This is the conundrum that we all face, which is somebody who actually cares about me and wants to help me and is living his values. Versus somebody who is trying to trick me and essentially steal from me and lie to me, those two people, they sound the same. They use the same verbiage, they say the same things. And so people in this day and age, try to filter a lot of what they're being told with disbelief, with a cynical attitude. And we have to find a way of embracing one another's humanity and not assuming the worst about the other person unless proven otherwise. And I know that's not what you would normally think a lawyer would say to you. But I got to tell you that the reason that I love what I do, the reason I enjoy coming to work in the morning is that I feel that I am solving other people's problems that they cannot solve themselves. That was the voice of Gary D. Nissenbaum. And this is the second part of my interview with Gary. Gary is a lawyer. He works almost exclusively now with digital products, people who are creating products that are in the software space. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. My name is Jonathan Cutrell. This is Developer Tea. My goal is to help driven developers connect to their career purpose so that they can positively impact the people they have influence over. And this introduction kind of discussion that Gary and I were having speaks to that ideal, the ideal that I am walking in to my job and helping people that don't know how to do what I know how to do. And that I can help them in a way that they don't have to be cynical about the work that I'm doing. And I don't have to be cynical about their perspective of me. This is an ideal working scenario and I recommend to you that you seek out situations, you seek out opportunities to work with that holistic reality in mind, the idea that you can work without having to be on opposing sides from your client. You can come to an agreement that is mutually beneficial in most cases. So when we talk about that, we talk about a lot of other things, more specific to a media law in today's episode. And I hope that you enjoy the second part of my interview with Gary and this and bomb. Of course, if you miss the first part, make sure you go back and listen to it before diving into this one. Now, before we jump in, I do want to mention once again, the interview week prep guide. This is for developers who are looking to once again connect to your career purpose. The interview week prep guide you can find it at BeyondBootCamp.io. It's totally free and it's going to walk you through exercises that help you uncover your own purpose. It's going to help you uncover your strengths and it's going to walk you through the process of connecting that purpose and those strengths to the company that you're going to interview with. Go and check it out again. It's BeyondBootCamp.io and it's totally free and I can't wait to hear stories from people who are reading this and then going to interviews and using the ideas, the resources that I've provided there, as well as some of the recommendations, some of the practical tips. Hopefully, those things are helpful, even if it's helpful only at like a 5% level. If it makes you 5% more likely to become hired, then isn't it worth that extra click? It's totally free so it's not like there's a big monetary barrier and I do that because I know that there are developers out there who have been able to up until this point, build their career off the backs of open source. So this idea is to open up this information and to try to encourage Developer To connect to this soft skills stuff in addition to the hard coding skills that you already have. Again, last time BeyondBootCamp.io. Thanks again for listening. Let's jump into the interview with Gary D. Nissenbaum. Somebody starts a consulting business to let's say do website or app development or something similar. What should they do? Should they have a corporation? Should they have a limited partnership or a general partnership? Should they have a limited liability company? If they have a corporation, should it be a C corporation and that's corporation, these terms are confusing. And it's very hard to get a straight answer from people and so what you generally do is you go to your friend, you see what they did and you just duplicate it. The fact is I'll give you a quick example of why those are different. A limited liability company will give you liability protection with pass through income. So on the one hand, you're being protected to some extent from a lawsuit. But at the same time, the money passes through without generally without being taxed. I hasten to add that I'm giving you general legal principles. I'm not applying this to any particular state or any particular situation. People should consult a lawyer of their choosing. They shouldn't rely on anything that I'm saying. Now, having given you that disclaimer, the corporation, C corporation, you're paying corporate business tax generally. But why would somebody then have a C corporation versus an LLC? Well, I'll give you a quick answer. What if you're trying to have investors and you want to sell them shares of stock? There's no shares of stock in an LLC. If you want to someday go public, an LLC generally does not go public. A corporation does with shares. So again, there's all these different nuances and you can't really pull that at least not easily from a website. Another example of that is, what does somebody do when they're leaving their current employer? Are they allowed to compete? Well, the first thing I say is take a look at what you signed when you took the job. And is there a non-compete clause in there? Well, maybe there is. So it doesn't mean you can't compete. What it means is somebody has to evaluate that non-compete clause. So let me just give you one example of some of the problems there. I can't tell you how many non-compete clause is I review when people want to start businesses and they say, am I allowed to do this? I look at their non-compete clause from their current employment. And it says this person may not service any other customers who are who such that he would be in competition with me with the current employer. So the former employee cannot be in competition with the former employer. So a layperson looking at that would say, okay, that's pretty clear. I can't compete. But I look at it or a lawyer looks at it in the lawyer notes that generally speaking, the case law throughout the United States says that the purpose of a non-compete never can be a stifle competition. That's not the purpose. And if you say that in the language of it says, we're doing this for the purpose of you not competing with me. That may make it invalid. It may make it invalid. The purpose of it should be to protect the property interest, legitimate property interest of the employer not to stop competition. So that's an example of something you wouldn't know. So in other words, they can't take that IP and take it directly to someone who is, they've invested a lot of time. They trusted this employee. The employee has some information that has been, it's not something that the employee brought to the company. It's something that the company is invested in. And they can't take that IP and just wholesale handed over to their new company just because they want to. That's another good example. The example I'm giving is about taking customers, taking clients. Your example though is excellent. Because that's the next thing, which is, did you sign a confidentiality agreement? And how broad is it? And is it covering things that are trade secrets? That's one thing. Or is it covering the things that you need in order to practice your profession at all? In other words, a thing a developer just needs to do to be a developer because if it's overly broad, it can be scaled back. There's a concept in the law called the blue pencil rule. And when I say that you'll see the blue pencil, I mean, we're going back decades, right? If not century. And basically what it means is that a court will look at one of these non-compete or confidentiality agreements and such. And if they have an anti-competitive effect or they're uncomfortable, the court will not necessarily invalidate it. What the court will do is modify it like blue pencil it. And so again, these are not things that are intuitive that you would automatically know. So it's something that you really need to go to a lawyer who practices in this area to really understand what your rights are. But having said that, what the law is trying to do in a broad sense is it's trying to foster competition. It's trying to foster capitalism. It wants people to be able to move around and do their thing. Yeah, yeah, because the system only works when you have two people who are racing, right? And you know, there's very politically charged words, obviously, when we start talking about commerce and capitalism and all of the other things go with it. But if you just strip it back to its basic concept, if I have two or three people and I put them in a room and I say, hey, you know what? I want you to come out with a very good thing. And I give them no incentive, right? I just say, I just want you to do something good. Well, it's very unlikely that I'm going to end up with something really particularly good because people are not very good at just self motivating. Instead, we have this basic human concept of incentive. We have a basic human concept of survival, right? These are core to who we are. And so if you put them in the room and you say, hey, they're going to only be one winner. And the winner gets $100. How much better? I'm it's better of a result you can get. Right? So this idea is quite simple that, hey, you know what? We've actually found that that competition, it's not about beating people over the head with, you know, I'm better than you. That's not what this competition is about. Healthy competition is about leveling the entire whole, right? So adding value to the market as a total market, not just adding value to an individual company. Well, you know, the way I look at it is capitalism, the sense of business competition is the accelerator in the car. The court system and the regulatory system are the break. Now, I think the point that's been made in our political dialogue is that, you know, you don't want to always hit the break because the car will eventually stop. So that's not good. On the other hand, from the other side of the spectrum, if all you do is hit that accelerator, you're going to get into an accident pretty quick. And so it's a concept of balance, the fact that the court system, in my view, is there to create balance so that the system is not moving out of control, that there is some kind of understanding that contracts need to be formed. But there are occasions when contracts need to be broken. There's no, there's no right or wrong about that. It's not like you're an evil person if you break a contract. However, there should be compensation. And so the law literally, and I know this is another concept that might be not be counterintuitive, but it's an important one for your audience, is that every law student learns in the first semester of law school, that there are two regimes of laws in America. There is contract law, which is that the formation and the breach of contracts, and then there's injury law where people are creating injuries, not just personal injury can also be injury by virtue of stealing somebody's intellectual property or taking a trade secret. The concept though, is that the first one, contract law, you can breach a contract, and there's no punishment for that. The courts will not say that you did anything evil or wrong. The courts will simply try to reorient the compensation so the person who suffered because you breach the contract will be duly compensated. Whereas if somebody intentionally, sever is a right, takes intellectual property, grabs trade secrets, steals intellectual property, things like that. That person needs to not just compensate, that person, if it's intentional, may need to be punished. We call it punitive damages. Right. And so these are sort of the concepts where on the one hand, you have a regime of laws that are simply there to be the referee in the rough and tumble of a capitalist business society. And then the other is a court is there to protect victims, and there are just two different concepts that work in parallel. Yeah, and the reality is, if you're not careful with any system, including the court, including law, there's going to be someone who takes it and finds the edges, finds a way to turn it into a weapon. And this is why it's important to, as a developer, as a company, as a business owner, it's important to think about, to hedge yourself against that kind of threat. Because if you end up in a scenario where you have put in endless amounts of work, and you didn't protect yourself, you didn't take the time, for example, to create a simple paper trail, which can go a long way. And even things that you would have an intuition for, that could be wrong. Like things that you think are protecting you, but actually have no protection value whatsoever. If you're in that position, then it would only make sense for you to take the time to go and talk to somebody like Gary, and figure out, okay, you know what, where am I possibly vulnerable that I haven't even thought about yet? That's right. And I'll give you a great example of the concept you were just alluding to. Cyber squatting. Let's just talk for a moment about cyber squatting. You know, you're talking about someone having a trademark, some kind of proprietary right in a mark. And then someone else unrelated to them, who creates a domain using that trademark in a way that confuses, that makes the public think that it's there, is not the person that actually owns it. The law will not allow somebody to register a domain name that incorporates a famous mark, as long as they have a bad faith intent to profit from it. But here's the thing, domain registration is not a legal process through the court system. Domain registration is done through other other worldwide agencies. I'm sure that you're familiar with that basically make this whole system work. So the court system is saying you cannot use the domain registration to take somebody's rights in their trademark, which is a system of statutes and laws and judicial enforcement. And so the point is that again, you have in commercial law what you have in the law that applies to developers generally, to developers who are starting their own businesses, to developers who have to worry about intellectual property rights. You're really talking about a regime of laws that where you're acting as a referee, where you're basically saying people are going to step on other people's toes all the time. That's a bad thing, but we're going to figure out a rational, reasonable way to fix it without the two companies destroying one another. And that's the benefit of using the legal system in a way that's positive and constructive to resolve a dispute without destruction. Yeah, that's a very good kind of summation. And you said something earlier that was so inspiring to me. I love this idea that you walk in to work and you're empowered by the concept that you're actually helping people do something that they couldn't do on their own. And what people may not realize is that either they're setting themselves up for their own destruction or they're participating in the destruction of another company. Because they're not paying attention to how they are going about doing something. Well, part of it is also that people don't want to upset others and they don't want to make enemies. So a lot of times someone is doing something where they're really going off the rails. I mean, they are taking a very, very risky strategy, doing something they really should not do that's going to go to a bad place. But the people around them have no interest in telling them that because they know they're going to get a bad reaction. They know this person wants to do it. I and the people who work with me here at Nisimel Mlaug Group, we are constantly in the position of telling people what they don't want to hear. And in a funny way, a lot of what I do all day is basically telling people what they don't want to hear and getting people to do what they don't want to do. And it's not that I do it in any coercive way. I have no power to coercive them to do anything. These are people I serve. They're my clients. But it's more along the lines of I may be the only one in their lives who doesn't have a vested interest in pleasing them. But instead has a vested interest in protecting them. Right. And so I will give them a call of I have no issue telling them that what you're doing is dangerous. Here's the reason here's what's going to happen. However, here's another solution. Here's another way of going. And I add that because you know, it doesn't take a bright bulb, let's say, to be able to say no. Anybody can say no. That doesn't take a lot of education or a lot of a lot of acumen. A lot of experience. But the idea of saying no, but you can do it this way or no. But here's the risk. And I'm going to give you three alternatives. They're all at various stages of risk. That is the real in my opinion practice of law where you're you're not destroying deals. You're rescuing deals. You're preventing them from going off the rails. You're preventing them from going over a cliff. I can't tell you how many times I hear people say, you know, I will not bring a lawyer in to a transaction until the last minute because lawyers screw up deals. Lawyers are always there to say no, it's not accurate. It's not accurate. It's like saying, you know, doctors are fixated on disease. Doctors love disease. So I'm not going to go to the doctor because if I go to the doctor, he'll tell me I'm sick. If I don't go, then I don't have to hear that I'm sick. I mean, the point is you go to a lawyer who can tell you a way out of a situation that you don't even know you're in. Half the time. And that's really what our goal is. Yeah, and that happens with, you know, there's a lot of developers who are listening this right now. And you are in a freelancing situation where you have avoided difficult conversations with your client. Like, for example, signing just a normal contract. Even if it's a boilerplate, very simple agreement. You didn't want to sign it because of someone once told you down the line at some point that signing a contract or presenting a contract is dangerous. You might lose the client because of what it communicates. It communicates that you don't trust them or it communicates, you know, that you want to be rigid or that you're you're out to, you know, pin them down. And the reality is those contracts when they're written well and when they're presented tactfully and that those are important. Don't get me wrong. The important piece here is not only the contract, but how you present it. But if you don't have that stuff, right, if you're not paying attention to those things, then you almost certainly at some point in your freelance career will get taken advantage of by people who otherwise are well meaning. Right, well, let me give you an example of that. And I want to get away from some of the more technical things that we've been talking and talk about another level to this. Let's talk about when developers are working as independent contractors and they're bidding on work. You're bidding on work and you're signing on that you're going to create a website. You're going to create an app. You're going to have certain functionality. Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about two things. Number one, how did you describe what success looks like? What you have to do to finish this contract and be done with it? Because if what you said is I'm going to do I'm going to create a website and it will have the functionality that you need to perform what you want to do in your business. You're signing on to something that may be perpetual and right endless and it may be that you did a flat fee and that flat fee is used up and you're still working there. And then if if five years from now, it needs to be renovated, you're still working there. And it's one of these things where there's an art form to how you describe in a bid document or in a contract with a customer exactly what it is you want to do. What it is you will and will not be doing on that flat fee arrangement and when you go billable and also hourly billable and when you can pull out. And when you can give up on the contract that's number one. Let me get just quickly give you number two source code. How many of these customers who who obtain let's say web website development from a developer realize that or believe that they are they are literally owning all the code everything that was used for that website. They own the source code they own the open source code they basically have complete they have a complete product because what they see is they see the graphics on a screen. Well, you know how many of them really understand that the developer is keeping some of that code and is able to use it in other jobs. How many of them and if they don't understand that are we going to be in a lawsuit. How many of them realize that there are some of this was open source and if it's open source it's subject to the conditions of that open source software and what people think of in the lay public of course your audience knows the difference. But in the lay public we think well open source means free. No restriction I can do whatever I want with it absolutely on untrue. There are all sorts of conditions on open source software that you have to be very, very careful when you when you have when you have the open source concept but to read the terms and conditions to be sure that you're not using it in some way. That that that that is going to violate that license. So those are two things that I think we have to sort of educate only put it this way your audience needs to educate their own customers through perhaps an attorney who's drafting the document in a way that makes this clear. Today's episode is sponsored by fuse and before we get into talking about what fuse does I want to go ahead and tell you that fuse is offering you a 70% discount on their premium product. This is a brand new thing that fuse has announced. Now if you don't know what fuse does if you've ever tried to develop a mobile application using the traditional tools like Xcode or Android Studio then you know that it can be a little bit of a pain and those tools really haven't changed very much in 10 years or so. Fuse is trying to change that reality for you they're create they've created a tool that allows you to focus on collaboration rather than writing a bunch of code and the platform works on both Mac and PC it's an all in one solution and they've just gone from their beta to their official 1.0 launch this is a huge deal. They've alongside this they've released fuse studio which is their premium editor this comes along with the premium plan this is the paid plan from fuse fuse even tells us that you are very likely to be able to get by on the free plan so there's no cost in getting started up you can try this out totally for free head over to fuse tools.com slash plans. Now if you use the code DT and you do decide to upgrade to that premium plan which by the way it has some excellent tools some built in UI really sophisticated things that fuse has done with your premium plan. If you do decide to go to that premium plan use the code DT and you'll get 70% off for the next year not just a month of 70% off as a whole year of 70% off again use the code DT and you have to use that code by December 31st of 2017 thank you so much to fuse for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. I try to listen to what I think developers are going to be saying when they're listening this episode there is a group of there's two groups of developers I want to address right now in response to the to the establishing your your contract and very clear terms about what you're going to do and what you're not going to do and you mentioned the language. You know talking about okay I'm going to build you a site that helps you accomplish the goals of your business and how that can end up in an endless work cycle so there's two groups of Developer The first group is the group that already has done that and you're on the other side and you've learned from pain right you've learned from a very difficult and sometimes toxic situation or sometimes not even toxic but it ended up ruining the relationship. Meaning the relationship that once was actually very good you had a great relationship with this client and unfortunately things went off the rails because expectations were not set out clearly so the other group is the other group I want to address is the group of people who think that the people you're working with would never do that to you because they're good people now here's the problem with this perspective. You may be a hundred percent correct about those people being good kind they don't intend to take advantage of you they don't necessarily intend you know to to work you to the bone the problem is when you when you don't have clarity of expectations right then it doesn't matter what somebody's intentions are it doesn't matter how good you think these people will treat you all that matters is what you promise to do versus what they're asking you to do and if there's a disparity there if there's a lack of clarity there then you walk in not knowing when you're going to walk out that's exactly right and a great deal of lawsuits that could be brought are not brought because the people involved have a good relationship and they're willing they're willing to overlook things yeah they're not integral to their business and to their goals and objectives mistakes accidents things happen no harm was meant there there are many many situations like that and the verse of that which is what you're talking about which is you have someone who has a rather minor grievance something that's not really hurting them in any meaningful way although it does state some sort of cause of action and and they are just going full tilt because they feel that they have been disrespected that they feel that they have not they're they're just not they're not treated well and this is their way of getting back yeah it is a very emotional thing right that's right and and so a lot of of what what I do as a lawyer is I try to understand the emotional valence of what's going on not just with my own client but with the other side and and and I try to understand that not so much yeah so that I can tell the client to immediately settle their dispute and this is ridiculous I find that that doesn't work because when people are not ready to do that they don't hear it they're not ready to hear it it's a useless exercise that basically and I may not even be right about it it may be that something that I'm looking at and I say this is ridiculous it turns out it's very important to that person I just don't understand completely their industry and what's going on so I need to be humble in the sense of I don't I can't think for you I'm not living your life if you need to go forward with this I will help you do that and I'll but on the other hand at various points I'll sit somebody down privately and ask them if they think they want to settle it ask them if they want me to reach out to the other side you know and and kind of give them the upside and the downside and and not make the decision for them but see what they want to do and and I find that that approach seems to work better these these disputes sort of have their own their own half life and there's a point at which they should resolve and generally do but not always and part of my job is to spot that sort of area with people can come together and and then bring them together if they want to be brought together Yeah, yeah, you mentioned the word humble and this is actually an episode I did recently about what it takes to be a great developer and one of the traits of a great developer is rational humility okay, so the concept of combining these two words rational humility it really what it means is recognizing very tangibly and even just statistically that you're going to end up failing and there's going to be a lot left for you to learn at the end of every single day of your life right at the end of every single project that you involve yourself on at the end of every single client interaction there's something that you very well could be wrong about right and this is this is such a key factor to growth and to becoming better at what you do in general and I really love that you brought up that point that hey you know I may not be able to know exactly what needs to happen in every scenario and this is true this is this is one of the drivers I think of cynicism for developers people who involved in tech have an I think an unusual amount of cynicism about clients and about the world around them and I think part of the reason for this is because quite simply it's a lack of humility and recognizing that hey you know what I don't actually know everything that's going to happen with your product right I don't know your customer as well as you do well let me let me give you an example of that you know there's one of one of these things that fortunately our culture in our society has moved away from thankfully is this is is untrue concept that if somebody does not speak the language well if they speak English but in a broken language or broken English where there's some sort of issue with an accent that somehow they're not as bright as somebody not intelligent and thankfully we've gotten away from that and there's been and obviously not only is it not true but there's so many examples with that that is not not true at all and and so it's the same thing with professions you know when when you come to a lawyer and we're using words that you don't understand if you sit there and you don't want to sound stupid so you don't want to ask hey what is that word me what is that word me I don't understand what you just said and instead you just sort of nod your head with a with a you know the smile and it sounds and it looks like you understand what I'm talking about but you don't want to feel or look silly or stupid you're doing yourself a disservice and it's not the way that you should work with a professional and as a matter of fact I'll go even further I think that a professional a lawyer a doctor a CPA a money manager has an obligation to check in with you and say listen there's no such thing as a stupid question the only question that stupid is the one you don't ask me and please ask me to explain something and frankly the way I view what I do is if if I explain it to you and you don't understand what I just said it may very well be that I'm the problem that I need to figure out a better way of explaining it and so that challenge is me you know it's right again it doesn't take somebody that bright to just re-urgitate what they learned in graduate school that's just memorization the the the the challenge is to step back understand the big picture and explain it in a simple way to give you the macro concept and only from there move to the micro and get into the verbiage so that you understand what I'm talking about and that's one of the key things one of the key challenges that I I've set for myself as a lawyer no client should walk out of here confused yes what an excellent excellent value to hold and this is actually you know you're ringing a lot of bells here for listeners because we talk about that same exact concept on the show understanding becoming an expert in communications not just knowing a little bit about it but becoming truly an expert at it that's a hallmark trade of people who are incredibly good at what they do right this is this is true of lawyers this is true of developers is true of every profession almost every profession particularly knowledge based professions is if you can communicate what you've learned if you can communicate what you're going to do if you can communicate an idea then that idea becomes powerful right that it doesn't have power if it's just a locked up in your brain ironically the the the the area in which I do the most of that is in SEO in in in how I market my website how I'm able to market my services I I may have one line or two lines of print that will come up on a Google search and it has to convey this this incredibly complicated concept of why you should hire me as your lawyer it's that's not a simple thing to explain in maybe 20 words and so what's interesting is that the digital world again has has forced me to learn to explain complicated things in very short bursts of language which is not what I was trained to do it's a different approach now you can take it to the extreme and everything's a Twitter a tweet on Twitter and that's kind of that doesn't work but but my point is that the idea of brevity the idea that of going to someone who doesn't know you doesn't know your profession and doesn't even want to and explain to them how you can be of service to them that isn't that is a part of being human it's part of understanding that your humanity and their humanity are equivalent regardless of as the graduate degree there is a or who speaks the same language or who who does the same thing we're equivalent we're the same we're from we're coming from the same place and if we can hold on to that and I will tell you just to wrap that up that the law actually acknowledges that there are there's something called alternate dispute resolution which is a concept that came about maybe 20 to 25 years ago and it really took hold and that concept was that the idea of an adversarial court system where people are hitting themselves hitting each other over the head and having a judge kind of break up the fight and then make a choice or a jury do that that that didn't work in every case and that there's another way and so this concept of mediation the concept of people who are trained to understand both sides understand the emotion going on separate everybody puts them in different rooms and then shuttle back and forth and see if you can come up with a point of convergence and then settle the dispute in a way that both sides are unhappy with but they begrudgingly can can can accept that sort of the definition of a good settlement and that has taken hold in a way that's unbelievable in fact if you if you're really interested in this go on Google and look up something called collaborative law that is the next stage after mediation something that I've often thought could be applicable to commercial law but it really hasn't taken hold it's really something that has been focused on in divorce in a different area and the idea of collaborative law not to get into all of it but the this is cutting edge this and this is something that began I think in California and has moved around the country in divorce situations it's that you give complete and total disclosure you tell each side tells the other everything and you make a commitment not to mislead and you sit down in good faith and that's why it does so well with the right couple in a divorce situation so take a look at that if you're interested in this area it's sort of where the law is moving yeah that's a that's a very good idea I think you know one of the things is happening in business and particularly for developers we're seeing more and more people working as kind of loan guns right loan hires freelancing what however you want to to look at it effectively very small and usually solo outfits and sometimes it's one and two or three people and this is this has been common I mean small businesses a common thing most businesses are small businesses just by a simple factor of statistics right but on top of that you know you're starting to see small companies taking on much bigger jobs and so because we have a lot of small companies it's almost like component companies coming together with their various expertise and collaborating on projects you know that is a very interesting concept of matching the law to that same you know overlaying the law on that same concept it's going to be very interesting to see where our nation is going essentially in this is is the digital world is the world of information technology going to show the American culture a different way of interacting that is not as adversarial that is that where you have it's not a zero some game you have you have you don't have a winner and a loser is there is a some way that by adopting some of these concepts of collaboration some of these concepts of joint venturing you know the very fact that there is an internet but no one owns it the fact that there are so many people this is another thing the lay public doesn't really understand but your listeners do there are so many people who enhance the integrity and strength of the internet and if they were going to want to do this they could destroy those junctions that are used for the internet they could slow everything down quite the opposite they sort of have a humanitarian approach when there's a lack of ownership but you're doing this for the world this this whole idea of freedom of information you know I wonder sometimes if if this digital world is going to be the way out from some of the ranker that we have seen in in other industries and frankly in our public discourse yeah well well very very big topics and certainly things that we're going to see affecting you know all the way down to our daily jobs right but but also all the way up to national level policy and international policy even all of this is is going to change the way we do you know with the way we do everything the way we do business the way we do you work it's already changing it's already changing right before I so Gary thank you so much for your time today I do have two more questions that I like to ask everyone who comes on the show and I think they're going to be excellent questions to ask you as well the first question I like to ask is if you and I were to go and have a cup of tea or coffee and sit down and talk for the first time what would you hope that I would ask you about I would hope that you would you would ask me about how what things I have gained over the years being an attorney that have changed so that the attorney I was when I got my law degree at the age of 26 and the attorney that I am now is different what what have I learned over the years that my practice of law has changed because I think I have learned things and I think that's part of hopefully being humble in my profession and understanding that I can always improve yeah that's that's great and is there a thing a specific thing maybe that you can share very quickly before we wrap this absolutely when I was in my mid 20s and I was first a lawyer whenever I would be assigned work by the person I worked for at that time a litigation I would look at it and I would say this is silly these people should settle and I would I would call my client and say listen I got a great settlement let's get this let's just settle this thing and then get that the other side in the room and what I found was that by doing that too early by doing it when I wanted to do it as opposed to listening to the client and listening to the adversary and understanding the subtlety the humanity this what's going on between them I would I would get a bad settlement essentially not not not horrible I mean it was always a reasonable settlement but I could have done something better when I look back and I say to myself you know a lot of this is is encouraging the client toward the goal but not forcing that goal and that that has helped me a lot in in the way I work with my clients I work for them and toward their interest they don't really accommodate me mm-hmm yeah wow wow that's such such an interesting insight and that experience is something that I think a lot of people sharing you know it's obviously I'm not doing settlements but I I do realize that there times when my intuition about the outcome of something it doesn't even matter if it's correct you know right I have that same intuition that first initial assumption that hey you know what this is kind of silly right they don't need that they need this they shouldn't use that tool they should use this one and if I try to jump ahead or if I try to make that conclusion too quickly then I'm skipping the mental process isn't I'm skipping the the exploration and discovery that they have to go through to get on the same page that's right that's exactly trying to jump ahead in the story you learn that in life general and just doesn't learn that in relationships you know you learn that in every aspect of the world in which you interact with other people it's just that as a lawyer it's more difficult to learn it at the outset because law school is not necessarily giving you those psychodynamics it's not really giving you those tools but over the years through trial and error and I got to say by watching my clients run their businesses with modern techniques of management and dealing with people I have learned I learn from my clients and I learn other ways of handling things and you know there's an old saying that as you get older you get less smart which means I'm less certain that I know everything right now that's better yeah yeah there you go that's even better yeah you know more about what you don't know yes that's right so and this excellent excellent answer the high question and the second question I like to ask everyone who comes on the shows if you had just 30 seconds to give some advice to developers of all backgrounds and experience levels what would you tell them what I would tell them is to read what you sign which also mean read what you agreed to by clicking on when you access a website when you access an app when you take on a job don't just sign something because somebody puts it in front of you and looks at you as if you have three words because you actually want to read it don't let yourself be intimidated into signing something that you're only going to really read once something goes wrong and now you need to either enforce your rights or you need somebody's going to enforce the rights against you that's not the first time you should be reading the contract that you just sign it's very good advice and hopefully it'll keep some people who are listening out of some trouble that they otherwise would have been in Gary thank you so much for your time where can people go and learn more about what you do and and learn about how they might be when I engage you the best way is my website is a gd and l a w dot com gd n law dot com we have a lot of wealth of information on there about internet law and intellectual property law and all the other areas that we practice and so please visit our website there and I hope that it's helpful to you and thank you very much your you have been a tremendously really terrific resource for Developer Throughout the years and I've heard of your web your your podcast before it's excellent and if anything this interview was just done so well and you just did a great job so thank you for making this really a pleasant experience thank you Gary take care thank you so much for listening to today's episode of developer to you thank you again to Gary Dean is a bomb of course you can find Gary's law firm at gd n law dot com this gd n law dot com thank you again to Gary for sharing all of the insights and the personal stories with us and thank you for sharing to developer to you this show wouldn't exist without you and it only exists so that it can serve driven developers and help them connect to the air career purpose I want to inspire you to connect to that purpose and always be striving to become a better developer so that you can better accomplish that purpose thank you so much for listening thank you to fuse for sponsoring today's episode of developer to you and all in one solution that's going to help you write less code and focus more on collaboration focus more on the outcome of your application had refused tools dot com slash plans to get started for free today remember the code d t will get you 70 percent off their premium plan for an entire year fuse tools dot com slash plans thank you so much for listening to today's episode one more thing no matter what stage you're at in your career if you think that you could benefit from connecting better to your own purpose and really everyone can but specifically if you're a driven developer in other words if you care about your career beyond just you know what your title is that I want you to take to action steps today the first one is to go to beyond boot 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