you know, more complicated, matters like, you know, childhood sexual abuse, which, you know, was, there was a period of time where you could revive claims that had previously expired under the Child Victim Act in New York. We have a couple of those cases. You know, we'll take cases that fall under the New York labor law where you're working on a construction site and you're injured doing a variety of different things. There's different laws that apply. If you're on a ladder, if you're hit by something, that's falling if you're working in this capacity, that capacity. You know, there's laws that are in place to help you recover if you were injured in a nursing home.

So there's, there's more complex matters that we handle aside from just the typical, you know, the supermarket left a, you know, left the water out on the floor without the sign for too long and you slipped and fell. I see. Or rear-ended, whatever. Yep. you know, there are certain things that are so niche that we will refer those out. We have a lot of, you know, referral partners that are really dialed into those niche things.

You know, maybe it's a failure to diagnose cancer. And because of that, you know, it progressed to a stage where it was much worse than it could have been if it was addressed earlier on. You know, we have people that we refer stuff like that to all sorts of medical malpractice, surgeries that have, you know, gone wrong. We have people that are, you know, are more equipped to handle those things. We'll refer them, you know, those types of cases. Sure. But for the most part, it's pretty much any, any type of accident that occurs we could help you with.

And, you know, being a younger attorney, right? I'm always looking for ways to enhance the client experience that maybe other law firms aren't doing, maybe working with other types of people that, you know, other people haven't thought about yet. You know, I just started working with a company that is really good at finding the best personal injury attorney. I mean, not attorney, a medical provider for the attorney. Okay. And I've been finding a lot of success with that because if you get the best medical care in the world, but the documentation, the records that you request doesn't adequately reflect the treatment that was provided or it's not, it doesn't take into consideration what the current law is regarding those injuries and treatment and prognosis and diagnoses, then it's not as strong.

it's not as helpful. It's not going to lead to the best recovery. So to have somebody that really takes those things into consideration when they're drafting their records and they're, you know, that could really be helpful. And there's also just a bunch of different ways through tech that we can, you know, enhance a client experience. Like I'm always thinking about, you know, what could we do to, you know, should we be, you know, having a program. that automatically sends, you know, emails out when certain steps are taken. Sure.

In the process, you know, I, I don't have the experience to, to, or the knowledge of coding to get that done yet, but, you know, something I think about. Sure. And as far as, you know, the ideal client for a long time, I, I thought that our ideal client was somebody who is, you know, horrifically injured and had all these, you know, expenses and pain and suffering that, that, you know, that, you. you could help them recover on. But really our ideal client, uh, as a personal injury attorney is people who are facing injured people on a daily basis multiple times a day. So the chiropractor, the physical

therapist that might have, you know, maybe their office is right by the train station and people who are getting home from work are, you know, they're like, I'm going to hit that physical therapy office, you know, right away because it's close to the train and they see a million people and they might have five, ten people that walk, new clients walk in every week or month or whatever that, you know, have had this experience and aren't equipped to, with the knowledge of what a personal injury attorney can do for them and that chiropractor, physical therapist, whoever can say, you know, did you hire an attorney to help you with this yet? And they're like, no, what do you mean? He's like, oh, well, why don't you talk to my friend Will?

he's he's pretty good yeah and you know because a lot of times you people get hurt and their first their first thought isn't you know i'm going to get i got i got to find a way to get paid on this right their first is you know oh i got to call my boss i can't go to work tomorrow what am i going to do now i don't have a car anymore right i got to deal with insurance company is the insurance company going to give me enough money to fix my car what if my car is totaled there's there's all these things that going through your head when you're when you're in an accident you know especially people with young kids right like what if you have a young kid and you're now you have a broken arm because of a car accident and you have to care for your kid with with one arm you know it's there's so many things

that go through people's minds before they're thinking you know I need an attorney to help me facilitate this yeah that you know it could be really helpful when you know when somebody is able to you know help that person for you help that person for you help that get to you so that you can help them. Definitely. Yeah. So we're a few years beyond the, the whole craziness of COVID. It's 23. You're in New York. You're in the Bronx. What does a law firm look like, especially one with a young lawyer like yourself? As far as the interaction with the, with the actual client, are they, are these people walking into the place? Do you guys still handle a lot of things virtually or over the phone and email.

You know, maybe you can just talk a little bit about what the process looks like right now and how you guys kind of go about that. Yeah. So I offer to my clients whatever makes them, you know, feel most comfortable. I definitely like to see people. I think that that helps when you are either face to face or you're on a video call like this and you get to see people's mannerisms and it's a more personal connection than just on the phone.

So I do try to get people on the Zoom if they're not able to see me face to face. But, you know, I'd say, do you want to come into the office? Do you want to do a Zoom? Do you want me to come to you? I'll come at your kitchen table and go through our sign-up paperwork with you. I'll meet you at Starbucks. Whatever is more comfortable for you. And, you know, it's a saturated market, right?

So you got to be able to, you know, kind of bend yourself to what the client's needs are. Otherwise, there's going to be another personal injury law firm that's, willing to do that. Yeah. So, you know, and we have made it so that, you know, I, I have a client that I've been litigating her case for three plus years. I've never met her. We've been doing it completely remote. If we need a wet signature on something, we mail her the, uh, the document in a, with an envelope so she can just pop it right back in the, in the mailbox, you know, the next day. Yep. And then there's clients that want to come in, you know, every single time that something happens and they want to sit there with you while they read whatever documented is and needs to be filed on their behalf.

And that's perfectly fine too. And we'll make that available to them as well. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So you guys are just super flexible. But you, but there is a, there is an actual office. There's a law firm that people can come to if they want to. Yeah. Yep. That is possible. Right in the middle of City Island Avenue. You know, we have a conference room, four offices, some cubicles. We still got the brick and mortar. I don't think that will ever go away. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Certain fields of law, it's definitely a little bit more important than others. But, you know, a lot of these issues are pretty heavy. You know, they're pretty dense. And a lot of times having that FaceTime, I think, especially when you're dealing with somebody that is a little bit older, obviously that's going to be more important to them. The younger crowd is just used to doing things virtually. So probably a little more flexible on that. But it's good that you guys kind of have your base is covered, you know, in all regards.

Will, is there anything that you guys are doing right now to get in front of those potential referral sources? You know, what do you do to cultivate those relationships with somebody that would be a great, you know, lead source for lack of a bit? a better term for you, like a Cairo or somebody in the medical field that is always in front of people that may have, you know, the right type of injuries that would be good to refer your way. Just talking about it all the time, right? Like, you know, this year, especially what I started doing was I started podcasting. I have a podcast called The Bronx Attorney Broadcast. We're going to get your episode out, you know, pretty soon. Awesome. And, you know, that's helped me to kind of connect with professionals in the space who, you know, might not otherwise, you know, want to sit down and chat with me for 45 minutes for no reason, right? But when you're off of them, you know, this is going to be a platform for you to talk about yourself and how great you are and I'm going to publish it. I'm going to do all the work. All you got to do is, you know, answer my questions. Then people are like, great. And you make a personal relationship that way. And, you know, I'm doing that. And then I'm also doing the, you know, the going out and going to the in-person networking.

events and, you know, I'm going to the Bronx Chamber of Commerce. I'm doing BNI. And every time somebody at BNI, you know, has another event, I'm going to one of those and just passing out a million cards and telling everybody, you know, kind of what's what makes you unique and the type of people that would be great referral sources for you. And then also, you know, keeping your ear to the ground when something else comes up. And it's not, you know, it might not be your area of law. It might not be legal at all. It might be, you know, somebody comes in and they're saying, you know, I'm looking for some new advertising, you know, tactics to take. And you're like, okay, that's great. I don't do that. But I do know Marco. And Marco does that. And I think he's great. So I think you would have a great, you know,

experience with him. You should try that out. And then they're like, oh, wow, that was such a great connection. I got to make sure that I'm looking out for Will too, right? Definitely. So it's, it's, those are the two main things that, you know, I really started this year. I've really been focusing on. And it's starting to trickle in a little bit. And now I'm hoping that it really starts to snowball, you know, two, three, four years from now. Definitely, man. Yeah.

All that seed throwing stuff, man, it's a lot of hard work. And you don't really see a huge return on it right away. But we all know that that, you know, by doing so and by cultivating that, that the fruits of that can be. But it does take some time. It absolutely takes some time. But imagine if you weren't doing all that. Imagine if you weren't throwing those seeds. You'd still, you'd be in the same place two, three years later.

And there'd be nothing there. You know, so I prefer to at least be throwing seeds every chance I get, knowing that there's a possibility that that could come back later versus just saying, man, this is just going to take too much time. It's too much work. You know, at least you know you've got something in the pipeline, right? So, yeah. That's great, man. A lot of cool, awesome information. Will, we're just about to wind down. I've just got a couple of final questions here for you and we'll go a different direction because that was all of our dense, nitty gritty stuff about what you do and how you do it. But I'm really curious, what does Will Ferreiro do to recharge from business? What are your hobbies and, you know, who do you spend your non-business time with?

Oh, well, you know what? I got engaged in October. Congrats. So we're getting married in December to my, my fiancé, Caitlin. And we got a French bulldog Boston Terrier mix that's nine months old now. His name's Rocco. And, you know, just spending time with them trying to see family and friends as much as I can. It seems everybody's getting married these days. I guess that's what happens when you're 32, right?

But, you know, day to day, you know, I just like to play some video games with my friends at night. You know, it's, I always say, you know, when I'm mad at the video game, I can't be mad about something that happened at work today, right? So there you go. Yeah. It's going to take my mind off things. Absolutely. Are you considered a millennial? Yeah.

Okay. Got you. Yeah. See, because I'm up at the very edge of it, age wise, the top edge of it. I'm 41. So I'm about a decade ahead of you. but I am considered as well a millennial. But, you know, I'm kind of around that place where I got a little mixture of both,

you know, both sides of the equations, you know. So when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. There was no, there was no such thing as that, right? You might remember some of that even yourself in the very earlier years, right? And then growing up, of course, gaming became a big thing. I got a Nintendo, man. I remember getting a Nintendo for my birthday. Oh, yeah.

I had the Nintendo. Right, the NES. I had the Nintendo when I came home from the hospital in 1990. There you go, see. So, I mean, and then, you know, that evolved into the Sega Genesis. And then, you know, so it's like people a little bit older don't really understand why those things are important to us and why sometimes being able to just jump into a virtual gaming world like that really is kind of our detoxing from the world in a sense, you know? It's easy to do.

You don't need anything other than the TV screen, right? That's right. That's right. And you know what? I would argue also that it's relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of other hobbies and things that are out there. Now, do I think people should just do that nonstop and not know what's going on in the world? No. But a little bit of gaming here and there, you know, to keep some balance, I think is absolutely fantastic.

So I'm totally with you on that. Okay, I got one last question. And this one might rack your brain just a little tiny bit. but I like to hear people's just kind of, you know, just natural reaction, natural response to this. But so if you had to go back to the very beginning of the process, I know you're, again, you're still relatively new in this, but I'm sure you've still learned a lot in,

in the time that you've been doing it. But if you could go back to the pre-lawyer self, you know, version of yourself, so to speak, is there any advice that you would give yourself just a few years into this? Oh man, before I was a lawyer and before law school, I don't know, that would be, that'd be a tough one. You know, I don't know what I would say to kind of set myself up better. Maybe before law school, I would tell myself to do some more mock trial, get some more trial skills. That's something that I definitely, you know, I think I would have enjoyed in hindsight, but I just wasn't really.

I was just focused on getting my schoolwork done and trying to make sure I was prepared for class. I wasn't thinking about, you know, mock trial. Yeah. But I think in hindsight, that would have, that would have helped me, you know, in earlier, you know, earlier on trying to familiarize myself with trial process faster. Sure. Yep. But, you know, when it comes to my early, my early times as an attorney, I think I would tell myself to get out to the, you know, the networking events, the bar events. any sort of trainings that were offered and just and just you know it's so awkward right when you're when you're

going to these things and like you're not only new in the organization but you're brand new to the profession and you know it's like you show up everybody knows each other they know more about everything than you do and it's it's tough right but i think that if you're you can stomach it and you kind of just stick around long enough you know you'll you'll soak up uh some pretty good information and and some skills as well. So I think that's something that I definitely, you know, wish that I hit a little bit harder earlier on. Gotcha.

Well, hindsight is always 20-20, but we do the best that we can with what we've got and what we're, you know, what we're equipped with and what we know at that moment. But there's always, there's always at least one thing that we're like, man, if just I would have done this differently,

maybe could have saved myself some type of pain or time. or something, you know. But nonetheless, man, your journey is really impressive. You've accomplished a lot in a short period of time, I think. And I think you're off to a great start, Will. I think you've got, you know, the world is definitely for the taking for you. And let's definitely keep in touch. How can we find out more about you and continue to follow your journey?

Yes, on most social media platforms, I'm at Bronx Attorney. I have a website, Bronx Attorneylaw.com. the firm's website's prior law.com. Any of those places you can find me, see what I'm up to, reach out to me and connect. Got to keep networking, right? 100%. And what was the name of your podcast again?

It's called the Bronx Attorney Broadcast. The Bronx Attorney Broadcast. Awesome. Well, we'll make sure that we add those links into the show notes when this podcast airs. And that way, if anybody does listen to this and they want to, you know, connect with you or follow you or what have you. It'll all be there and it'll be available.

All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Marco. Thank you, Will. We really appreciate your time today and all of your knowledge and experience. And that about does it for another episode of Business Innovators Radio. We will catch you here next time. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio.

To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at Business Innovators. Radio.com today.