(00:04):

What’s up everybody. I’m Shontavia Johnson, and this is another episode of The Shontavia Show where I want to inspire you to build a brand, business and life that you love. It’s Thursday y’all woop woop — and I love Thursdays almost as much as much as I love Mondays.

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I like to talk about all kinds of things on Thursdays, and what I really want to do is answer your questions. So for as long as I have questions on Thursdays, I will continue to answer your questions. I may drop some other stuff in here about other thoughts I have, but feel free to reach out to me at askshontavia@gmail.com.

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So let’s get into this question. Okay. So this topic is kind of funny—how to find a cheap lawyer. That is an oxymoron a bit, but let’s get into it.

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Hey Shontavia, thank you so much for the show. I know you are a lawyer and I have questions about lawyers. How do I find one that won’t break the bank? I have a few things I want to copyright, I think, but I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend. I might also have some trademarks and patents—-I really don’t know the difference. This is why I need a lawyer! Also, I’m a woman of color and I’d love to find someone who looks like me, or who can at least understand my cultural perspective, but, again, I don’t have a lot of money. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. All the best to you, Kendall.

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Alright Kendall. This is funny. Thank you for the question. I know finding a good lawyer is hard. I know it’s hard. Actually. I am a lawyer and when my husband and I needed a lawyer for some of the other projects we’re working on, we actually had to think, well how would we go about finding a lawyer for this particular thing? Because we didn’t know anybody in that space.

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So I can empathize with you here about finding not only a lawyer that fits your budget, but also one that is culturally competent and sensitive to the needs you have.

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This reminds me of a story I love that I heard Sarah Blakely recount on–I don’t remember where the video came from–I’ll see if I can find it and I’ll drop the link in the show notes. But Sarah Blakely, when she was starting Spanx, which is the underwear company, when she first was starting in Georgia, she had invented, you know, Spanx and was looking for someone, a patent lawyer in particular to help her file the patent application. And she really wanted a woman. And she could not find a woman patent lawyer in all of Georgia. I think she reached out to like the Georgia State Bar Association, which keeps records of all the lawyers in Georgia, and they couldn’t find a woman patent lawyer, according to Sarah Blakely, in Georgia.

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So she had to shift a little and look for just any lawyer who was good, who met her budget and who she felt comfortable with. So according to her, the video that I think I’m remembering correctly, she went out and interviewed some lawyers, many of them laughed at her, told her the idea was ridiculous. And those who didn’t just laugh at her to her face wanted so much money. They wanted basically like her life savings, which I think at the time was something like $5,000 to get started on the patent application. So she basically scrapped that entire plan and wrote most of her patent application herself. She ended up needing help with one specific part, and she found a male lawyer who had been convinced by his daughters that Spanx was going to be a huge thing. So that’s how she found her first lawyer, who apparently she still uses today.

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But that reminds me a little bit of your question because she was having some of the same issues. The money question. The question about finding a lawyer who really could understand the technology–not just in like a draconian, black and white kind of way, but in like the, “I’ve see it, I think it is valuable. I understand, you know, as a woman that this is a legitimate invention” kind of way. So I say all this to say as a lawyer, I know it’s hard to find a good one. I do have some suggestions, though, on how you can start to find someone who meets both your budget and your desire for cultural competence.

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#1. So number one, if money is one of the primary concerns, which it is for everybody, not just, you know, you, I know, Kendall, but one of the things you can do if money is an issue is look at the law schools in your area.

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Hopefully you live near some law schools and find a legal clinic. So, many law schools have legal clinics. Some of the legal clinics have like a business component to the legal clinic. Some have intellectual property components to the legal clinic. And what a legal clinic does is allow law students to get experience representing clients with the guidance of a lawyer or a law professor or maybe a combination of both. And frankly there are other colleagues there, other student counterparts, classmates. So clinics usually do this darn near cheap or free other than the cost of filing applications, because it’s a learning opportunity for the students. So the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which handles patents and trademarks for inventors who want to get that kind of stuff in the US, offers this program called the Law School Clinic Certification Program.

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And they basically deputize the clinics that have applied, to go out and represent inventors and creators when they want to get patents or trademarks in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. And they do this fairly economically.

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So that’s one place I would suggest that you look.

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#2 Number two, look to your local bar associations. So the bar association is basically the group that keeps up with all the lawyers in the area. You may have a state bar association, you may have a city bar association. Depending on the area where you live, there may even be a regional bar association. They keep up with the lawyers in their membership. So if you’re looking for something in particular, kind of like Sara Blakely did, you can reach out to them and find folks. I know in the state where I live, in South Carolina, our bar association, even on their website, has a list of lawyers who will offer a free consultation.

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And so maybe, wherever you are, you can try the same thing.

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#3 And then third, and this is what you’re not gonna want to hear, probably. Lawyers fees are just high, right? Like, that saying you get what you pay for? Oftentimes that is true, particularly when you have a lawyer who’s not volunteering, not working for a legal clinic where they’re getting paid some other kind of way. Oftentimes you do kind of get what you paid for. So my third suggestion really is to research lawyers and fees. Go interview a few, pick two or three if you can. If you can’t visit them face to face, get on the phone with them or something or web conference, if they’ll do that. And ask them about their fees, get a good sense of a range. This is why I suggest interviewing maybe three people or so.

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Get on Google a lot of times, now, you have some boutique firms in particular who post their fees/publish their fees and just say find a lawyer who you like more than the lawyer who is cheap because a cheap lawyer who frankly any lawyer, cheap or expensive, if they’re making a bunch of mistakes, if they’re not being responsive to you and your needs, then that can hurt you more in the long run.

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Even though you saved a bunch of money, you don’t want to lose out on any of your intellectual property because you cut corners there.

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So I hope these three suggestions are helpful to you, Kendall. Check to see if there’s a law school legal clinic near you. Check out the state bar associations. Do some research online. Interview some people get on the phone or go to their office. See if you can talk to some folks about what their fees are and save the money. Find somebody who you like and who’s responsive instead of just the person who’s cheapest.

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Hope something I said here today, Kendall, helps you. And for everybody else, if you have questions either about this or about something else, please reach out to me at askshontavia@gmail.com. If you have questions, you may hear that question and my thoughts about it on the next episode of The Shontavia Show. Thanks so much for listening.