Uma Bansal

Kevin Daisey (00:32)
What's up my managing partners family. Happy to be here recording again today. Thank you for tuning in as always to listen to what I had to say and listen to what my guests had to say. Always trying to find some cool folks to come on and share some different stuff. We cover a lot on this podcast. today I'll start by saying something I just heard from my guests here, which I liked.

Which is drama, drama reduction. that what you call it? So we're looking at, yeah.

Uma Bansal (00:58)
That's right. That's right.

Kevin Daisey (01:01)
Drama reduction. So, I got Uma on the show here. She specializes in business law and she's going to really tell us a lot about things that we should be thinking about as business owners, as business leaders, things that we need to put in place. And we're talking about, I told her the boring things and she said drama reduction and some of the things that you do that are the boring things that have to be done, can really help protect you and help you avoid those.

moments of drama issues, things like that. So, excited to kind of get into that. You'll kind of learn more about what we're going to be talking about. but Uma, thank you so much for joining me and tell us a little bit more about yourself and your firm.

Uma Bansal (01:34)
Sure, sure. I'd be delighted to. So I'm the Managing Partner of the Oracle Legal Group. We pride ourselves on kind of being that one place that businesses can come to and get their legal services met. We specialize in the areas that you'd find businesses typically need. So employment, IP, contracts. We also have a little bit of a niche in health care.

So we do a bit of healthcare as well, but typically we try to do that universe of services you'll see a business typically need. We've been operating for more than 10 years and it's been a wild ride. It really has.

Kevin Daisey (02:10)
And you're just outside of Houston, Texas. Correct.

Uma Bansal (02:13)
That's right. So we have offices in Chicago and Houston, and I happen to be in the Houston location.

Kevin Daisey (02:19)
Excellent, that's awesome. So I believe when we talked before, you were in Chicago originally? Is that how that worked out?

Uma Bansal (02:25)
Originally, that's

right. I originally was in Chicago, and then transferred over to Houston and opened an office there as well.

Kevin Daisey (02:33)
Awesome. I've went there to Chicago once had a good time. Great place. I've not been to Houston. I'm not really, I've been to Austin for a couple of days before, but, I seem to make a Texas trip at some point.

Uma Bansal (02:44)
Yeah,

we have a rodeo and we have a Renaissance Faire that are the Renaissance Faire is pretty interesting. So if you're into. You know, throwing a spear or shooting a bone arrow.

Kevin Daisey (02:54)
or drinking beer probably. Sure that's happening there too. No, I love it. it's, I wanted to kind of set the stage when we met a few weeks ago to talk, just to get to know each other. And she was telling me an interesting story. And I thought, and I had a similar story that I've heard recently that my wife has encountered with her business. She's in recruiting, but tell.

Tell us a story of what happened with one of your clients and we'll kind of transition into some of the things that you need to do as a business, as a law firm business to avoid some of these things.

Uma Bansal (03:20)
Yeah, sure.

Sure, sure, sure. I think when I started the law firm, I didn't expect businesses to have so many twists and turns and so many interesting things occur. one of my, you know, early on, one of my early clients, you know, I remember I was on vacation and I get a call saying, and this was just a normal young psychiatry practice. We were just doing their general business work. So this was not like we were

doing anything, you know, spectacularly unusual, but I get a call from him and he says, Hey, the DA is raiding our office. I, and it turns out that one of the psychiatrists working in the office is actually not a psychiatrist. He is a lay person who has found a way to present his credentials, by utilizing another physician's MPI number

and has been treating patients for at that point almost a year. And amazingly enough, he had five star ratings. These patients loved him. So obviously as a business owner though, this is a huge disaster because you're now you have a HIPAA violation issue. We had to tackle that issue. That was the very first issue we had to manage the expectation of patients. You know, you have to

call each one of them to explain what happened. It's devastating for them to find out that the person that they trusted the most and was potentially giving them medications for their conditions was not an actual doctor. And so it was just this crazy evolving target. And then there was, of course, there's going to be civil lawsuits that come from the patients. And it was just a whole battalion of things that early when we started

Practicing as a firm it just was such a clear example of hey some of that boring initial stuff, you the correct hiring practice doing the background check doing this doing that is so critical for a business to avoid the drama later on Yeah Yes

Kevin Daisey (05:13)
Mm-hmm.

Avoid the drama. Drama reduction.

Yeah. I mean, it really is, you know, I hear this a lot from things I've listened to at Array or my business partner, like the boring stuff, the not fun stuff, the not sexy stuff. Sometimes as entrepreneurs, especially the visionaries, the visionary entrepreneurs, we don't want to do any of that stuff. And you want to skip those things where maybe put it aside and...

Uma Bansal (05:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (05:46)
and this goes for law firm owners, right? Things that you have to do to be able to grow your firm, scale your firm. Like having those things in place, like employment agreements, handbooks. Yeah. I know you mentioned that that's something you all help with. We just had a meeting the other day. We were reviewing updated handbooks for two positions. I'd rather do anything but that straight up.

Uma Bansal (05:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (06:06)
That's why my business partner is the opposite of me. And he probably actually likes making sure that that's all right. But, um, so just something to think about is, uh, you know, you might own a law firm. You're a lawyer. Uh, you're not a business owner. Um, but, uh, you know, are you, are you putting these things in place? Are you doing the fundamentals? Um, so, yeah, I guess tell us, you know, from like a perspective of, you know,

Uma Bansal (06:12)
Right.

Right. Right.

Kevin Daisey (06:29)
how you're helping some of these clients and some of the things that you see that ⁓ maybe they've been in business for 10 years and they don't have these things in place. What's some common things that you see as issues that some of the listeners could say, I don't have that or I need to handle that or do that. Just like even a will or a trust. You know you need it, but you might not have it.

Uma Bansal (06:32)
Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Array Digital (06:56)
Thank you for tuning into the show today. I have taken things to the next level and I've started the Managing Partners Mastermind. We're a peer group of owners looking for connection, clarity, and growth strategies. So if you're looking to grow your law firm and not do it alone, please consider joining the group. Spots are limited, so I ask for anyone to reach out to me directly through LinkedIn and we can set up a one-on-one call to make sure it's a fit.

Now back to the show.

Uma Bansal (07:26)
That's right. I would say that one of the really core documents that we see and we think is so critical and sometimes gets overlooked. They form the company, but they don't follow up with an operating agreement. Now, this may not seem like an important document on its face, but it is critical. It's almost like the constitution of the business. We're talking about how the voting is happening. Who's voting on what? What's the major decision? What happens when the business is sold?

What if you're at a stalemate? You typically need a buy sell provision. What happens if someone gets divorced? You know, what happens like to their shares? You know, is their partner going to own those shares? Are they going to participate in the business? What happens upon the death of a partner? And, you know, you'd be amazed that having just the conversation with your partner is incredibly clarifying. So when, when these business owners are sort of forced to

you know, because we send them a list of questions, we meet with them when they're kind of talking to each other. We can hear a lot of aha moments. A lot of moments were like, I didn't realize I was actually responsible for that. Or I didn't realize this is how you felt about this. So when they're starting their business, just having those conversations, putting it on paper, forces them to talk about things. It's, you know, in a sense, a business partnership is a type of marriage.

And it's important to have very clear communication. And I think somewhere along the way, these core conversations don't occur until they're forced to happen. And when they're forced to happen, it's good for the business. It's healthy for the partnership. And ⁓ gosh, it really reduces the number of disputes later on. And when there is a partner dispute, an operating agreement, it is quite difficult.

Kevin Daisey (09:11)
No, it's, yeah, there's a lot of things there to unpack, I I call my business partner, my second wife. So yeah, it's definitely like a marriage. and I think, you know, starting and I'm talking to a few attorneys right now that are about to start their new firm. They haven't done it yet. ⁓ and so I think when you're starting a business, it's just exciting to start the business and you might be the only owner solo. And so you're, you're not thinking about these things.

Uma Bansal (09:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (09:36)
You're

thinking about the, the excitement of, of starting. And it's just like, if you had a product idea, getting a trademark or a, a copyright or a, a patent seems like, well, let's just see if this product is going to work first. And then you don't do those things. You know, you have to do those things in the beginning, or you're not going to have any protection. So same things with this, with business, it's kind of bootstrapped. So you're not.

Uma Bansal (09:39)
Yes.

Kevin Daisey (10:03)
you're not even sure if it's going to work. why do all these things? But once it's starting to speed and steam and you have partnerships and all these things, it's really hard to go back and start to put these things or make changes.

Uma Bansal (10:03)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, especially they have an ongoing partnership. You guys have already come into specific habits. You already have probably points of resistance and dispute. so I think, you know, yes, I agree. You're a startup. You don't have a ton of money. You have to allocate, you know, say 5,000 for some of these beginning items. But in the long run, you will be saving so much money.

Kevin Daisey (10:25)
Mm-hmm.

Uma Bansal (10:44)
in problems in time, your valuable time. So I have empathy for these startups. We try to create startup packages so it's not as expensive so they can do these things. But I've seen the whole length of the process. I've seen the businesses that do it and how they're running today. And I've seen the businesses that don't do it and the conflicts that we have to manage after the fact.

Kevin Daisey (11:06)
Yeah, I know that, um, you know, me and my partner were together. We, you know, we had a basic operating agreement. Then over time, over the years, you know, we have, uh, buy sell agreements. have life insurance plans. So yeah, if, if I die, you know, does my wife take over? You know, uh, no, not, not in our case because we have a life insurance plan that would be, um, the shares go to my partner.

Uma Bansal (11:23)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (11:32)
And the life insurance would go to my wife and then vice versa. If my partner's died, his wife doesn't take over the company shares. I get those. She gets the payout. So those are all things again, that, you know, over the years I've learned, you know, and we have in place. But it's, it's taken years and years and years. I've been in business since 2006. So it's.

Uma Bansal (11:36)
interesting.

Mm-hmm.

And.

Yeah. ⁓

Kevin Daisey (11:57)
If you can go, you know, do some of these things early on, before things become too complicated, before you get too much success, I mean, ⁓ it's going to be a lot easier on you. That's for sure.

Uma Bansal (12:01)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

For sure.

For sure. agree. I agree. I've also seen this with employment issues. We have a ton of businesses that have a lot of employment issues and had they had the employment handbook in place and an employment agreement, the employee would not have even had a case to bring to them. Like they just, would have been, it would have simmered right at the beginning. An attorney wouldn't have been able to even bring a case.

to the company, but because they're missing these very core documents, they're missing the personnel file and they're missing all the core communications, there's a big opening for a lawsuit.

Kevin Daisey (12:42)
And now I feel like these days it's pretty easy for folks to want to come after you, ⁓ you know, for whatever reasons, if they, you know, feel like they can't get another job or they were treated unfairly or whatever. So yeah, having that employee handbook, we have one and we updated pretty often. And then we have individual positions have a handbook. We have an overall company handbook and then we have individual position handbooks.

Uma Bansal (12:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (13:05)
And

again, we're just reviewing too that we're just updated because they are not stagnant. Sometimes things change. How we do things change, how we pay people or reward them changes what we expect from them might change. So you got to review those with them and then they have to sign off on this.

Uma Bansal (13:12)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Right, right.

And they can't say they don't know what the company culture is because it's all written down. This is what our, you know, sometimes you don't always want to communicate every single policy to an employee, but it's all there in the handbook, you know, and you're giving it to them on a regular basis. They can review it. They can understand what it is. So it helps also keep the line on the culture.

Kevin Daisey (13:30)
You

I a hundred percent, you know, we have our core values in there. We have our origin story and how me and my partner met and our two previous companies and how we formed what we have now. I don't know what all you recommend. I'd like to hear whatever else. but I know for us, we have all those things in there and then down to like what holidays that you get off automatically versus. And if you want to take off anything else, you know, just take it off. Um, so we have a lot of that kind of stuff in there.

Uma Bansal (13:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right. Right.

Kevin Daisey (14:10)
freelancing, you know, what can you do, what can't you do? ⁓ And so...

Uma Bansal (14:15)
Right? And

you don't always have to figure so I think sometimes people get scared when they have to create a handbook. They're like, I don't know. I'm not sure whether we do here. Just make the handbook and you'd be surprised automatically. You're going to figure it out. You're going to automatically figure out what you know what the rules should be and shouldn't be and. You don't have to have all the answers at one go. It's an iterative process. You can keep updating it so.

you know, but you can have a base to you. mean, things, you know, for sure you don't discriminate, you know, you know, some basic things that you know, you have to be professional. You know, these are things that everybody sort of in, you know, has an understanding so you can put the basics in there and then you can pepper in the details later.

Kevin Daisey (14:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Just jot down whatever you're kind of thinking and how you, if you're again, if you're a solo, I would encourage you to come up with core values, come up with these things, put together a handbook as if you have employees. If you have zero, a great exercise, you'll be way ahead. And again, I think back when I was either solo or starting out with a few people, core values, I was like, that's just fluffy crap.

Uma Bansal (15:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (15:21)
You know, don't, we don't need that. and we live, I mean, when I say live by the core values, it's, it's slowly weaved into everything every day, all day used actively. And I think, most firms don't do that. It's still kind of on the wall on me somewhere. Maybe it's in the handbook. Maybe it's on the website. Could your employees recite them? Probably not. so I think, you know,

Uma Bansal (15:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (15:42)
Think about that and, more core values, we've changed them a bunch of times. They've been pretty, pretty set for the last four or five years. We have not changed them at all. So I think to your point, it's not going to be perfect. Jot it down, get something in there. You're going to change it. You should change it. and it should get better every time. So.

Uma Bansal (15:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's that initial inertia that people have that you just have to get over that inertia and get the ball moving and it's gonna move by itself. Gravity, it's gonna move.

Kevin Daisey (16:11)
The funny thing is that a lot of things are I consider boring? Which is we thought about boring stuff that you have to do that's most businesses that are successful handle the boring stuff or they even provide a boring service like just a Lot of people make money and boring But just like I used to hate numbers and spreadsheets and all that stuff I love all that stuff much more now because when you can see things working

And you can see the impact it has. just say, this, this is actually cool to understand why we have this and how we can improve on this and how this stuff all works out. You know, even with finance or cashflow and those things, I used to not really, that's not me. I'm a visionary guy. I'm the creative guy. ⁓ but I like those things a lot more these days because again, you can see how they actually go to work and how, how they,

Uma Bansal (16:39)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (16:59)
protect you or how they encourage new employees when they come on board. When they see the handbook, when they see the culture and they go, Ooh, I want to be here. And, and that's another thing I think to think about too, is you're onboarding a new, a new staff member, new attorney, new paralegal. What's their experience like? How well planned out have you made it for them to where they're like, wow, this place is different than the last firm I was at.

Uma Bansal (17:02)
That's right.

Right.

Right. Right.

Sure, sure. So I think, you know, we break it up into three processes, the hiring process, well, actually even before the hiring process, the interview process, because there's certain questions you can and cannot ask. It's good to know that as a business owner. Hiring, that whole hiring process, also making sure you're doing the background checks, you're doing the due diligence you need to, and then you've actually hired them. Then there's the discipline piece. So I usually encourage companies to have a disciplined policy.

that they're following. And I know nobody likes to write down, hey, this person did this. But if there's an objection later, if they're suing later, it's good to have something in writing. And then finally, even the termination process. So all of those are different processes within the company. And they don't necessarily all have to be in the handbook, but it's good to have these policies.

Kevin Daisey (18:08)
100%. and we have all those that you just mentioned. and yeah, you, if you hear anyone talk about growing a business, like processes are a big part of, of any growth and scale. Like you can't grow on scale.

Uma Bansal (18:16)
Yes, yes. And I kind

of, yes, I agree. And sometimes I kind of wonder if what's going on and why people don't want to lay these things down. Maybe there's a subconscious avoidance of these difficult areas that are uncomfortable, you know. And sometimes if your attorney is telling you, hey, this is important, it's forcing you to come to the table and confront some of your anxiety around these topics.

Kevin Daisey (18:41)
Yeah. I mean, no one wants to lay someone off or fire them or whatever, but it's a lot. can tell you this. And I'm one of those, I'm one of those, I'm terrible at having to fire someone. Literally I'm the worst, but guess where it's easy for me when I've had to do it. When it's clear, it's tracked. It's, um, information has been collected. Warnings have been given. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like.

Uma Bansal (18:45)
Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (19:06)
We follow the steps. follow the path. You're aware. I'm aware. It's clear. We have to act on this and it's, it's easier for them and you versus like, Hey, I gotta let you go. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, ah, know, and you've been just aware, but not reporting and not. Yeah.

Uma Bansal (19:17)
Yes.

Right. You've been best buddies. been

hanging out, best buddies, having communicated to them that you're unhappy about something. You're giving this employee the wrong messaging, and then you're firing them, which is traumatizing for them. So you've not even prepared them, and you've not even put them in the right spot to understand what's going on.

Kevin Daisey (19:43)
And it's harder for you as the person firing them because you know, haven't told them or you know that, um, you don't know how to even do it. Cause you're like, it's like, you're, I said, abrupt feat kind of thing that you have to do, but it's really easy and a quick conversation, usually easy conversation when it's like, Hey, Uma, you know what today is? You know, we've, we've done this process and, and they're not surprised. And they're like, yeah.

Uma Bansal (19:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're not surprised. That's right. And the ones that, you know, you've had the conversation and they've been able to turn around their behavior. That's also a benefit, right? You've just saved an employee. They've understood very clearly what's going on and now they can change their behavior. They understand the expectation and bam, you've got a super effective employee. That's, I love when that happens. I mean, I know it's probably more rare, but it is.

Kevin Daisey (20:37)
It is more rare, but, man, we had that happen here. with a long-term employee of mine that I'm glad is here and crushing it, but there was, you know, definitely a, a fork in the road moment of, I haven't talked to this person who said,

I'd rather you not be here than trying to like, you know, be stressed out and figure this out. Cause I wasn't managing the person at the time. And so was trying not to, you know, overstep there. One of my, one of my managers was managing them, but, but I like, yeah, I'd rather you go somewhere. I'll help you find somewhere to go. Like, I don't want you to be stressed out, but flipped it around. Rockstar, you know, top, top team player that we have at this point, I would say.

So yeah, I've seen that happen. But it's easy when you have the bus, right? You have the seats on the bus, right? The right seats on the bus. You can't just create a seat that we don't need. yeah, it's if you lay it out and make it simple and clear, then either they can transition, because it's probably better for them to leave, or they can make the adjustments and become an A player.

Uma Bansal (21:27)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (21:33)
And you should be happy with either one. Hey, Uma, I would be happy, you know, to see you go out there and find something that's better for you. And this is a good decision for you. And coach them out, not, you know, either coach them up or out. Right. So, makes it a lot easier. I'll say that.

Uma Bansal (21:36)
Yes.

I've actually

met attorneys or law clerks in my practice that I don't even think they really enjoyed practicing the law. And that's just not their calling in life. And that's okay. They're so talented in other ways, but the law was not interesting to them. And if it is not interesting, you probably shouldn't be doing it. And so sometimes they're not even aware.

of what's going on there. They're just not able to engage in the work. And you have to say, hey, is this what you really, is this what you're really passionate about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (22:20)
Sure. Yeah. Just because you went to school for something, you know, doesn't mean

that was the right choice for you. and well, it's just like, know a lot of lawyers that don't like press and law, but they, they like running a business. Great. be the CEO, be the business owner. Yeah. But to be stuck in the middle somewhere, I tell lawyers all the time, make a decision. Are you the lawyer? And then you want to be a best lawyer, then hire.

Uma Bansal (22:31)
Yeah, sure.

Do that. Yeah. Yeah.

enough. It's rough.

Kevin Daisey (22:44)
C-suite or I get a partner that wants to be the business owner and vice versa if you don't want to be practicing law Become the business owner make sure you hire lawyers that can do the legal work And you can be in the middle, you know You can choose and pick cases that you love and and so be the business owner but I think having that coming to Jesus moment is important of Where are you and then you can focus on the work that you need to be doing?

Uma Bansal (22:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Kevin Daisey (23:08)
So yeah, I've had, you know, smart SEO kind of people go be like in construction, like just like, Hey, I love the, I've been, I've enjoyed it. I'm good at this. I don't, but it's not what I want to do. I want to work with my hands. Wow. Okay. You know, and so it's, you never know what people want to do.

Uma Bansal (23:16)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

And yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, I think it's okay. I can tell you when I first started practicing as an attorney, I worked for big, big law firms. I worked for the delay pipers of the world and I was a patent attorney and my parents were so proud and this is what the typical pathway is. And you know what? I was not, I was just not satisfied in life. And so it wasn't immediate for me to figure out my pathway as an attorney. I found people around me said, I'm not happy, but I'm going to keep doing this.

And I just could not be that person. I couldn't be the person who was unhappy going to work. And so I had to try a bunch of different things. I did civil rights law. I went to India. I did some human rights work. I came back. And I think when I figured out what I really enjoyed, I said, you know what? I do want to open a firm. But that wasn't a clear cut pathway.

And I think sometimes as lawyers, expect ourselves to know exactly what we should be doing from day one.

Kevin Daisey (24:20)
That's why I love this podcast because the stories are all over the place. You know, um, I've had lawyers, I've had lawyers come on here and say, my grandma told me I was going to be a lawyer when I was four. And so that's what I did. And through and through, or my family, my dad, my grandfather, whoever was attorneys. And then I've had tons of stories on here where it's like, I didn't have, I did not want to be an attorney at all. Like

Uma Bansal (24:20)
Bye!

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (24:43)
In graduate

school, they're finishing up and then they, some random thing happens or, or a lot of times like an injury attorney, you know, they'll have like a family member when they were younger, had some experience or, or issue they had to deal with that didn't get resolved or, know, some personal story that led them to whatever path. But a lot of times they come out of law school, go to work for their, ⁓ county or prosecutor or whatever.

Uma Bansal (24:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (25:09)
And then go some other random direction and try a few different practices. And then they bounce around and go, Ooh, I like this. And this is what I'm going to do. yeah.

Uma Bansal (25:13)
Right.

This is it. This is it. And you know,

when it feels right, it's not hard to wake up every day and do it. You know, when it doesn't feel right, there's always a part of you that's wandering.

Kevin Daisey (25:28)
100%. It's like, you know, I'm, you know, I sort of, I've been in marketing for my sort of my business and marketing in 2006, like what's that 20, almost 20 years. Um, I don't do any marketing really. I I'm not passionate about marketing. So if you get on a sales call with me, I'll talk about all this stuff, but it's, it's the business that I'm passionate about. um, the marketing is a part of it. Um, and that's how we help firms, but

Uma Bansal (25:42)
Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (25:53)
I don't

do any marketing. If you would not want to hire me to do anything, I won't even have fun doing it. I wouldn't even enjoy it. So that's kind of similar. know, I was a technician that, you know, fell in love with the business side of things. And I know plenty of attorneys that have done just that too. So, but if you like the business of things, what Uma's here talking about are things that you have to get in place, things you have to do. And the sooner you do all the better.

Uma Bansal (26:03)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

Kevin Daisey (26:16)
Again, if you have zero employees, one employee, it's just good practice. ⁓

Uma Bansal (26:21)
Right.

Even independent contractors, we actually create a handbook for independent contractors. So, you know, it doesn't just have to be employees. And if it's not that there's other things in your business, for some businesses, it's going to be a master services agreement. If they're providing a service, they want to have a really robust agreement. For other businesses, it's going to be getting that trademark. So every business is different. What they need is a sort of core documents in the beginning. But I think it's worth taking a minute.

and doing a little bit of an internal audit. Hey, have I done it? Am I missing some things? Or talking to an attorney who can help you figure it out.

Kevin Daisey (26:56)
that's awesome. I think, yeah, just reach out to Uma, connect with her on maybe what, some of those checklists and ones are. So, you know what you do don't and don't have. Yeah. And this, you know, if you're going into business, you're new or you're small. Obviously don't ever spend or ever leverage yourself, but plan that you're going to be huge. You're going to scale, have that mindset, put these things in place. first is like, I don't know if this is going to work out or not. If you start that way, trust me, it probably won't.

Uma Bansal (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Daisey (27:20)
So you have to change your mindset a little bit. Plan on being successful, which is why you would get a patent for something before trying to put it out into the world. That's why you would put these things in place before starting your new business or growing your new business. So, those are all important things for sure. 100%. Uma, anything else that, you know, any more tips or recommendations for any of our law firm owners out there?

Uma Bansal (27:45)
Well, one thing I learned, which is sort of not exactly in vein of what we're immediately talking about, is that I found that reading various business books, because a law firm is a business, and getting the advice of people who really understand business, I think is so critical. It's been a real boon for me personally, and I wish I had done it earlier. I wish when I started my law firm, I was reading these books.

Kevin Daisey (28:09)
There, well, got a stack of books here. I recommend books all the time. And yeah, the answers are out there. People have already done this, right? So books, and I've never, I've always hated reading a physical book. I just never been good at it, but I do that more often. But audio books, YouTube, everything, yeah.

Uma Bansal (28:16)
Yes, yes.

Party books, fine.

It's just getting the perspective, getting the mind, like as you mentioned, Kevin, getting the right mindset. And it really takes the anxiety off too of running a business because when you understand some of these concepts, you're going to feel less anxious.

Kevin Daisey (28:42)
Yeah, you see that also other people have been through this. They've, and they figured out, you know, what, what worked for them. So yeah, there's so many books out there, so many resources out there. and I always mentioned this too, is mastermind groups. I have a mastermind group for law firm owners. Don't even consider mine. There's a million groups. There's probably one in your community. entrepreneurs organization is a global group that has chapters all around the country. It doesn't matter if it's only law firm owners.

Uma Bansal (29:01)
Yes.

Kevin Daisey (29:06)
Just get in the room with people that are walking the same path as you, because it can be pretty lonely to be the entrepreneur in your family when everyone else just works for someone. And you're like, Hey, what do I do about this situation? Just start talking to other owners of businesses and it could be any kind of business. And you'll be shocked with the stories they could tell and things they could share. So.

Uma Bansal (29:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

We're all in this together, so we should support each other and so many people smarter than us. I mean, I have a mentor myself and he's been instrumental as well. So.

Kevin Daisey (29:28)
I'll be right

Yeah, mentors, coaches. Yeah, and that's the only shortcut to business in my mind. What's the secret? What's the shortcut? Masterminds, books, and talking to other people, putting yourself out there.

So, well, Uma, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I love everything we're talking about. we know the secret now. Read.

Join groups, talk to others, hire a law firm, business law firm to help you get some of these things in place. And, um, yeah.

It's all about the journey, not the outcome, right? So enjoy the path. what's the best way for folks to reach out, connect with you?

Excellent. What is your website address for those listening in their car or

theoraclelegalgroup.com. Excellent. We'll go check her out there. I'm sure you can also find her on LinkedIn and other social medias. Go follow her. And if not, let me know and I'll make the connection if you need any help. So remember, thanks so much for covering some of the basics and the boring stuff that we need to have in place as business centers. So a pleasure.

Yep, absolutely. Everyone, thank you so much for tuning in and we'll see you soon on the next episode. Bye.