In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Johnnie Finch, a criminal defense attorney who runs his own law firm. They will go over his background, his business, and how it is like to be a lawyer as a member of a minority. Also, they will discuss about his recently published book “Black Lawyer Confidential”.
“I wanted to come up with a book or some type of manual for those who are from small towns or minorities that have never had parents who were lawyers, or ever been in the court system before to try to deal with it…”
Their Firm:
http://johnniefinchesq.com/
The Book:
BlackLawyerBook.com
Please give us a shout out in the ABA JOURNAL’S ranking of podcasts!
Hacking’s hack: https://audiojungle.net/
You can download royalty free music and audio tracks for a Dollar, and you are able to search it by emotions or music type. Great cheap resource.
Johnnie’s tip:
Leave 15 minutes early! For the rest of your life!
Tyson’s tip:
Ride a bicycle in your office whenever you are working or on calls or doing a Podcast!
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Transcripts: Black Lawyer Confidential: Keys To Success ft. Johnnie Finch
Johnnie Finch
So many times in my academic career, you know, I wouldn’t get that grade that I needed or when I got a lot of credits coming out, try cases and losing them, or, you know, investing in different business ideas that didn’t pan out. But always getting back to like, rock bottom. And just getting up I think is the main thing. I think. If you read the book, you’ll see the struggle, because I’m pretty candid about not taking myself seriously and let everybody know, like, this has been a hard struggle, but it’s worthwhile when you’re, you know, giving it your all. So I think the main thing is just like, you know, run your law firm the right way.
Unknown Speaker
This is the maximum layer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking, and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking. Case and my friend, it’s good to see you. We were just talking about a friend of ours Johnny, you don’t know a friend of ours. His name is Mark hammer. He’s a criminal defense attorney here in St. Louis. And he had someone collapsed in the courtroom. And Tyson was just telling me how Mark was able to bring him back to life by doing CPR.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s pretty crazy. I mean, it’s a really cool story. I need to share it on the Facebook page, because it’s really cool if they I mean, the guy was literally, he had no heart. He was not breathing and they did CPR. The paramedics arrived, they’re still doing CPR. And they’re like, like, Hey, do you want to take care of them? No, you’re doing a good job, keep going and hooked up with federal aid are pretty nuts. Kind of crazy. But the guys are alive. It’s really awesome. So Jimmy, we have an awesome guest today, you want to introduce him.
Jim Hacking
I’m really excited to introduce him. He’s my friend Johnny Finch. He’s a criminal defense attorney. I met him through Miss Jackson’s legal minds, social media mastermind group. And Johnny is great whenever he’s on the call, which, because he’s so busy, he’s not always on the call. But when he’s on the call, it’s always fun. So I thought he’d be a great guest for us. He’s also the author of a brand new book called black lawyer confidential. So we want to hear all about the book making process. And Johnny, welcome to the show.
Johnnie Finch
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Very, very excited to be here. Jimmy was issued just
Tyson Mutrux
calling out Johnny for not being on the call all the time. Was that what you were doing just now?
Johnnie Finch
No, no, not at all. I’m just saying how much I like it when he is on the call.
Tyson Mutrux
Okay, that’s for sure. And then, before I get to this question, you err on the side of the road. It sounds like it sounds like you pulled your car over and you parked you’re like sitting in a ditch or something. You tell people what you’re doing so that when they hear these noises, they know what’s going on.
Jim Hacking
I’m basically I’m sitting in the rocket Park in Maplewood between meetings outside the office. So I I knew we had this recording with Johnny and I had hoped that I’d be able to end my video, but my cellular is pretty lame. So we’re on audio only for me, Tyson is writing his brand new exercise tricycle. So when you see the video, it’s going to look like Johnny sitting in a hostage video scenario. He’s got a weird guy named Jim talking to through a microphone. And he’s got another weird guy riding his bike. So this is quality video and quality audio. Nobody can say otherwise,
Tyson Mutrux
is what maximum lawyers so it’s three lawyers on a podcast talking about practice law. So hi, Johnny, to fill us in. Tell us about you, your firm and how you get started. Okay.
Johnnie Finch
So North Carolina lawyer, we practicing criminal defense. For about five years now. I do a lot of drugs, a lot of DWI, a lot of assaults in my hometown and went to high school very, very small high school, very, very small, historically, black college, liberal city state university. And then I went to Regent University, the difference between my college and my law school was my college was 95% minority. And my law school was 95%. White. And so gearing there was definitely a cross training, educationally cross training event for me, it was a closer shot. And then when I started practicing law, similar to my law school experience, about 5% Black or you know, in a small town, you have about 12 lawyers and you know, forget African American, there’s going to be one. So I’m used to I’ve usually been that guy. And so while I was learning different culture of law school, the culture of law practice dealing with clients, it was I’m obviously making mistakes every day, because we’re still practicing. But I wanted to come up with a book or some type of manual for those who are from small towns or minorities that have never had parents who were lawyers or ever even been in the court system before to try to deal with it. Because when I was going through it, it was kind of an emotional time. And if there was some manual out there, I probably could have coped with law school and law practice a lot differently if I didn’t have to deal with the emotional aspect. So the black lawyer confidential is not about the academics but more just dealing with scenarios, your emotions how you feel, not taking yourself so see is a little bit of motivation. So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Yeah.
Jim Hacking
Johnny, walk us back to those first few days of law school when you looked around having come from a historically black college, and being one of a few African Americans in your law school class, what What did that feel like? And what what went through your mind at the time?
Johnnie Finch
You know, it was actually funny, I just kept looking. So I was just going in the hallways, I went into classroom, I’m looking, I’m like, you know, I know that there’s more minorities around here somewhere. So I just kept looking. So like, I’m in like, a week and a half, I was like, oh, there’s two. And I was like, at that particular point in time, all that we know, how do we really deal with this, and I go into it a little bit in the book, my situation culturally, in the south, North Carolina, you have the same culture. So the whites and the blacks, we pretty much act the same, and nobody is Super Regional, you know, we do have some poverty in our area. But blacks and whites are pretty much the same. Nobody’s you know, super uptight. And so to get into this environment, and appear that my peers, you know, came from a different conservative environment, or a supervision environment, or an environment where they’re always around judges and things where I probably had seen one judge in my life. So that coupled with the fact that there weren’t a lot of minorities, it really put me in a place of I felt like disadvantage, because I felt like I wasn’t prepared number one, and number two was, was even supposed to be there. And so being that I already felt that way, if there was anything that was said, or that I could partially take, personally, I may take it personally, even though it wasn’t meant to be personal. So just getting past that emotional part of you know, do I belong here was a big part of and I think, you know, I enjoyed academics, even though it was really tough for me. I say around the second year is when I kind of felt like I belonged
Tyson Mutrux
to Johnny, I’m sure. I mean, you’re not alone in this. So what’s the response been to the book that you wrote? Because it’s a really interesting book. So what’s the what’s the response to that?
Johnnie Finch
So initially, my publisher, she came up with a cover of the book, before we had did the left, we had done the last draft of the book. And the title is black lawyer confidential, key to success. And so there were a lot of people that I thought that would never even care to look on my Facebook page, or, you know, we were friends or on social media, they will say, Oh, wow, Johnny has a book, Johnny has a book. And the result of that was I had to go back and really, really look at a book because I didn’t know who will be interested. But I felt like it would be more so minorities, but a lot of my white friends were super excited about the book. And so when I saw that, and a lot of them were kind of like, Hey, man, you know, what is this black lawyer confidential book all about? Why does it have to be black lawyer, you know, can’t be just lawyer. And I’m like, Okay, I got to deal with this. And so, what I did, you know, I spoke with him, and I can’t wait, I watched a couple of videos on social media just explaining like, because it says black lawyer competition, it doesn’t mean for just black is just for black people minorities, it means that I’m black. And I’m giving you tips, which I feel like can make you successful. And once I was able to share that with my friends and share some videos and talk to him, I think kind of calm it down. I think overwhelmingly, though, the Curiosity has been there, which can be kind of good. And if people really know me, they know that I’m not going to come up with anything that’s going to take up things too much. But there were a couple of judges and a couple of lawyers that were kind of afraid that I might kind of pull something out because you know, you can be a court sometimes and not feel right about what’s going on. And I think, you know, some of the judges might have been like, what is Johnny about to say, no, no, no, no, I’m not. That’s not what this is all about? Definitely. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
Jim Hacking
And so Johnny, what did you tell those people that said, why is it gotta be a black lawyer confidential? Why can’t it just be lawyer confidential?
Johnnie Finch
Well, when they first asked me, I didn’t know how to answer the question, because I didn’t, I didn’t even understand where it was coming from. So when I named the book, black lawyer confidential, to me, it was, again, it was given a description of myself, I’m a black lawyer. And so when someone asked me what happened to black lawyer confidential from a white person, I’m thinking to myself, like I didn’t understand if they were feeling like offended by it or you know, if it was too cutting edge, or I didn’t understand where they’re coming from, but I sat back and I, you know, I’ve been blessed to have with white and black friends, you know, by the hundreds. And so I shared my book with a couple of my with my white peers. I said, Hey, man, read from front to back. Do you feel like anything is offensive? Do you think that anything here should be said differently? They read the book, they thought that it was fine that nothing was offensive to any particular group at all. And so I wasn’t prepared the first time to answer the question asked me the question, but the second time I just say hey, I’m just saying what I am you know, I am just saying what I am the biggest for everybody and I think everybody enjoy any professional professional capacity. So that’s kind of how I dealt with it, but it shocked me at first man because I didn’t, I didn’t think the name could be offensive to white people. I just didn’t know you could do that.
Tyson Mutrux
So I mean, generally, whenever you’re writing a book, I mean, things like this come up into things, you have to ask questions you have to answer. So talk about the process. What was the process like of writing the book? How long did it take you to write the book?
Johnnie Finch
Well, the first weeks of law school, were the toughest for me, and I started doing a journal. And I would just write it to myself, you know, today, it was a good day today, it was a bad day, this, this person said this, I didn’t agree with it. This group of people did this. We’re playing flag football, we’re going out, we’re having drinks. I mean, I’m putting everything into the book, just helping me kind of cope with the times because I knew that it was totally different for me. Well, fast forward three, four years down the line, I’m practicing law. And I feel like I’m in that spot again. Well, I’m not understanding quite what I’m supposed to be doing. While I’m practicing law, like I know what my job is, but I feel a loss again. And then I started reading a lot of books from great lawyers, Johnnie Cochran, Thurgood Marshall, they’re talking about the same, not feeling adequate. I mean, these guys are superstars, but they’re still in court. They’re in the coordinates. And you know, I’m not feeling adequate argument this in front of this white jury, or this white judge, or, you know, I just don’t know if this is the right thing to say, I’m hearing what they’re saying. And I’m thinking, this is similar to me, in my one, two years of practicing law. And so I started writing a book for undergrad students and law students, so that they could kind of see it, see all these things that were starting with Johnnie Cochran going through me, and they ended up with a person that’s going to law school for the first day. And so I started it about four years ago, I wrote it, I didn’t like it, left it alone. I did it about five times. And then the last time I left it alone for like, eight months, and I went back and I read it. Have you ever written anything or did some work? And then you went back and read it again? He was like, Oh, that was okay. That was actually pretty good. Well, when I wrote it, it was craps. But I was like, Man, this is, this is alright. So I sent it back to my publisher again. And she was like, Yeah, I think I thought it was good. The first time I was like, well, maybe I just wasn’t in a good place. I think I wanted it. In my own mind, I wanted to test a lot of the theories that I thought that I was learning to. So when I went back and read it the second time, I was like, yeah, that’s spot on what I was thinking, and so that kind of helped me, and then I had to get past it. You know, if I put this out, people are gonna judge me, or what are they gonna think or, you know, a lawyer is gonna think I’m getting too big for my britches, judge is gonna feel a certain type of way, you know, in the lawyer community, everybody always has something to say about something. So like, is this going to stop me from being able to be prosperous in my practice, get past all of that. And what I came up with was, I felt like God gave me it. I felt like, when I wrote it, it was for someone else. So even if it burns me in my practice, but it helps someone else along will help two or three people alone, and I’m fine with it. But once I got over that, and went over the book, you know, 50,000 Edits, on my publisher crazy, she finally came with the last draft. And that was pretty much it. So about four years all together,
Jim Hacking
Jenny, after law school, did you have mentors? Or did you have mentors during law school and talk about like, did you go out on your own right after law school or talk to us a little bit about your employment history as a new lawyer?
Johnnie Finch
Well, first I was at the bar, I did not pass it. And I had about three or four job offers that were on the line, of course, you know, they went away. And I started interning at a small firm. In my town, there was one lady, along with no two ladies. And so as I passed the bar, I went on with her, I practice with her for about two years, in my hometown. And after about two years, I saw that ad, was able to bring in clients. And I saw a little bit about how the business was structured. And I realized that the amount of money that I was bringing in through the firm, I could easily go out on my own and cover my overhead and, you know, make some money for myself and also walk in myself in different ways that I probably couldn’t do under that umbrella, because it was a more Mom and Pop type firm, which is, you know, wills estates and that type of thing. And I was doing a lot of criminal law drugs. And this, just the two, target markets are totally different. So a lot of the things that I wanted to do, I really couldn’t do and it wouldn’t be effective. So I went out on my own in 2016. And I’ve been out on my own ever since. Before then I was working with the local Department of Juvenile Justice. I was a juvenile justice officer. So a lot of the gentlemen that I saw in the juvenile hall and actually ended up representing later on. And so even though I didn’t think I was going to be a lawyer, it’s funny how life kind of comes back and hits you in the face again, because once I became a lawyer, I saw the same guys that I was working with, and that was, that was also cool, you know, just seeing the progression of, I guess life.
Tyson Mutrux
Hey, God, so then you have a ton of lessons in this book. So what’s your favorite lesson from the book?
Johnnie Finch
My favorite lesson is actually just watching even when I read it going from hilltop to rock bottom. So many times in my academic career, you know, I wouldn’t get that grade that I needed or when I got in law practice coming out trying cases and losing them, or, you know, investing in different business ideas that didn’t pan out. But always getting back to like, rock bottom. And just getting enough I think, is the main thing. I think, if you read the book, you’ll see the struggle, because I’m pretty candid about not taking myself seriously and let everybody know, like, this has been a hard struggle, but it’s worthwhile when you’re, you know, giving it your all. So I think the main thing is just like, keep getting up. If you don’t get up, then at some point, you’ll fall into depression. And depression is something that I don’t believe in, I believe, like, people become depressed when they don’t act. So if you wake up in the morning, you get up, you want to be depressed. But if you’re late, and you look at the seller, that depression is sitting in and that’s that’s a terrible thing, man.
Jim Hacking
I’m gonna date myself a little bit here. When I was in law school, you too. It was the middle of the OJ Simpson trial. So I got to watch Johnnie Cochran and Christopher Darden and Marcia Clark, and F lee Bailey, all those characters. And I remember when the verdict came out, the law school was split right down the middle, the black students all cheered. And the white kids were all scratching their heads and why, why oh, why are people cheering and OJ got off. And it’s taken me a long time to sort of understand that. But I’ve honestly never thought Johnnie, what it would be like to be an African American man standing in front of a jury. I’ve never thought of that as sort of an issue. And I’ll tell you a real quick story. I was driving my kids. It’s in family down to Florida last week, and we got pulled over for speeding. And I had my headsets in and my wife had something dangling from the windshield. So this Illinois State Trooper came up, he was a white guy. He looked us all over and he took his time he went back and he wrote me up three warnings. And he didn’t give me a ticket. And as soon as the we rolled up the windows and started drive away, my kids started yelling white privilege, white privilege, because they were just appalled that the police officer didn’t give me a ticket. They were pissed at him for not ticketing me. And they were saying this is unfair. So talk a little bit about that. How do people who are white sort of relate to that? And how can we sort of tap into that sort of mindset?
Johnnie Finch
Well, the book is big on focusing on where you are, like, taking who you are, where you are, where your strengths are, and going into the moment and getting the best out of it. So number one, if you’re going if I’m going into a county and I know that the county is 75%, white, and 25% minority, then I know that I’m ended up with a jury that’s probably about one to two people may be black, or any type of minority, so I got to know that going into it like okay, what are we looking at here, I’m gonna be dealing with all white jury, almost all white jury, I have African American client. And then I already know the judge, let’s just say that the judge is white to let’s just say that a DA is also white. So what I have is me and my client, and how I feel about that is is actually pretty good. I think the David versus Goliath effect works a lot. And so what I always try to do and what I channeled is if if I feel like a judge is coming off on me, or trying to belittle my arguments, because number one because I’m a criminal defense attorney, and I’m, I’m advocate for some somebody that may have done something, it’s easier for judges to lean on the side of the state. But I also try to just give in a little bit more. So if the judges browbeat me and the DEA is being super aggressive than always come down just a little bit, I may fumble my papers a little bit more, I may seem a little bit more distracted and a little bit more unfocused, I may pat my client on the shoulder and tell him he’s gonna be okay. Meanwhile, the jury gets the sweet 16 effect. Everybody loves a Cinderella. And so when I go into a courtroom being African American, if I have African American clients all white Drew, what I’m thinking is, how can I be that Cinderella, I want to be 16, because I need to not for one of those jurors, and the judge is going to be harder on us. That’s feed into it. Let’s be affected with our arguments. But don’t argue back and just so taking the situation is how you have on how you are if you’re African American, if you’re Chinese, if you’re white, understanding all your conditions, understanding your strengths, and actually using those against the court however they’re presented to you many times are going to court and the judges, you know how judges can try to make you look dumb in front of a jury that’s like their that’s like their thing. If the judge can make you seem like you’re not doing we supposed to well, you don’t know what you’re doing in front of the jury is slightly win, but kind of feeding that energy and targeting it to the jury because ultimately, the jury is gonna have to come up with a decision. And if they’re feeling bad for you, and they’re feeling bad for your client, especially if you’re looking at, you know, 40 SBI offices on the other side, we use all of that. So I just take Who you are, use it as your strengths. And in whatever environment you have, obviously, if it was all black theory, I would, I would change that as well. If it was a black Judge, I would change that as well. You have to adapt to your environment. I think that culture shock of law school, when I first got there has equipped me to do that.
Tyson Mutrux
To Johnny, about five years ago, I tried a case in the middle of Missouri in rural Missouri. And the only two people whenever they brought the veneer panel, and when two people in the courtroom that were African American were my client and the bailiff. And so I had to address that, right. That’s a problem, right? So I just turned like, how do you address that? Right? So let’s say if you go to a courtroom, and the only two African Americans, are you and your client, like, how do you address that to the jury?
Johnnie Finch
Sure. Okay. So I understand that you are a lot more, it is a lot more politically correct for you to address that then myself. Okay. A lot of times, I’ll let deadlines be or I just, I’ll ask the questions that I need to ask. And I’ll allude to certain things I allude to how immaculate the court looks, or how intimidating the moment can be, when we’re sitting here, and my client is sitting here, and obviously, he’s charged with something. And hopefully what they’re gathering is, like, as they’re looking around, they’re saying, oh, man, you know, African American guy there, and you know, all of us are white, like, do we really need to think about that, if I as African American brings up, if I say, okay, is anybody racist, if anybody is racist, I want you to raise your hand right now, because I’m gonna get you off of this jury, because I don’t want you can beat my guy, obviously, nobody’s gonna raise their hand. So what I have to do is, sell them on the moment, make them promise, hold them to the word and just get strong thinking jurors just like anybody else. But I don’t say that, and I talked about it, but it is a lot more politically correct for you to make that statement. And pick your appeal stronger. When you do that. If I say, I may appear strong, but I may lose some people, because it’s Oh, he’s playing the race card. So I don’t I don’t even want people to entertain that I let them draw that from their own inference. Just as when I’m speaking with an officer, let’s just say it’s a it’s a, it’s a bench trial. And there are certain things that he’s done, that I need to bring out. As African American, I can’t always undress the officer the same way that my white counterparts, and in some courts, because it’s not the norm, if I don’t have any African American attorneys in that county, then I don’t know if they’ve ever been cross examined by an African American, I don’t know if the judge knows what that looks like. But certainly, I don’t know how he’s gonna take it either. So earlier on, I just had to learn how to use soft words, to give that quicksand of fit, let the officer off the hook, but at the same time, hook them enough. And I really got that from Thurgood Marshall, where he said, you want to as much as you can argue procedure, and not the stronger substantial racial issues if you can, if you can get them on the smaller things, and they can compile, and everybody can see that it’s a racial issue. Do it that way, but don’t go race race race, especially as a black man, he, you know, you won’t win, you will win, and your client is gonna go to prison for a long time. Here’s the thing if you go to officer, and you don’t get them out from the judge or the jury, he’s gonna give some time like, and it’s gonna you I feel like it’s your fault.
Jim Hacking
Hey, Johnny, it just occurred to me that you have the first and last name of two of the most famous Criminal Defense Lawyers of all time, Johnnie Cochran, and Atticus Finch. Is that your real name? All right. All right. So that’s awesome. I wonder if we could switch gears a little bit Johnny, and talk about the business of law and talk to us a little bit about your practice, sort of how you’ve grown, where your clients come from, and where you see things headed for the law office of Johnny L. Finch Jr.
Johnnie Finch
Well, when I first started, it was me. And I was doing a lot of the hand, I was doing a lot of major crimes early on in my career, to try to hold a lot of cases and and so it gave me a nice little space to work in, within the two districts going to work. Because when I would go there, we first start practicing law, you don’t really understand all the sentencing, nuances. What you do know if you have an entity, you can try the case and I was excited to do that. So I was able to create a niche for myself within the community. If people got in trouble. They’d wait until it was trial, they will come in, they will pay me to do it. And so I’ve been trying cases, steadily, you know, four or five a year for the last year last five or six years that I’ve been practicing. Last year, I moved over to a bigger smaller town that’s East Greenville, North Carolina, which is East Carolina has there’s a college town and a lot more of your you know, alcohol tickets and your drug offenses type things. So I’ve been able to practice there for a little while, get some trial experience there. I hired an associate last year. In my practice, I do quite a bit of traveling. I may travel, you know, two, three hours a day, and he was very good guy, but I couldn’t really get with the traveling that I was doing. He wanted to be more stationary, he had his own idea about what being a lawyer was and what he needed to be doing, I’m standing up because I get up about five o’clock in the morning, and then I stopped around 8pm At night, my wife wants to kill me every time I get home. And that’s something I definitely need to work on. So basically, this last year, what I’m looking at doing, and going into the new year, just doing more, you know, high high, your more of your murders, more your robberies, more your hydro cases, and leaving some of the speeding tickets alone, just because I can, I can focus in on those a little bit better. And if I can find another associate, and I’d be happy to have one, and I can teach them how to do you know your deed of yards, and you know, a little fellas in your in your misdemeanor, but I think I’m gonna stick with criminal for a little while. Also, I’m also looking into what’s the book, getting into speaking to law schools a little bit more to because I enjoy that as well. It’s kind of my mental release, whenever I can go and speak with potential people who want to be attorneys, it gives me that mineral release from actually practicing law that I do love, but you can get burnt out and anybody can get burned out. So making good business decisions is something that I’m really working on right now. Because as a solo practitioner, you see every decision that you make, if you decide to get a $200 software in January, and then you know, in November, you definitely see where that money went, if it was worth it, or if it was a bad idea. Or if you had a new assistant, all those things come back so quickly. So just making good strategic business decisions is is really, really good. Also, I do a little bit of civil entry work. And so whenever that you know, you had a pretty good case or a substantial case, just making wise decisions when you get it. Generally, what
Tyson Mutrux
percentage of time do you spend on the business of law? And what percentage do you spend on practicing law? And how do you balance the two,
Johnnie Finch
I would say, I would say about 7525. Because even when I’m talking about class, I’m probably talking about the next payment that he may owe me that kind of mixes in. And I spend a lot less time now because I do so many of the same cases over and over again, if someone comes in my office as a DWI, I can look at it 2030 minutes and tell what we need to be. Whereas, you know, trust accounts, marketing, advertising, speaking events, all of those things are the ones that, you know, take roll time, I would say about 7525 I think that’s about right for me, because I’m one of those go hard or go home type people. So you don’t want to see me in the casino man. It just seems like a good idea. I’m ready. I’m ready to go at it right then. So a young come to St. Louis, we’ll go to Sally. So I mean, just the whole, you know, wait a couple of days before I made a business decision, I think is is probably the best idea for me. But yeah, definitely about 7525. And I think that’s about right. I think that’s about right for where I need to be at this point. Because I definitely need to, you know, focus on the bus. I know, what I’ve noticed for me in practicing law is, you know, when the money’s coming in, well, I’m not watching it as much. And that’s not necessarily a good thing, because you could be throwing a lot a lot of money away. And so when the money’s coming in good, I need to just make sure that I’m managing it just as I was when, you know, it might have been a heart month or heart year. So that’s key for me personally.
Jim Hacking
Alright, Johnny, we’re coming up against the end of the hour. I have two questions for you. One is, how can everybody find your book,
Johnnie Finch
you can find the book only at black lawyer book.com or Johnny Finch book.com or PostScript Publishing’s dot com. That’s my publisher. The probably the easiest one to remember is black lawyer. book.com. black lawyer confidential pieces. successes, again is the name of the book.
Jim Hacking
And Johnny, I know you and your wife have a baby boy, Johnny, the third. And I’m wondering, what advice will you have for him when he’s say 20 years old? If he’s thinking about going to law school? What would you tell your son?
Johnnie Finch
I have a two year old son and I have a one year old daughter when I got married. Oh, wow. So yeah, I went marriage one year, baby next year, baby the next year.
Jim Hacking
Like you said, you’re all in when you’re in. You’re all in? Yeah, exactly.
Johnnie Finch
I would actually be excited about it. I have a lot to teach him. And if he were to want to carry on the legacy, you know, I would certainly encourage them to come work with me. I think we don’t do enough of that. I think this generation is, you know, my dad’s a lawyer here and I want to be a lawyer but I want to go to Florida. He’s in North Carolina, I’m going to encourage him a go to law school, come practice, be learn from my mistakes. You know, let’s let’s do this generation after generation after generation. Because, you know, certainly, at some point, I’m not gonna be able to do this anymore, but if he’s interested in it, I would definitely love for him to come and practice with me. Wow,
Tyson Mutrux
that’s pretty awesome, Johnny. Alright, so we’re gonna wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group join up there, we have 10 until we get to 600. Jimmy, unless we’ve had some people today, which we might have. So we’re almost at a 600 point, it’s pretty cool to go there. And also, if you don’t mind going to iTunes, wherever you get podcasts, giving us a five star review, they’re really awesome. Help spread the word. So Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
Alright, so for my hack of the week, you know, I went a couple of weeks ago to San Diego social media day with Mitch Jackson, he was presenting and a lot of the friends from Mitch his group were there. And one of the presenters mentioned a website called Audio jungle.net. And on audio jungle.net, you can download royalty free music and audio tracks for $1. And you’re able to search it by emotion or music type. So they have sound effects and music. And it’s a great way if you’re working on a podcast or other social media that you need music, it’s a great cheap source that’s going to keep you out of copyright or trademark trouble.
Tyson Mutrux
Really good. We’re always in need of usually some audio for either for videos or whatever. So that’s really good one. Alright, Johnny, what is your tip of the week,
Johnnie Finch
Tip of the Week is be 15 minutes early for the rest of your life to get
Tyson Mutrux
to it that applies everybody. So that’s a really good stuff. Alright, so my tip of the week actually has to do with what I’m doing right now. And that is riding a bicycle in my office because I’ve been on my butt for the last couple of years doing very little other than I do some running, but my running is sort of gone by the wayside. So I’ve been trying to be active. And so during this entire podcast, I’ve been cycling, so I bought a pretty cheap bike to the tune of $52. You can get cheaper when you can get far more expensive one and show. Whenever you’re doing things like this phone call, just hop on the bike and cycle and hope you get some exercise. That is my tip of the week. Johnny, thank you so much for coming on. This is a really, really good episode. We appreciate it.
