Introduction to the Growth Catalyst Show
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Welcome to the Growth Catalyst Show where we believe that growth can come in many forms, professional, personal, company, sales, you name it. I'm your host, Dan Mahoney, founder of Transcendent Sales Solutions and a guide to a world of growth possibilities. I've spent my career empowering companies and their people with strategies that accelerate growth.
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I'm here to bring you stories of these business leaders and their trusted advisors to gain insights into their journeys and learn how they fueled their own growth. Just maybe their journey could become part of your own growth story. Are you ready? Let's grow.
Guest Introduction: Colin Hatcher
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Welcome to the next edition of The Growth Catalyst Show. I'm your host, Dan Mahoney, and I'm excited to have my next guest here today. Colin Hatcher is a partner of King, Jacqueline, and Wilkins LLP. He is an experienced attorney in contract business, construction, and insurance litigation, including disputes over shareholder issues, corporate separations, land post-judgment matters, and estate-related litigation. Colin is currently licensed to practice law in Georgia and Alabama. Colin, welcome to The Growth Catalyst Show.
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glad to be here. Yeah, absolutely.
Colin's Early Life and Education
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So, uh, you know, we've known each other a few years from providers from our, uh, from our mutual networking group we're in, but I have to say, I don't know much about you, uh, the early side. So are you a Georgia native?
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I am technically not a Georgia native, but I moved to Marietta when I was about six months old, so I claim it. Went to Sprayberry High School, grew up on the Marietta Square, where I'm practicing law now, never thought that would happen. And wound up going to Kennesaw State University for undergrad. So I'm a local guy. So where did it start? Where were you born? I was born in Boca Raton, Florida. Okay. And my folks decided we just need to move north for some reason. So here I am.
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There you go. No hurricanes. You don't have to worry about it. That's
Discovering a Passion for Law
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right. So when you went to KSU and you studied, I think you studied political science, did you know going in that like I want to be a lawyer and that's why I'm be political science or did you want to be like, you know, the, the governor of the state or the mayor of Marietta? I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was very,
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Indecisive and very I was a super introvert super shy and it was just kind of a weird several years for me I went through seven different majors the last one was the second the last one was psychology and there was a Maymaster Maymaster course I took that was psychology and the law and I thought this is kind of interesting and so I took a couple poli sci classes because that's kind of the way that you get into it and one of the
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things that we did in one of my first political science classes was a mock trial of, it was the case of Jack and the Beanstalk, really. It was a murder trial. And the idea was, is Jack guilty for chopping down the Beanstalk and murdering the giant?
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And so I'm this nerdy, shy, introverted kid. And I'm told by the professor, well, you're going to do the closing arguments for the state and the trial. And I'm thinking, oh, great. And we prepare, do all that stuff. And for the trial, the professor brought in a lot of local judges and lawyers and stuff like that, people from the community who had no idea who they were.
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And she said, all right, time to do, when it was my turn, I just stood up and I talked and I was speaking to these folks I've never seen before and I was telling them why I was right and the other guy was wrong. And I
The Reality of Courtroom Trials
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just, all of the shyness and introversion just, I'm not gonna say it went away, but I mean, I leaned into it for sure and fell in love with talking in front of people and that kind of led me into where I am now.
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That, you know, I'll tell you that is crazy for introvert. I mean, you think where are you going to find your voice and everybody finds it somewhere and you think public speaking is the last place people found it, but you found it in a courtroom.
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And I loved it. I really do. And I love it to this day. I mean, one thing that really sets us apart as a firm, I think, is we actually try cases. I was actually supposed to be in a jury trial this week that we settled late Friday afternoon, last Friday.
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We actually are the ones who go to court and try cases and stand up and talk to juries and judges and all of that. Most civil litigators, they file motions and they'll go do an oral argument every now and then, but a lot of them don't even know how to try a case, much less the jury trial.
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So, you know, again, what I know about the law, of course, is watching TV and watching all the TV shows. So I'm sure you're either. And again, I'm going to go back a little bit. If you've ever Boston legal was one of my favorite legal shows. And if, and then right now my wife, Michelle and I were late on this, but we're watching suits. So I'm sure working in a law firm is, is just like that, right? Oh, it's exactly like it is. My wife, Rachel just finished watching suits and she's like, I know exactly what you did today. I'm like, no, you don't.
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It's just like my wife watching, uh, it's watching one of the medical shows is the ER in the ER. She's an ER nurse going, yeah, yeah, it is. This is not great anatomy at work every day. Right. My wife thinks she's a doctor because she's watched those shows. Oh, that's
Legal Education and Competitions
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right. That's right. So, so going back to going back to the law, so you decided to go to law and you went to school in Birmingham, correct?
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Yep, I went to Samford University's Cumberland School of Law. And in fact, one of the reasons why I picked that school is because they were very well known for their trial advocacy program. When I started there, they were number six in the nation for trial advocacy. And we maintained that level and I was on trial team.
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you know, traveled, did all that stuff. And we stayed number six in the nation and it's redone every year. So we, you know, we were pretty successful with that. But that's why that is really the main reason why I went over there because I liked the practical education.
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So when you say trial of advocacy, meaning we're gonna teach you the best way on how to get through a case through trial, is that what that means? Yeah, I mean, it's actually making you stand up and try cases. Versus settle everything.
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Right, which we can talk about what makes sense from the client's perspective. But from a purely selfish perspective, if I could take every case to trial, I would love to do that. But that just makes zero
Bar Exam and Legal Career
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sense from the client standpoint. But what I loved about Cumberland is a lot of law schools will teach you the theory behind whatever the law is. And you learned that as well, of course. But when I graduated,
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first started working. I mean, they dropped files on my desk and said, hey, this is going to trial. You're going to go try it. And I was able to handle it because I had that background in education. Well, one thing I want to talk about and I read your background is this Top Gun competition where it was by invitation only and it was 16 law students across the country that were invited each year. And you participate that you got to tell me a little bit about this.
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So that was that was a fun experience. So 16 people are invited out of the country. I was one of them You go to Waco, Texas and it's at Baylor and I think you get there on a it's been a long time But I think you get there on a Thursday night. They have a banquet for you or whatever and then Friday morning They give you a case file
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And the one I had, it was a bank robbery and it was one that was actually in Waco. So you basically have the morning to go to the bank and they opened the bank up to us. We could go back in the back and do, you know, see all of this stuff. And, um, you, you work up the case and then it's either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. You, you try the case. Um, and it's just you versus one of the other, you know, 15 people that were there. And it's just, you know, it's, it's,
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Intense experience. Yeah. I mean, it's tense. And were you on the, are you on the prosecution or on the defense side for that case? So they, they make you try both. So in the morning you'll be the state and you have to prepare the state case. And then in the afternoon you have to defend it. So you work and you're working up two sides of the same case. All right. So you were the math. Did you end up being the Mav the Maverick of that or actually Maverick didn't win. He came in second.
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Well, it's going to depend on who you ask. There was this guy from Yale, but we're not going to talk about him. So, and I always have to, I want to ask this to you. I mean, I always wanted, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up is I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was a shitty test taker and a terrible test taker. Tell me about the bar. What was like taking the bar? Is it as intimidated as everybody says it is?
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It's it's terrifying because it's your whole life, you know, I mean you you go through three years of law school However many years of undergrad before that and then you spend two or three months doing nothing but studying And you sit for two days and you know if you do well Then great if you don't then you get to go back and take it again or figure out something out, you know and so it was terrifying but
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Once you do so much prep work and you take so many practice exams that it kind of becomes rote memory, which is not what we're looking for in lawyers, but from a test faking perspective, especially the multiple choice part, you learn how to take the test very quickly.
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And then with the essay and analysis portion, that can be very broad in terms of what they have you do. One was write a will for this guy. Another was draft a memo for a senior partner on whether there's a conflict of interest, stuff like that. And it's really what I think the bar examiners are looking for is,
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Can you make a coherent argument? You know that the answer is never gonna be black or white because nothing really ever is Half of what we always do is argue in the gray, you know And so that I don't know that they necessarily care about what answer you come up with on the essay portion just can you spot the issues analyze the rules of law and come up with some sort of opinion or conclusion or analysis that makes sense and
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And after you took that test, how long did you have to wait for the results? Oh, I don't remember. I mean, it was, it was a couple, couple months, I think. I mean, that's, that's gotta be like stressful in itself just cause you're like, I can't start my life. If I didn't pass this, I can't.
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you know, start my career, I need to kind of start over again and do it all. That's right. That's right. And I, I actually was, so I took the Alabama bar first. I thought I was going to be there. And then I had a fantastic opportunity open up in Georgia. And so I took the Georgia bar, passed them both the first time.
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And I was actually, I was working kind of as a, I guess you'd call me a paralegal for the firm I'm with now, before I got my bar results. And we were churning and burning and just doing the work. And then out of the blue, I got an email with the results.
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And that was it. There's no warning. It's just like, boom. Oh, there it is. Yep. That's it. Imagine the days when there was an email and you were just waiting for the mail sitting there in the mailbox waiting every day. Oh, it's brutal. It's brutal.
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Let's take a moment for a quick word from our sponsor.
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They take a hands on results oriented approach to solving sales challenges. Visit transcendence sales.com to learn more and subscribe to the biweekly growth catalyst newsletter for insightful growth strategies, transcendent sales solutions, empowering businesses to reach new heights. And now back to the show.
AI in Legal Practice: A Cautionary Tale
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So you've been a lawyer for, you've been a lawyer now for coming up on almost 10 years over 10 years about that. Yeah. Seven, seven, eight,
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So tell me how is the legal landscape changed in 10 years? And you know, one thing I want to talk to you about after this AI, because I know AI, I talk to AI about everyone I bring on the show because it is changing all of us. AI is definitely going to play a factor. I mean, what I've seen is
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There's a shift in a lot of folks' mindset in terms of how they approach cases. I mean, 99% of what I do is litigation, and that's very broad. I mean, subject matter-wise, it can be a number of things. Our focus is on the process and going and preparing cases to resolve and actually trying.
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But it's interesting to have opposing counsel who's a guy in his 70s or 80s who's still practicing and see how they handle a case versus a guy that's just come out of law school. Because you've got, on the one hand, the more seasoned folks who have been practicing law, there's kind of a camaraderie there.
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At the end of the day, the issues are what they are, but I would much rather grab a beer with you and figure this case out than hate your guts. I'm not saying that I have that feeling towards anybody and I hope nobody has that feeling towards me, but younger lawyers, it's very transactional. I have this case, all communications have to be in writing or
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If we have a phone call, I'm going to send a follow-up email memorializing it. I mean, just stuff like that. And that just makes the process less enjoyable, for one. And I don't think that that different way of practicing necessarily helps the client either, frankly. Because at the end of the day, they want the case resolved in accordance with whatever their goals are.
Efficient Litigation Practices
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lot of times you can just pick up the phone and say, Hey, what are we doing here? You know, let's see if we can figure something out. So has it gotten more stringent? Do you think is more formal? Like, you know, we need to keep it this way. We're not going to talk. Or is it just, it's just a case. It just depends who you're dealing with.
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It depends on who you're dealing with. I know by and large, and this is a generalization, but if I'm dealing with somebody from a big downtown firm, it's typically going to be more formal. It's typically going to be
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Colder is almost the right word for it. Whereas if it's a person on the Marietta Square, you know, we've got a good group of folks that we just run into all the time because, you know, It's hard not to run into an attorney on Marietta Square. Well, I mean, you know, and it's funny, I mean, there are some guys where, you know, I've got three cases against them currently active and they're co-counsel in another case and, you know,
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The wives are best friends, that whole thing. And I mean, it's just part of it. Welcome to the South. Right. And I enjoy that. I mean, I would much rather like the people that I'm dealing with on a regular basis than be unnecessarily adversary.
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And don't get me wrong. I mean, there is a time and place when I'm in court, I'm not, you know, I'm going to do whatever needs to be done within the confines of what I'm allowed to do, of course. But, you know, I'm not going to hate somebody's guts after the fact or take it personally because there's no point.
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Well, you and again, you have a way about you where, and we've never been in the situation before too, but I wouldn't want to have an argument with you. I don't know why I feel like you would find a way to win it. And I love, I love a good argument. I love to take my stand, but I just could tell with you that you know how to get your point across at a very, uh, you're a man of few words, but your words I've seen have, have an impact. Well, I appreciate that. I'm just trying to be reasonable. That's all.
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Let's go back to the AI part of it. I mean, I know people have say, no, AI is the greatest thing in the world and it's solved a lot of my problems. And you know, it's my little lawyer that I have that could go and tell me everything about a contract or case law or anything. What's your thoughts on that?
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I've got lots of thoughts. I'm not going to get into all of them, but the folks, number one, the folks who come to me, clients who will say, well, I had this contract generated by chat GPT or I looked something up and it spat out a will for me or something.
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those cases nine times out of 10 will wind up in litigation because something has gone terribly wrong because it is a horrible document that does not actually comply with Georgia law, usually. Then Chad, you know, once Chad GPT came out and the lawyers starting using it, you know, you've seen, I'm sure you've seen the stories about, you know, somebody cites to a case and it doesn't exist, you know, and that is a huge no-go. I saw something in the news about that. I saw something in the news about that actually last week. It was somewhere in,
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Texas or something that's right got sanctioned or I don't know if he got disbarred because of something like that Yeah, well, and I mean that that's a that's a huge no-no, you know I mean because we are we are as lawyers were officers of the court and so we are expected to be honest and straightforward and and and all that and if we're citing authority that doesn't actually exist and you're lying to the judge You know, you can't do that And so, you know, we just as a practice, you know, I'm not
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I've not relied on chat GPT and I won't rely on chat GPT or something like it, you know, just because it's not trustworthy. Now, what we have seen is the legal research tools that we have, you know, we use Lexus Nexus, for example.
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Um, you know, they've come up with their own version of ai That will it's not perfect, but it helps Um, you know it will assist in some analysis. It'll help you find cases a little bit easier But at the end of the day, I mean I
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I don't really think you can, in good conscience, cite a case, cite some rule of law without actually going and reading it. So I'm not gonna rely on what some summary says. I need to actually go pull the case. I need to go read the case. I need to make sure that it's still good law and that it actually exists. And so that's what we use it for. It's a good starting point, but we can never just rely upon it.
00:19:15
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So, in a litigation and a dispute, that's what you make a career out of, basically. Is there ever really a winner or a loser in these cases? Not really. You hear the joke, especially in family law, the only people that win are the lawyers. Unfortunately, it's true sometimes. What I absolutely hate is when
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we wind up in a position in any type of case where the amount of attorney's fees that are involved outweigh the amount at issue. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. And going back, I said that from a purely selfish standpoint, I love trying cases and being in court, but you got to do what makes sense for the client. And I mean, at least once a week,
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for the past, I don't know how long, but I will consistently get new consults in from folks and they will say, well, you know, I've got this dispute and he's wrong and I'm right. And you know, it's the principle of the thing. And I say, okay, well, you know, how much, how much are you being sued for? How much do you want to sue him for? That's like $3,000.
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I'm like, okay, wait a minute. How much is principal work to you? Correct, correct. That just doesn't make any sense. And so I talk myself out of a ton of business because it is in the client's best interest. You don't want to pay me a retainer to go try to get a piece of paper that says you're entitled to $3,000. And just because you have a judgment, that doesn't mean the defendant writes you a check unless you're suing an insurance company.
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Um, or there's insurance involved, you then got to go collect it and hope that the person has assets. So, I mean, there's, there's a lot of things to look at and, you know, I will, I will always be very cautious about, you know, whether I'm on the plaintiff or defense side. Um, I will always be cautious about.
00:21:16
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bringing a case into court if I can avoid it just because of the cost and stress and time that comes with it. I mean, if
Advice for Aspiring Lawyers
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you can resolve it without having to hire me, you're better off. Unfortunately, people can't do that. And sometimes, you know, things get in the way and you have to go to court. And when you do, we know how to handle it. But a lot of what we do is trying to get you to the point where you don't have to worry about that in the first place.
00:21:45
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Yeah, it's the emotions. The emotions are at high and emotions make you do stupid things. Emotions play a big part of it. Principal plays a big part of it. One of my best mentors, he's a very well-renowned mediator in the state. He has a line that he says that you can afford to litigate on principal if $100,000 in attorney's fees is a rounding error on your budget.
00:22:12
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Otherwise you cannot afford to litigate on principle. That's funny. So, you know, I, my wife's a nurse and every time somebody that she knows or we know has a bumper scratch or something, she's always, they call cause they think that they're experts. I'm sure it's very same thing with lawyers. Like how many times like, Hey, I just got a quick question for you. You've got to get that quite a bit.
00:22:37
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Sure. And I usually don't mind that, you know, I view my role as I'm here to help people and I enjoy helping people. Um, and so, you know, my, my kind of mantra is I'll talk to anybody about anything for 10 minutes, you know, and, and within that time period, I can usually convince folks, yes, this is something you should look at or know this, you're going to waste your time and throw good money after bad. Yeah.
00:23:03
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So I have a son who's thinking about a law career, and I'm sure there might be some kids out there that might listen to this thinking about a lawyer, you know, give some advice to them like, hey, if you're thinking about a law and thinking about a path of law, what you should be thinking about early as you start college or in college. Love to hear your thoughts on that.
00:23:23
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So I think it depends on what type, what area they want to go into. You know, from a litigation standpoint, one of my biggest things was, you know, I want to be out there.
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seeing what it's really like as quickly as possible. Well, one of the things that I've been very blessed to do is I've helped coaching mock trial for high school. And it's actually getting these kids to stand up and talk and go through that terrifying moment that I had with Jack and the Beanstalk to realize, hey, once I get these five words out, then I can just
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go with the rest of it. And so I think that getting involved with something like mock trial is fantastic, anything where you get practical experience, because that's how you figure out what it's really like. I mean, you can watch
The Scope and Expertise of Colin's Firm
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suits or law or whatever. And of course, that's not what it's really like. But if you really want to understand what it means to practice law, at least from a trial lawyer or a litigator standpoint, go to the courthouse.
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There are open courthouses, and I guarantee every judge on the Cobb County bench would be glad to have anybody come in and listen to a case. They'll probably take you back in chambers and talk to you. And same with most lawyers on the square. There's a high schooler who
00:24:49
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She just sent me a resume for a clerkship, and we're just going to meet up and chat about, hey, this is what it's really like. So I would say the best advice I can give is take a first step, whatever that is, in order to get some sort of practical exposure to what it's really like. That's good advice. One thing we didn't talk a little bit is about your firm. Tell me a little bit about your firm. I know you've been there for eight years.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah. So we are King, Jacqueline and Wilkins LLP. So we are a general civil litigation firm. So the easy way to put it, and this is slightly tongue in cheek, but if
00:25:29
Speaker
If it goes to court and you can't go to jail for it and you don't have to file bankruptcy for it, we handle it. So I mean, it's pretty broad. A lot of what we do is construction related. We deal with real estate disputes, business to business, a fair amount of family law. I'm actually currently growing my family law practice as well. So I mean, we do all sorts of stuff. And what I like about civil litigation is
00:25:56
Speaker
The focus really is on the process and knowing how to take cases to whatever the conclusion is that the client's looking for. The subject matter, it's not always easy, but either the subject matter is something that we either have experience with already, which is pretty broad. We've got nine lawyers and a lot of them have been practicing for decades.
00:26:24
Speaker
So there's a lot of experience there. And then also, if we get into a subject matter where it's something that's just outside our wheelhouse, I never hesitate to say, hey, we need to bring somebody in who has some subject matter expertise.
00:26:39
Speaker
to assist with that, and then we work the process. They focus on the subject matter. We focus on, all right, now we know the subject. Let's
Colin's Family and Personal Life
00:26:50
Speaker
come up with a strategy to get this case resolved, whether that's settling it, whether that's taking it to trial, filing a motion for summary judgment, or avoiding court altogether, just depending on what the client needs.
00:27:04
Speaker
And like you said referrals and bringing folks in if you don't have the expertise your firm is will do that if of course if necessary.
00:27:14
Speaker
Of course, of course. I mean, there are some, there are some firms that are, you know, for example, you know, I can draft a will for somebody if they need it. But if somebody comes in with, you know, complex estate needs, I'm not your guy, you know, and I'm, I'm better off serving the client, sending them over to somebody who, who can really look at, you know, the tax implications of something or prepare a complex trust for someone if that's something that they need.
00:27:44
Speaker
I'm better off sending that over to them because the client's better served and I don't have to worry about committing malpractice. Absolutely. So when you're not being a lawyer, what do you do in your free time to unwind?
00:27:57
Speaker
Well, free time lately is kind of interesting. We have a daughter who just turned one. We have another daughter who is, she's going to be here. June 8 is the due date and I'm betting she'll be early. So we're probably under a month.
00:28:17
Speaker
Um, we just bought a new house and so we've done some renovations to that. And then on top of that and the dog, we've got plenty to do. So, so you're, you're like the fix it up, like renovation guy doing it yourself or like managing people coming and doing it.
00:28:34
Speaker
Luckily, that is my wife. She has decided and I am all for it. She has decided, she did this at our old house. She looked at the mantle one day and was like, I don't like that mantle. I can build another mantle.
00:28:49
Speaker
She doesn't know how to build a mantle, but she figured it out. Oh, wow. And I, I came home one day and the mantle was gone and she did it herself. She did it herself. And man, it turned out phenomenally. It was beautiful. And then she built us a mud room. And I mean, she did all sorts of stuff. So she is, you know, I have no, no problem saying you can take that and run with it because she loves it and it looks pretty good. So I'm okay with it.
Contact Information for Legal Assistance
00:29:17
Speaker
That is awesome. That is awesome. I don't have to do it either. So last question. This has been a great conversation. If someone's interested in getting your help or want to talk to you about maybe a matter, what's the best way to get ahold of you?
00:29:33
Speaker
So you can check us out on our website. That's www.kangyacklin.com. That's K-I-N-G-Y-A-K-L-I-N.com. The firm is Kang Yacklin and Wilkins. You can just Google my name, Colin Hatcher, and I'll come up pretty quickly. Or feel free to give us a call at 770-424-9235.
00:29:58
Speaker
Colin, it's been great to speak with you today and get to know you a little bit better. And thanks for taking time on The Growth Catalyst Show. Appreciate your time. And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Growth Catalyst Show. Remember, you can take these stories of growth and make them part of your own journey. Learn from them, draw inspiration, and let them guide your path of growth. I'm your host, Dan Mahoney, and I look forward to our next journey together. If you've enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review. Until next time, keep growing.