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THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Invictus Sovereign- Chief Compliance Officer, General Legal Counsel- Len Carson
Unlock the secret to personal and professional growth with Len Carson, Chief Compliance Officer and General Legal Counsel at Invictus Sovereign. Join us as Len shares his path from his formative years at Washington University School of Law to navigating the legal world in law firms and as a prosecuting attorney. Len offers valuable insights on balancing the diverse elements of life—faith, family, finances, and health—and recounts his bold transition from firm life to entrepreneurship, illustrating resilience and an unwavering commitment to personal evolution.
Explore the driving forces behind impactful work with a focus on sustainability and legacy. Our conversation delves into how energy production shapes the future economy, drawing upon George Friedman's geopolitical insights. Discussing landfill reduction and sustainable resources, we emphasize the power of innovation over mere consumption reduction. This episode champions the importance of aligning personal values with professional goals, fostering a team united by integrity and purpose rather than just technical prowess.
As we turn our attention to the legal landscape, discover the complexities of litigation and the role of values in selecting business partners. Len candidly shares experiences with the American legal system, advocating for maintaining integrity amidst challenges. Additionally, we ponder the future of AI in law, highlighting its potential to reshape attorney roles and streamline legal processes. With Len's guidance, we navigate these waters, offering listeners a thoughtful exploration of growth, values, and the ever-evolving legal profession.
Okay, len, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, good to be here. This is our first go-around with the full headphone setup with our over-the-phone interview, so thanks for being a guinea pig with our tech.
Speaker 2:We've been fiddling with this for about an hour Pretty much, but we're ready to do color commentary for football games and all kinds of good stuff. Now, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, that's right, yeah, right From the couch.
Speaker 1:Okay, len. So I'm going to give you a prop. The Eagle's Nest. Yes, coming to you, live from the Eagle's Nest. I'm going to give you a proper introduction, len, because you deserve it and our listeners deserve to know what an amazing man you are. I deserve to know. I want to hear this too. I'm going to read it. I have it written down here.
Speaker 1:So Len Carson is our chief compliance officer. He's also general legal counsel and a general partner of Invictus Sovereign and its entities. Len is primarily responsible for overseeing ensuring the firm's compliance with all relevant laws, regulatory requirements, policies and procedures. His primary role with the organization is to ensure the firm's legal compliance with all financial offerings by acting as the firm's liaison with all of the other law firms, like Kilpatrick Townsend, our Cayman representation, traverse, thorpe, alburga. You're a busy guy.
Speaker 1:Yes, len received his Juris Doctor from Washington University School of Law in St Louis Missouri. He's been practicing law since his graduation in 1999. He's a member of the Utah State Bar in good standing and he began his legal practice at Callister Nebeker and McCullough in Salt Lake City. He's also practiced with Richards, brett Miller and Nelson. Len was a prosecuting attorney for several years and was one of the founding partners of Pearson, butler and Carson. Over the past two decades, len's legal practice has been focused on secured transactions, creditor-debitor rights, real estate law and finance, and in his free time I happen to know from experience he enjoys hiking in the Red Rocks of southern Utah and tapping early and often during his morning, brazilian jiu-jitsu practice.
Speaker 3:Guys Len, he's a strong guy.
Speaker 1:He's a big guy, he's formidable, he's a muscular fellow, he has old man strength. He has old man strength. He is very tough to grapple with. So, len, thank you for joining us on the show today. Absolutely, it's good to be here, good to be here. So let's kick this off appropriately. Dave, do you want to take the first stab at a question for Len? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Beyond keeping us in legal compliance and probably editing what we say. Perhaps. Perhaps I've had the good pleasure of getting to know you over almost a couple years now, I think and it's been fantastic, so I know a little bit about you, but we get to introduce people to you. What is your? Why? What keeps you passionate about it? Why keeps you passionate about, why are you passionate about what we're doing? What interests you? You know what. What do you think about when you think about what we're trying to accomplish? Had him at in big this that's a really good question.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't, um, I don't, I, I don't think I have a why, uh.
Speaker 3:So, uh, you know, and I know Simon Sinek says I'm supposed to have a why, but I don't think I have I, I, uh, I. What's important to me is growth, personal development and growth and being better than I was the day before and trying to improve in all the areas right Faith, family, finances and physical. It's important to me for growth in all of those areas of my life and so applying that that's generally right If we bring it down to Invictus, to business, to what we're doing here, this absolutely is part of that, not only for my personal growth. To help me. Take everything I've learned, all my education and training over the last well, I mean my education and training over the last well, I mean formal education and training over the last, practice for the last 25 years and school for seven or eight years before that, and then everything else to help this company, help the world. Being a part of that is a huge challenge and absolutely will help me with my desire to grow, to be my best self. Sounds like a why to me?
Speaker 1:That qualifies as a why. It's pretty good, that's a good hedge to say no why and recategorize or relabel what that answer was, what?
Speaker 3:Maybe it's a why, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I've had the blessing of working with and getting to know Len now, for we're in the 19th year of me first meeting Len Carson, and so you know Len on one hand, and Carson, and so you know Len on one hand, has seen me go through every possible personal trial you could imagine, and he's seen me get knocked down more times than I care to admit, and he's been there to, you know, see how we put the pieces back together and reinvent ourselves and reinvent ourselves many, many, many times over. In the past five or six years, len, you've been kind of in the same canoe with me of reinventing ourselves. Right, it's great to look at these. You know these past firms that you've been a key part of founding or operating other law firms, title companies and things like that. But it's been a real challenge.
Speaker 1:I think we would agree to reinvent ourselves and kind of have you dive headlong into the canoe of entrepreneurship, which is what we've kind of asked you to do and you've willingly dove into the fray with us. Do you want to elaborate a little bit on something? And, you know, feel free to share whatever detail you're comfortable with here. We don't have to be too super vulnerable, but there's a transition, you know, from working with a firm to, you know, becoming, you know, the chief legal officer of a startup right, I don't think it's a stretch to say that attorneys as a whole are risk adverse.
Speaker 3:That's I mean that's you know that first year of law school where they beat hope and charity is right out of you, faith gone, and you become this school in the worst case scenario, schooled in the worst case scenario, right, that's what being an attorney is about is trying to imagine the worst possible things that could happen and then trying to prevent them or hedge against them somehow or protect if things do happen. And so, like you're alluding to, I was certainly there Risk adverse entrepreneurship. I mean we started a firm together and so there's a little bit there. But the big firms I worked at there was no entrepreneurial sort of activity. They didn't pay you to market to go find clients or that sort of thing. They didn't pay you to market to go find clients or that sort of thing. They didn't want any of that. They just wanted you to be in the back room grinding out the contracts.
Speaker 3:So there wasn't much incentive to build or to grow or to imagine what might happen. And so it's certainly been a journey to get from there to here, and sometimes terrifying and sometimes exciting. It's been a lot of fun and honestly being able to watch you, wayne, specifically, as you said, you went through all these experiences and I guess that's the case, but you didn't just it wasn't just getting through them and improve and adapt and thrive. Throughout all these experiences that have kind of been thrown at you, and watching you do that has been inspiring to me, as I've kind of, especially in the last several years, been on my own journey of emergence and discovery here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll appreciate you. That's really. No, that's sad. So was it this guy? What was it? A combination of things for you? What was it that you know where you find yourself today with doing this, that you not necessarily that you didn't pivot out of a lot, but pivoted out of a you know changed kind of the modality of what you were doing, and was there something? That was what was the thing.
Speaker 3:Probably a few things. I think most attorneys, especially transactional attorneys, you have transactional guys and you have litigators. Right, litigators are just pit bulls. They're amazing. I don't mean to disparage them at all. We need them. We need them Absolutely, those guys, and they're fantastic at what they do, and they're they're fantastic at what they do and they, they're warriors, right, they're they're.
Speaker 3:You throw them in the in the ring and they fight, uh, and they're really good at it. And and we have some really good ones as part of some of these firms that we that we work with uh and and so uh, but that's not me. I'm I'm a transactional guy and so I've rubbed shoulders with transactional guy and so I've rubbed shoulders with business people for most of my career. And so eventually, when you do that enough, most attorneys that I've met transactional guys who've been in the business for a long enough time they want to be the client. They're tired of being the attorney and they want to be the client. They see what's there, but wanting to be there and making that leap are two entirely different things. Right, and so wanting to be there a lot, because I've seen Wayne and his journey, but other business owners and other successful people that I've watched and been a part of it gave me that inspiration that I wanted to do it.
Speaker 3:But then doing it that's because of Wayne Astin. I mean that's because Wayne said let's do this Like. Let's do this Like yes.
Speaker 1:Do we think we can get our wives on board with this? Len, you're fortunate because you are still married to the love of your life and the same woman who has seen all these transitions. I'm not. I'm now through, like in my third evolution on that matter, and you've watched all of that chaos unfold, so I haven't been as lucky.
Speaker 3:It's been. I mean, you've come out in a great way, bill, so through all this. But yes, my wife, she's amazing, she is an absolute rock star and she's stuck with me for man. You know, I remember the Gary Larson the Far Side cartoon where the two people pop out of the basket and they say why are we in this handbasket and where are we going? My wife and I have been to hell in a handbasket and back again and she's my rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just celebrated an anniversary here not too long ago. How many years was it?
Speaker 3:So yeah, we're coming up on this. Next one will be 29 in March. So yeah, congratulations, almost 30 years. Yeah, that's rare, congratulations Almost 30 years yeah.
Speaker 1:That's rare these days to get 30 years. I look at my parents They've got 40, well, excuse me, I'm 49. So it's 51 years for them. That's pretty rare, you know, these days.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that folks are coming up by well a couple years on 60. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So well done. Well done, len, coming up on 30. And going strong, I'd add.
Speaker 3:Going strong, yes, well yes, a woman of incredible patience.
Speaker 2:So well, and to talk about kind of that. I mean kind of the you know getting down, like why we're doing the things. I mean I look at you know what we're tackling and how we're tackling and what impact it could have or what lasting impact it could have on our legacies or families. It could have on our legacies or families. Is there something, len, that sticks out to you, what we're doing, that of all the things we're trying to tackle, that you like the most or that inspires you the most, or that you think you know what we can pull this off? I'm excited to be able to kick this down the road for my kids, because it means that we're getting out of here and leaving it, if you will, better than we found it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's a few of those. One right, probably in order right is is the, the energy production I've done. I do a lot of reading and and uh, and some of my favorite books uh, talk about uh what's try to. You know, they try to predict what's coming, uh, which is which is dangerous, work, right, and fraud, with all kinds of problems.
Speaker 3:But this one guy, he wrote the next decade, they're sorry, the next hundred years, george Friedman. And then he wrote another one called the Next Decade decade. But in the beginning of the book he's like if you would have, if you had sat there in 1900 and written the book predicting what would happen in the next hundred years and and in your prediction in 1900, said by the end of of this century, in a hundred years, by year 2000, america, united states, will be the only superpower and the most powerful nation on the planet. He's like if you would have written that in 1900, you would have been laughed off the stage. No one would have taken you seriously. America was nobody. This was pre-World War I, pre-world War II, of course, and everything that happened since we were backwater warriors, you know Wild West, we were nothing.
Speaker 3:And so he kind of cites that to say, look, trying to predict the future is dangerous business, that energy production is one of the most important economic factors that will drive world economies geopolitically for the next hundred years, until we get this figured out. And so it's exciting to be a part of that, knowing that that is absolutely key to what's happening and to where the world is going and what we're doing and being a part of that. And then that's exciting. The other part is ASI the idea of emptying landfills at scale and using that to produce products that secure our nation's infrastructure. That combination is so powerful to me, that idea. And to slow down the deforestation, to save our forests, to get rid of trash at scale and to secure the nation's infrastructure those three ideas together that's exciting. That's an exciting idea and a lot of fun, honestly. And I talked about my wife a minute ago, but she that idea, she's grabbed a hold of that idea and she's pretty tough I got to say. But she's said, glenn, you better do this.
Speaker 3:Get this business off the ground and make that happen, because that needs to happen. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Roger that. David Goggins roger that.
Speaker 3:I can't disagree with that. She's absolutely right, that needs to happen. So anyway, excited about that too. It was a book that you had me read, wayne the cradle to cradle Changed my ideas and my thinking on recycling. You know, you've always, I always had this. You know the saying to reduce, reuse, recycle. I'm a free market capitalist and reduce sounds like it sucks. That doesn't sound like you find at all.
Speaker 1:It's like budgeting. That's like living this minimalistic.
Speaker 3:Oh, I hear that. Oh, reduce, I'm American. But his presentation about it, about how we don't have to use less, we just have to use it better, that makes sense to me, and maybe even a little less. This furniture store and stuff and she has this Danish modern which is kind of minimal, minimalistic and simple but well-crafted and well-designed, and I think that's what we need, that's what our business needs, well-designed. Let's use this stuff, not less, but let's use it better. Let's be better stewards of what we've been given. It's exciting to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:I want to pivot the conversation for a second Len into maybe one of the favorite things that we've talked about for all these years, coming up on two decades, and that's values. So Invictus Sovereign has been woven of a unique fabric, a unique fabric of men that are aligned in many ways. There's a few common denominators amongst everyone on this team, and you know we've often talked about how we value technical skill much less than the values of a man. Right, when I bring that up, what comes to your mind right out of the gate? What's your knee-jerk to values and how we've built a team and selected the guys we have.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I'd say, man, there's several to choose from. But you know it's a difficult line. Like you said, we've talked about this quite a bit, but it's not. We're certainly interested in making money, right, that's important. Right, we want to do that for us, for our families, for legacy and those kind of things.
Speaker 3:But throughout this process, as we've picked business partners, as we've picked members of the LLC, people to join in, people to do business with other law firms, one of the key considerations has always been are these people money-driven or are they value-driven? Right, are they here to do something cool and do they want to be a part of something great and add their piece, or do they just want to make a buck? Right, we've used that as a tool to kind of weed it out for the last 20 years, as we've been doing it. So I'd say that's kind of one of our main ones is, is, and again, it's.
Speaker 3:It's kind of a strange spot to be in because, right, I want to make money. I mean that'd be cool, that'd be, that'll be, that'll be great. But for but, for most of us here, I think that we believe that will come, that that's inevitable because of the business itself, what we've created here, what we're creating, the value that we're going to bring to the world, the synergy between all of us working together and bringing it to other people. I think that's it's not a question of one or the other, it's just a question of where where they are in in the, in the stack.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Um, you know, dave and I having this unique opportunity to co-host the show together, we're talking about these things every week, right, every episode. We're we, every episode we're touching on a lot of this and we've dedicated several episodes just to talking about the companies and the values. One of the big ones is integrity. Okay, and from a litigation perspective, len, and seeing the Wayne Astin roadshow of almost 20 years of my 28-year career, you've witnessed most of my entrepreneurial career For all it was litigation. Sure, in fact, I think we met in 2005. Yeah, and it's been almost nonstop litigation for me personally since 2008. Yeah, and it's been almost nonstop litigation for me personally since 2008. And, and it's interesting and I'd love to hear you know your perspective for the audience here Almost always I'm being I'm being the one who you know former partners are alleging has embezzled this money, or we've committed fraud, or I've stolen this or I've, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:You just stack up this whole list of these allegations that I've faced in litigation. Yeah, and that's shaped my attitude about integrity, because I keep preaching, len, we've got to be embe, be ambassadors, so we'll have integrity. We, we can't I can't afford to be in a have another partner who's who's a lying thief right? I can't afford to like my family, can't afford to do business with people who don't value integrity, and our ability to create anything is so impaired with no where there's no integrity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want to chime in on the integrity side of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, yes, I mean the American legal system is broken. I think most people would acknowledge that that's the case. We certainly. I mean the court system and all of that. It needs to happen, it needs to be there.
Speaker 3:But litigation has become a club for those who for bad actors typically not not always Right, but in many cases you'll have. You have these folks filing a lawsuit, you know, and and? Not because they believe they have a claim, not because they believe that they can win, just to cause harm, right, just as a blunt weapon, and that's not the purpose of the law, it doesn't. Acting that way, then you have a system that's overloaded, a system that rarely ever, if ever, goes to trial. No one ever intends to go to trial. They just want to use the law to beat someone into submission and they want to. You know, if they can trick, if they can lie, if they can hire the biggest law firm, then they think that that somehow gives them an advantage, will use the law as a last resort when there are no other roads, when negotiation, when talking, when mediation, when any of those things run out and there's no other path to go on, then sometimes litigation is the only path left and we've used it to that end a few times. We've had to because there was no other choice, there was no other way to move.
Speaker 3:But the rest of the lawsuits that I've seen, uh, it's usually, um, you know, it's, if you, in my experience, right, when you, if you listen to someone and they're accusing you of something, right, nine times out of 10, they're revealing their own strategy. Right, they're, they're, they're, they're accusing you of it, but it's really what they're doing or what they plan to do, and we've seen that over and over and over again. If someone decides, well, I'm going to run to the court and file this paper to accuse him of doing what I've been doing for the last several years. Say it first and loud enough. The court will believe me. So, anyway, it's frustrating and we'll obviously in the future, do our best to find partners that have the integrity and that sort of thing, but that won't always be the case. We're going to have to defend, we're going to have to keep fighting. My guess is I hate to throw that energy in here, but it's a consequence of doing good things, of doing great things in this world. There will be, you know, hate-ems, I guess.
Speaker 1:It has been shocking to me to survive. You know more than a dozen lawsuits, I mean, I don't even know how many. You counted them up one time for me and it's, it's a, it's a few.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Me being sued. I've sued a few people. It's gotten, you know both ways. But what was interesting? On one hand, how you can say whatever you want. You can make any allegation about anyone at any time and it's an allegation, that's the complaint, that's what gets lodged in the docket of the damn court and it's a public record. That's a very broken part of the system you're talking about. That I've experienced because I've got court records still out there lingering about. Some idiot said this it was totally false, never proven, totally dismissed. But it's a record so you can go look it up and you might. Oh my gosh, this guy is really a rotten guy. So that's one charge against the brokenness of the system.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's been shocking to me as we have tried to measure the tactical value of litigation whether we're on the defense or the offense, there's always risks. There's financial risk, there's reputational risk, there's indirect and direct casualties that come from litigation every time. But the wild card is the judges card, is the judges. It's been shocking to me to see how indecisive specifically small town judges, indecisive, not willing to rule one way or the other, who will just allow things to just kind of fizzle out. It comes down to who has more money, who has more staying power. In several instances Some of these things have just been way above a judge's head as far as the dollar value, the sophistication level of what's being argued, and so no ruling or dismissed. So you can't just go and expect that the court system is this just program that has predefined inputs and outputs. It's like a Russian roulette game and it depends largely on the judge and the jurisdiction.
Speaker 3:We've gone through this exercise several times. But when you contemplate litigation, you try to get a number and say you know, someone inexperienced might say, ok, well, are we going to win or lose? Well, that that's not a very good question. That's not the question. The best question is, if we tried this 10 times, right, how many times do we win and how many times do we lose? Right, do we win three and lose seven? Do we win six and lose four? Do we win nine and lose one? What are the chances here? What are the odds? Because, you're right, there's so many variables. It's not just the facts and winning right. That that's not it. You have the jury, you have the judge. What kind of day the judge is having? Is he up for re-election?
Speaker 1:uh, is, is procedure followed to the? T or to the understanding of the court, the judge, right, procedure has been the cause, the demise of many, many a lawsuit. Yeah, something didn't get filed on time, no response. So that's been another of the most disheartening parts of litigation. If you have all of the facts in your favor, a full, full straight, a royal flush, so to speak, of facts, and the other party has zero facts, just lies and allegations, that doesn't really matter. That doesn't really matter what cards either party is holding. It comes more down to procedure and the judge and these variables. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's really frustrating.
Speaker 3:It comes more down to procedure and the judge and these variables. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's really frustrating. That's a really frustrating thing for non-attorneys to find out. Right that, I'm right. I'm right. How could I possibly lose? I'm right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It doesn't win. It doesn't win all the time, uh. So, yeah, it can be, uh, it just doesn't, uh, it doesn't come out the way that you're gonna. That you that you think it ought to. And and your other point earlier about, uh, you know, just filing a complaint any anybody. You want to pay $325 or whatever the filing fee is. You can allege whatever you want against whoever you want. You make those allegations and then you never file another document, you never make another appearance in that court, you never do one more thing, but some newspaper reporter can find that complaint for example hypothetically yeah hypothetically, yeah, to find that complaint and and and regurgitate those allegations as if they're as if they're true.
Speaker 3:But it's this criminal clients, uh, face this all the time. Right, the the idea. Well, well, why would the police have arrested you if you weren't guilty, right? Why would the person that filed a complaint and paid three hundred dollars to file a complaint if these things weren't true about me? Yeah, I would. Why would they have done that? So if the fact that they filed a complaint against you in the court is is proof that you did it, yeah, right, that's, that's messed up. Yeah, that's broken. Yeah, so, plenty of things broken about system. Um, it's uh, yeah, I went into law because I love the Constitution of the United States. That's why I went. I thought, you know, I want to understand, I want to be a part of that and I'm glad I did. There's been some disillusionment, I suppose, along the way.
Speaker 1:We call that being battle-tested Disillusionment.
Speaker 3:I was a philosophy major for undergrad and I graduated and the kernel, the nugget I got from that was there is no truth. And then I went to law school. I did another three years there and graduated law school and I thought and there is no law, no law, no truth.
Speaker 1:Good luck, son.
Speaker 3:Yeah, may God have mercy on your soul.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, back to the transitional side of your career, because you spent a lot of years in handling title, handling the transactional requirements of each of these firms that you were with what's a what's a high point for you. You know, if you're to think back on a positive experience, so that we're not, you know, giving the illusion to our listeners that we were just we're negative on on law, negative on litigation I mean, I'm personally fully justified in in just complaining about it all day, but let's hear some positivity. Just bring one or two examples to the table, if you would, about your career. When did you learn something really valuable or where did you feel like you had a really positive impact?
Speaker 3:The first firm I was at Collister, nebaker and McCullough. A great firm, good folks and a mentor kind of stepped in to show me the ropes. Her name was Dorothy Plesch and she's probably one of the best attorneys I've ever met in my entire career. She was just fantastic and we worked on these big deals. We did these big triple net leases for these companies and there was millions of dollars involved and those kind of things. It was exciting to be a part of it. She would give me certain provisions to look at and let me draft and then critique my work and explain and help. And then we were part of these huge closings either asset purchase agreements or stock purchase agreements and there was a closing at a date and conference rooms full of documents on papers, documents on tables ready for people for due diligence, and we were assembling these big binders. This is back in the day when we used paper all the time. Weird yeah.
Speaker 1:Pagers and paper. What's that Pagers? Pagers and paper. Back then, Pagers right.
Speaker 3:But Dorothy Plesch taught me how to be an attorney, how to look closely, how to read carefully, how to assemble documents, how to do due diligence, what that meant, why it was important. She took the time to really help me get a good foundation as I began my legal career. Very valuable, you know. Back then we would. You know you'd get a document from a client. They would hand you a document and then you would take it immediately to the copy room and make a couple of copies of it and write a working copy. You didn't use their original and you were writing on it.
Speaker 3:Just small things that I still do to make sure that the transaction happens the way it should, that the details aren't missed, that the due diligence is done right, that the other side isn't sliding the paper in, hoping that you didn't see it, Just taking the time to make sure that it's done correctly. Just taking the time to make sure that it's done correctly and really giving some substance to what a good legal team can offer a big company. So that's really valuable. I really look back fondly on those early days. She was really great. Thanks, man.
Speaker 2:That's good days. She was really great. Thanks, let's do it, tying into the uh, you know, the due diligence and doing all that. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you this question. It's a really small question, of course. So what do you think? Because as we, as we go into this power space and we're obviously doing this because the boom of AI, what does AI do to law?
Speaker 3:How do you are?
Speaker 1:channeling me Because I said and listen, before you answer this land, I warned you that this 45 minutes would be God in a blank and we are approaching it. We are, and, and I was going to say we got about time for two questions and then he asked the question I was going to ask. So ready, go that here's. That is a fantastic question and that's this episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's a small one, it's just a little, just a little teeny little. Yeah, I figure, you know, a philosophy major should be able to handle the the breadth of what that might mean.
Speaker 3:So I'm just going to throw it out here AI means the end of attorneys, wow.
Speaker 2:As we know it Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, here's the problem. So, right, right, ai. You guys look at AI and go, yeah, it's pretty good. Except you can kind of tell it's AI right when it's writing, because it has this machine-like tone to it so you can sniff it out. Here's the problem. Attorneys have written like that for years. That's what I do.
Speaker 1:I write like a machine. The prosaic writing style of an attorney.
Speaker 3:Take good writing and then rip the soul out of it. That's my business, that's what I do, that's my jam. So AI is going to be able to replicate legal writing really, really soon. It's already happened. I already use AI. I have a couple of AI tools that I use. One is called Paxton. It's fantastic and it's not everything. It's an LLM, it's a large language model, but it's not everything. It's just law, and then you can pick. Even I can just say, look, I want to just see Utah law code and case law and then ask my question and it will focus me right there. So I'm going to get a good answer.
Speaker 3:Early on, people were asking Chad GP, gpt and chat gbt was making up. Yes, yes, right, inventing case law. Yeah, fantastic, that's exciting. Yes, I guess they're on chicago anyway, somewhere in the midwest, and a couple of law firm got busted really bad, because they submitted a case as if it was a real case, because they thought it was Chad GBT just hallucinated the entire thing. But Paxton has fixed that right. They don't do that.
Speaker 3:But it'll write me agreements. I can plug in my agreements. I can plug in a bunch of asset purchase agreements that I've written. I can give it five or six and then I can give it some terms for a new one and it'll write it in my style. It'll write the agreement up. It'll give me like a first draft. It's fantastic. Anyway, we still have to know what to ask it at this point. But even Paxton will give me prompts. I'll ask it to do something. It'll do it, and then it'll give me three questions at the bottom All right, and like do you want to know more about this? I'm like, yeah, I'll know more about that. So AI is the death knell. It will end attorneys as we know it.
Speaker 2:Do you think it'll be more paralegals to start, because you'll be able to do a lot of that? It basically is going to be able to replace a lot of that research, a lot of the things that paralegals have done for attorneys and doing drafts, so you can get down that road. Or is it just that it'll allow you to take on far more work? Not that any attorney wants more work really, from all the attorneys I've ever known, they're already working plenty and it just increases the load. Or is it? Yeah, we're going to need maybe one good paralegal to maybe do some of that stuff and then we can wade through a lot more of this now and then you know then what?
Speaker 3:you know, is it?
Speaker 2:is it or is it everybody in the well so?
Speaker 3:it's hard to talk about law and just say the law right, because because you know, I've been in several different firms right, and we taught, we used to call it the uh, the three pillars of human misery Bankruptcy, divorce and criminal representation and you can build a pretty good practice on those three things right, because it happens to a lot of people, it's just part of life, those kinds of things wills and trusts and bankruptcy, divorce and criminal representation, trusts and bankruptcy, divorce and criminal representation those will be almost completely automated by the end of this decade, probably sooner. If I think it's the end of the decade, it might be by the end of the year. I think those will be taken care of. In these large of like you have like in in these large cities you have uh, prosecutors, uh, that, uh that the legal aid folks that help all the people who are indigent and don't you could, you could take one guy and with ai and you could, you he could do 10 times the work that he's doing already. Right, and so, and if one guy can do 10 times the work that he's doing already, and if one guy can do ten times the work, that means that nine guys are out of work, so you can take out that.
Speaker 3:Also, it's coming for litigation. They're working on stuff where you can put in the fact patterns and then have the AI fight it out with drafts to see how it goes back and forth and predict and those kind of things. That's here. So litigators, like you're saying, there'll still be some attorneys, but attorneys will be able to handle a lot more work and in a lot less time. So it's like I said, I think it's going to end the legal practices. We know it. I know we're going to make it cheaper, more accessible.
Speaker 2:Ok, I was going to say we're over time and I wanted to follow up. Does it make us more litigious? Then you think it adds you know, because we can, we can spin up a lot more, we can do a lot more loss. I mean, does that, does that where this ultimately leads?
Speaker 3:Maybe. I mean I've found for most of my career, people come into my office and they go. I tried to talk to my neighbor, I tried to work this out and they wouldn't do anything, they wouldn't work with me, they won't even talk to me, they won't play nice, I have to get an attorney before they'll even come to the table. And that's disappointing, right, that's not the way it should be. People should be able to figure stuff out without having to bring in a big stick. So it could go either way, right. But if you know that the other side has the AI too and you're going to bring it, you like, run it through your computer and go, we win, you know, six times out of ten. This just isn't worth it, right? We might as well. Let's go to the table, right, let's, let's, let's settle, yeah, yeah, because clients often have an unrealistic expectation about how the law might go. Oh, yeah, because they know they're right, they know they have the facts and they think that should do it Right.
Speaker 3:And as an attorney, I have to go. That's not enough, it's not enough. And they, they're like well, you know, I don't care, you know I've I'm. It's principle of the thing and we've got to do this and I, and so the ai might help that too. You know, if you run scenarios and go look, this is where we are right, it doesn't matter that you have the facts right, let's go to the table, let's settle this. Most things settle anyway already, right? 95% of the cases settle after deposition, right. And so if you can get an AI to predict that on a much cheaper level and people come to the table and negotiate based on you know well, I says this, well, mine says that, ok, well then, maybe I'll come to some kind of resolution it may slow it down. It may slow down the litigation.
Speaker 2:Interesting Well, thanks for the fantastic answers.
Speaker 1:I don't know Honestly, Len, we could keep you for another hour or two. There's plenty to talk about in the landscape of law, litigation, compliance. We haven't even touched on compliance and that's okay. We're going to wrap it up for the day and we appreciate you being a great contributor man. I love you, I appreciate you know, above and beyond all of this conversation, the man that you are, the friend that you are, the partner that you are. I know you've got our back. I know that I can get some sleep because Len Carson is there and determined to help keep us safe. So, thank you, Awesome. Thanks, brother, Love you guys, man, you guys.
Speaker 3:So thank you. Awesome, thanks, brother. Love you guys, man, you guys. It's exciting. I'm excited to be a part of this and to be working with you two. Grateful for both of you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thanks, len, and to the listeners. Thank you guys for listening in to another episode of the Frontier Line. We hope you'll join us on the next Frontier Line.
