Andrew Michael: And we are live.
Jacob Tingen: Officially live?
Andrew Michael: Officially live, yeah. It’s Wednesday again. It’s 11:02, so we’re horribly, horribly late. Just to start off today, I wanted to thank anyone who’s watching this who came out to our game on Friday at the Flying Squirrels.
Jacob Tingen: That’s right.
Andrew Michael: Loads of fun. Who ended up winning? I had to leave to go home because it was late, but …
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, we won on a ball, so bases were loaded and pitcher threw a ball so the …
Andrew Michael: Technicalities are the best way to win.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah. There was a close call at the top of the ninth and it looked like maybe the other team, the visiting team, could’ve gotten another point. The umpire ruled in favor of the Flying Squirrels and the coach was there talking to him for a while, but ultimately …
Andrew Michael: Fun game.
Jacob Tingen: The flying squirrels were gonna win, so it turned out okay.
Andrew Michael: Nice. Cool. Yeah, but thanks for everyone for coming out. Hopefully you all got t-shirts and stuff. Today we are gonna do a sort of grab bag kind of Law Talk. We have a couple different things we want to go over. The general theme, however, is just sort of practice areas we’ll be expanding into over the next few months.
Jacob Tingen: That’s right, yeah.
Andrew Michael: So for example, Jacob, I know you’re doing personal injury stuff, so I guess that’s really a good place to start, is, like, what have you mostly been looking into? What’s the point of expanding into personal injury? Give us a brief overview kind of thing.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, so for years Tingen and Williams has done primarily immigration. That’s been our biggest flagship practice area, and over time we’ve done a lot of different other kinds of just things as they popped up. I’ve kind of had an additional practice doing trademark law on the side, which I’ve really enjoyed, but would like to do more business in trademark will generally …
Andrew Michael: Yeah, we’ll be going over that later as well.
Jacob Tingen: So with Andrew’s help, as great marketer as he is, we’re kind of expanding and bringing on some new attorneys later on in the year and you’ll get to meet them on Law Talk.
Andrew Michael: Yep.
Jacob Tingen: And probably some other programs. We’re looking at what else we can tackle. So, over the last year and a half we’ve just grown a lot. We’ve added a lot of staff. So, the practice areas we’re tackling for sure this coming year are gonna be personal injury and workers’ compensation, which are two very closely related practice areas, and then we’re also definitely pursuing criminal law and then I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago on Law Talk, but we’re doing a subscription service which I think we’re gonna call Access or something like that implying access to justice. So, by subscribing or paying a low monthly fee, you get access to a lawyer, access to justice and legal counsel. So, that’s just the broad strokes overview of what we’re up to and what’s coming your way.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, and it’s really interesting too because we’re essentially growing from an immigration firm into sort of like a general practice, like every legal need kind of firm.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, I mean …
Andrew Michael: Over time. Little steps.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, yeah. No, we’re not growing too fast.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Tingen: But we’ve definitely, like I said, seen a lot of growth. I mean, the subscription service is gonna help us fill in a lot of these smaller niches and needs that people have in their everyday legal lives, but criminal … I mean, we’ve done traffic for a while and so criminal is just a natural extension of that and it dovetails really well with immigration.
Andrew Michael: Yeah. What’s the term you use? Like [crimmigration 00:03:22] or something like that?
Jacob Tingen: Yeah. Criminal and immigration or crimmigration, that’s what they call it a lot of times.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, because a lot of immigration stuff is directly related to criminal law. Like I know I was working on an article recently which was like, “Can I become a citizen if I have a criminal record?” Like this is interesting overlap between the two areas of law.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, so a lot of criminal convictions or charges will have implications for immigration law. Immigration law, I think it’s important to note, is actually civil in nature, and so when people enter unlawfully or without documentation, they’re not actually breaking a criminal law, and I think that’s important to point out when it comes up in conversation.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, yeah. All right, so let’s just dive right in. Tell me about personal injury, workers’ comp. What is this area you’ve been researching for the last couple of weeks and that kind of stuff?
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, so for a while we’ve been making plans and looking at what is Tingen Williams’s next steps. I come more from a business background than just a legal background, and so even from the beginning, my focus was, “Okay, what’s the next step? What’s the next step?” Because if a business isn’t growing, then it’s dying, right? Businesses don’t just reach plateaus and go nowhere. You’re going up or you’re going down, and so we recognize that here at Tingen and Williams and so I’ve always been willing to kind of do the extra case, which is why we’ve done some federal litigation and you can read about that in the news, which is fun to make headlines with your first federal case.
Jacob Tingen: We actually have another federal case that we’re looking at, also immigration related. Maybe we’ll talk about that in future weeks. No, but so I’ve been taking on cases lately related to personal injury and workers’ comp and seeing some pretty decent success there. It’s been a slow burn, but as shortly in the future you’ll start to see a lot of content on our website. So, the same way we did it in the past, we did a lot of content on immigration and built up our immigration clientele. You’re going to see a lot of content on personal injury, worker’s compensation, how those practice areas work, how to maximize your matter or your lawsuit or your case and how to get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.
Jacob Tingen: You’ll see that information on our website soon and frankly it’s just been exciting to work with and get to know a new practice area. It’s always really fun. I like to fit the puzzle pieces together and see how it works.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, that’s something especially I’ve been really interested in doing articles and stuff for us, is like finding that one missing link or like that one little case that sort of ties everything together is always really interesting and fun.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, yeah, and it’s fun because when you actually have a real case, that’s when it actually starts to fit together, so you could read law books all day but until you take on a client, it doesn’t really start to gel, so now that I’ve started to take on these clients, it’s really fun to read these books and put the statutory language and all these things together and actually send out these letters and get responses and see how it works and it’s kind of exciting.
Andrew Michael: All right, so let’s actually just talk about the personal injury process itself. Tell me a little bit about it because obviously I haven’t researched it as much because we’re just sort of going into it. So, like, what does the process look like? What sort of are you doing on your end for a personal injury or workers’ comp client?
Jacob Tingen: All right, well let’s actually break that apart because workers’ comp, the process is different than the process for personal injury. I’ll start with workers’ comp. So, workers’ comp, any injury at work. Boom. Right? So if you get injured at work, your best course of action then, if you’re injured to the point that you are missing work or are unable to work and you frankly need the money to survive, you should make a claim and you should make a claim to the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission. Here in Virginia I think anybody with more than two employees, very quick before an employer has to get workers’ compensation insurance … I mean, it’s a very small number of employees.
Jacob Tingen: So anyway, if you’re employed and you work in the state of Virginia and you get injured, you can file a claim with the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission, and they kind of give employers and insurers a little dependability in terms of their liability on work injuries. A lot of these insurance payout regulations are governed by statute, and so it’s actually a bureaucratic kind of setup with the Virginia Workers’ Compensation commission. They provide a lot of interesting services that are kind of cool and free for people to hopefully lead to a speedy resolution of any claim.
Jacob Tingen: So, for example, mediation I think is offered for free in virtually every matter that you bring before the Workers’ Compensation Commission. Because it’s driven by statute and it’s already kind of predetermined, some people might ask, “Well, why would I need a lawyer?” I can tell you from just the few cases that I’ve taken, these insurance companies don’t want to let go of their money even though it’s pretty clear by statute that they owe it to you.
Andrew Michael: You’re not fighting the statute, you’re fighting the insurance company.
Jacob Tingen: You’re fighting the insurance company, and so it’s been my experience very early on, I wouldn’t do workers’ comp without a lawyer and so I hope that you’d consider us. We’re, like I said, taking on cases now and have been seeing some interesting responses from insurance companies and seeing success in how we go about doing things. So, we’d be happy to represent you, but yeah, I mean typically you go online, you can make your claim. At least that’s how you do it through a lawyer. The lawyer can do it all online and can do it paperlessly. You, on the other hand, will get tons of mail.
Andrew Michael: Oh, yeah.
Jacob Tingen: Every time the Workers’ Compensation Commission sends something out, they send it via mail and they send it to everybody, so that’s just part of the deal. But yeah, I mean, you file your claim, you file your medical records and then if you’re working with an attorney, there may be some back and forth between your attorney and the insurance company. Typically when you file a claim, a hearing is scheduled, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have a hearing. Most of these cases settle prior to the hearing and that’s to be expected with or without a lawyer, but if an insurance company isn’t willing to work with you and they take it to a hearing and you haven’t done this with a lawyer, get a lawyer, because you definitely don’t want to go into that hearing.
Andrew Michael: You can guarantee that they will have a lawyer, so …
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, they’ll be represented. They’ll always be represented, and like I said, even after some very … Just after our first cases, we can see that the insurance companies don’t want to part with that money, so there you have it.
Andrew Michael: So, just one thing that I’m curious about, what injuries are covered under workers’ compensation? Because I’ve read, for example, interesting stories in other states where someone will slip on ice in the parking lot and still get workers’ compensation. So, does the statute specifically define what type of injuries are covered or how does that sort of work in Virginia at least?
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, I mean injuries at the workplace are gonna be covered. Injuries at work or in the course of work are gonna be covered. I’m sure that there are some gray areas, you know? Like were you headed to work? Were you at work? Were you headed home from work? Was this a work requirement that you were traveling to and from? So there’s always gonna be wiggle room or gray areas, but generally if it’s on behalf of your employer that you’re currently doing whatever you’re doing then it’s gonna be covered by workers’ comp.
Jacob Tingen: Now, the thing you mentioned, slipping on ice in a parking lot, I mean, that is a bit of a premises liability question, but again, if you’re an employee and it’s the employer’s campus, then yeah, it could fall under workers’ comp.
Andrew Michael: Interesting. Yeah.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah.
Andrew Michael: So at all personal injury because … So, personal injury is basically workers’ comp when you’re not at work. Like if you get in a car accident with someone, it’s a similar process but it’s much more broad. So maybe sort of speak a little bit to that.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, so when it comes to just regular personal injury … So, every law student in their first year of law school takes a class called “torts.” Torts comes from a French work. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All it really means is personal injuries, right? Those harms or damages could be physical, could be mental and emotional, those kinds of things, but anyway, in the context of personal injury, it’s only worth pursuing a personal injury case or claim when there’s money on the line.
Andrew Michael: When there’s damages.
Jacob Tingen: When there’s damages, but not just when there’s damages but when there’s somebody who can pay those, right?
Andrew Michael: Yes.
Jacob Tingen: Because as they frequently say in law school, you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. So, when you’ve got a personal injury case … Like for example let’s use automobile accidents as just a regular case because everybody knows automobiles are typically insured, so accidents and injuries resulting from an automobile crash or wreck tends to have insurance that can pay for damages, and so that’s just an important aspect of our society. Lots of things are insured, so the first question when you have a personal injury claim is “What happened, who’s liable and is the person who’s liable insured?” Because if they’re not insured and there’s no money, it’s gonna be incredibly difficult to get an attorney to pursue your case because attorneys in these cases typically work on a contingency fee basis, which means they get a cut of whatever you win. So yeah, once you determine who’s at fault and in Virginia we have to deal with contributory negligence.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, isn’t Virginia weird like that where a lot of other states don’t deal with that?
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, Virginia’s one of a few states that has a contributory negligence standard. So, I’ll talk about that a little. What contributory negligence means is that if your negligence contributed at all to the accident …
Andrew Michael: In any way.
Jacob Tingen: In any way, even just one percent, you get nothing, right? So, in most states, if the other guy is 99% at fault and the jury gives you a thousand bucks, then they’re still gonna give you 999 dollars. That’s just what they’re gonna do in most states. Those are comparative negligence states. Of course, then you get these weird things that, like … Well, the other guy was 60% at fault and you were 40% at fault. You know, whatever. Most states will require the other person to be more than 50% at fault for you to recover anything, but in Virginia, if you are even 1% at fault, if your child dies by a drunk driver but …
Andrew Michael: But you didn’t break fast enough.
Jacob Tingen: But you didn’t break fast enough … Well, I mean, you know … I don’t know what a good example would be just off the top of my head. Insurance companies may frequently claim in Virginia that, “Oh, you’re contributory negligence …” They’ll just throw that out there to kind of scare you into saying, “Oh, gosh, then I guess I wouldn’t be entitled to anything if I had a lawsuit.” Don’t believe it. That’s definitely the point where you talk to a lawyer and get an analysis of your case and say, “Well, I don’t think I was negligent.” Chances are you weren’t, right? So talk to somebody and figure that out first before you just take your insurance company’s low ball first offer.
Andrew Michael: That’s like one of the big things that I’ve learned just in researching law is never trust the opponent’s lawyer. Get your own lawyer to give you an analysis of the case.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah. No, I mean, that’s definitely … Never trust their doctor. Never trust their lawyer. I mean, people defend themselves on these issues, and so it’s important to get competent counsel and move forward with somebody who can help you investigate the case.
Andrew Michael: Yeah. I mean, even just taking a glance over it is definitely helpful moving forward.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah. I mean, in Tingen Williams, like I said, we’re taking on personal injury cases and we want to focus more on high value cases and so we’ll evaluate the case and tell you, “Look, we don’t think this is worth a lot. Maybe you can pursue it in general district court. There are attorneys who will do that, but we’re gonna focus more on higher damages.”
Andrew Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Tingen: So …
Andrew Michael: All right. So, moving on from this just for the sake of time, tell me a little bit more about the business law we’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks, months, whatever, because I know we’ve been putting out a lot of trademark articles, doing trademark law. I think we talked about LLC stuff. I don’t know if that’s come out yet though.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t call this a new practice area. So like I said, I’ve been doing immigration for years and then I’ve also just been doing kind of trademark and business things as well. So, I wouldn’t say that it’s new at all for Tingen and Williams. It’s definitely not new for me, but I would say that it’s growing. We’re getting more contacts about it. Part of that’s just referrals from clients, which is always a great way to get going, but also part of expanding our business services is in this lead up to the subscription service.
Jacob Tingen: I’ve helped companies set up their LLC registrar, their organization’s service, their registered agent in the past. I don’t think I’m gonna do a lot of this unless it’s part of a larger package or deal. I’ve even done web design and those kinds of things just because it interests me. We’re obviously clearly pretty decent marketers, at least in our sphere. So, you know, I’ve offered some marketing and consulting and that kind of thing in addition to just the business setup, but because I like to see my clients not just get set up but succeed. So, I like to give them the tools to do that.
Jacob Tingen: So, yeah, I mean we’ll act as your registered agent. We’ll register your LLC or your C corporation. We don’t do the tax stuff. We will refer you to an accountant or someone like that, but as far as getting those important agreements for a corporation, your articles of incorporation and your bylaws … I’ve also set up nonprofits which is an area of interest for me. We’ve done a lot of pro bono here at Tingen and Williams and I do like to help nonprofit companies and people who help people, so …
Andrew Michael: Just one point of note that I noticed. I feel like corporation sort of has the wrong connotation. So, especially for small businesses just starting up, registering your LLC, getting your trademarks, making sure you start off right is very important.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah.
Andrew Michael: So, sort of what are the steps? For example I just started a corporation that sells beets or something. I don’t know.
Jacob Tingen: You’re teaming up with Dwight Schrute?
Andrew Michael: Yeah, man. I was watching way too much Office recently. It’s actually a problem.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, okay. Beet corporation.
Andrew Michael: What steps do I go through to start Beet Corporation LLC or whatever?
Jacob Tingen: Okay, well, first of all that’s a terrible name because it’s generic, right? So if you want to talk on the trademark side of this, you don’t want to call your beet company “Beet Company” because anybody can call their beet company “Beet Company” so you’ve got to make your name distinctive. But, let’s put that to the side. So, you want to do business with a friend or family or whatever or just with random partners that you’ve met. Well, so one of the first things you can do is people don’t realize this, but … I guess people do it all the time even though they don’t really think it through.
Jacob Tingen: People can just do business just because they want to do business and if that’s what happens, you’re either a sole proprietor or partnership. The law creates that fictional entity around you no matter what. So if you’re just one dude selling stuff, you’re a sole proprietor whether you want to be or not, and if it’s you and some other person, then you’re a partnership and that’s just the informal structure, okay?
Jacob Tingen: But if you think things are gonna take off and you think things will probably grow or you want to just dot your I’s and cross your T’s and be really official about it and really set yourself up for success, taking a look at your business structure can help you with so much. It can help you save money on taxes. It can help prevent personal liability for …
Andrew Michael: Infringement.
Jacob Tingen: Well, for lots of problems that could come up in running a business.
Andrew Michael: Tons of, yeah.
Jacob Tingen: So it’s a good idea to register. My favorite business form is the LLC. There are reasons to set up a C corporation, which is … You can set up a stock corporation but that doesn’t mean it has to be like a publicly traded corporation. You can have a small C corporation with just a couple of people, but depending on what you plan to do with your company, that would determine what I advise you to set up, especially if you’re a startup, if you have growth plans, if you’re a ma and pa store. Whatever you want to do, but typically for smaller partnerships that aren’t planning to raise money or whatever, I would say the LLC is my go to entity.
Andrew Michael: Which is like a Limited Liability Corporation.
Jacob Tingen: Limited Liability Company.
Andrew Michael: Company, that’s it.
Jacob Tingen: So that’s what we are here at the law firm. We’re Tingen and Williams PLLC. So in Virginia you have to be a Professional Limited Liability Company, but yeah, the LLC is flexible. You’re registered. You get limited liability. You can function very casually as a partnership or you could function very formally, more like a corporation. You could even distribute your ownership percentages in terms of units, which function similarly to stocks, and so, yeah. LLCs can be very formal.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, and it’s really helpful too, because it’s like getting official government backing for your corporate … It’s like, again, like dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, dotting your I’s. You don’t get government backing. It’s not like Virginia supports you in your efforts, but yeah, I mean, they’ll let you register for 100 bucks and renew annually for at least 50 bucks, so yeah. Registering is a good, important step. It signals to other people that you’re legit.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, which is super helpful, especially for making sure there aren’t other similar businesses, because again, I’ve mostly been looking at trademark stuff. So like registering with your state trademark … Words are hard. Registering your trademark with the state, for example … That’s not like an offshoot of LLC but it’s something you should also do. There’s a bunch of little steps as a new starting business you should go through, one of which is like registering your LLC, one of which is getting your trademarks in line. All that kind of stuff.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, I mean, people … You’ll see people mention state trademark registries and stuff, but really, all you want to do is get that federal trademark registration if you plan to do interstate commerce. So, generally just by registering the business if somebody does a trademark service, they’re gonna find your business pop up on that, or they should if they got a comprehensive trademark search.
Jacob Tingen: There are lots of important steps. If you do an LLC you’re gonna want an operating agreement. If you do a corporation, you’re gonna want bylaws, because those documents tell everybody what you’re gonna be doing and how you’re gonna do it so that when there are problems and everybody says, “Oh lawyers. There will never be problems.” There are always problems in business.
Andrew Michael: Always.
Jacob Tingen: So we’ve learned lessons from sorting through some of these problems for other people and we can kind of help you with your business setup to make sure that you’re happy with how things are turning out when there are problems because they’re coming. Of course we hope that they don’t come quickly and that you are ready to manage them when they do.
Andrew Michael: Yeah. That’s always one of the weird things about practicing law, is like we don’t want you to have problems with your business, but if you do, we’re here to help.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, yeah, but if you do, we want to make sure that it turns out good for our client and not the other guy.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah.
Andrew Michael: I’m trying to think, was there anything else that we’re thinking of expanding in? We can talk a little bit more about Access but we’ve already had an extensive Law Talk on that, on trademarks and stuff.
Jacob Tingen: Well, I mean, what Access does is gonna fill some of those gaps. So we’ve had for a long time articles on our website for wills and estate planning, that kind of thing. As a practice area, that hasn’t really grown a lot for us, but a lot of people, unless you’re really wealthy, don’t need an extensive will. So, for example, we’ll provide basic will services through that Access service. A lot of people … It’s a good idea to have set up a medical directive, a power of attorney and a will, and so those things will be included along with your first traffic ticket on an annual basis and a couple of other services. More details on that will roll out as we roll that out.
Andrew Michael: Yeah. An interesting term I saw relating to that was like tiny law. It’s law that you don’t normally want to go and pay a lawyer for, but if you have access to a lawyer, for example through Access, it’s definitely something you want to make sure is covered.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah. I would actually throw out an example. I had a buddy the other day email me and say, “Hey, the hospital billed me this and I wish that they hadn’t. We hadn’t been told that it was out of network when we were there and so now we’re being billed at the out of network rate. Is there anything you can do?” My first response was, “Well, you know, I’d have to look at your contract.” Well, my first response was, “I hate medical bills,” but my second response was that if you didn’t contract to it, then no, you wouldn’t have to pay something. So, it kind of depends on if they violated the terms of their contract or not.
Jacob Tingen: Now, I don’t have a ton of experience doing medical bills or [murking 00:25:37] through all of that, but I can look at a contract and tell you if they’re violating the terms or not. Well, the bill, it’s a hefty bill, but it’s not enough for a lawyer to get involved, right? So to pay a lawyer to review your insurance agreement and try to figure that out might be cost prohibitive, but if you had Access, and that was what I thought about what I thought about when I was reading his texts and replying to him, is I was thinking, “Man, if he were signed up to Access, this would fall under that and frankly it would be of service to him.”
Jacob Tingen: So that’s an area of law where he probably wouldn’t be able to hire a lawyer to represent him, but if he had Access then he could just come in and we’ll do that document review, give an opinion, write at least one letter and hopefully resolve some things.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, actually I had sort of like a similar story. Not from actual legal advice standpoint but I had a friend who was … So, she works for this business that has handicapped parking spots and stuff, and she asked me this question, like … This business is now also requiring another permit to park in this private lot and if you don’t have that permit, you can’t park in the handicapped spots. She was like, “Is this legal under Virginia law?” I was like, “Oh, that’s an interesting question.”
Jacob Tingen: That is interesting. I wouldn’t know.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, so I went and spent an hour or two on my own time just sort of looking through what does Virginia say about it? It’s really interesting, because there’s all these different areas of law pointing at it, like local ordinances, state law and federal law, and it’s one of those things where it’s like just figuring out do I have a case because of how convoluted the things surrounding this is, is another thing that, for example, would fall under access, is just like, “Hey, look at this. Tell me if I have a case,” rather than having to do it yourself.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah.
Andrew Michael: So there’s a bunch of these really simple, smaller law things that would fall under it that I think would be really helpful, because again it’s not about making money, it’s about making sure our clients get access to the justice they deserve.
Jacob Tingen: Right, yeah. I would agree with that.
Andrew Michael: That’s the whole point, and it’s just really nice to be able to help these people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to get these protections and stuff.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, and we’ve always given in our consults … They’re not five, 10 minutes, look at you, see if there’s any money and send you out the door. We’ve never been that firm. I’ve heard people say that but I’m not sure that I know of any lawyers that are like that, to be honest. All of us are kind of intrigued when somebody comes in the door. What’s gonna happen now?
Jacob Tingen: What I would say is that with Access, you’re entitled to those consults as part of the subscription plan that we’re gonna be offering and so, yeah. Particularly for me, because like I said, I like to puzzle. I like to fit pieces together, so I’m kind of excited by the prospect of kind of opening our doors to just anything …
Andrew Michael: Like all these really cool cases.
Jacob Tingen: All of these random things that you probably wouldn’t be able to hire a lawyer for anyway. I think it would be fascinating and fun to look at them and help people with kind of these smaller legal issues that you wouldn’t be able to find a lawyer with otherwise.
Andrew Michael: [inaudible 00:28:43] You mentioned it was like the average Virginia resident has five legal cases they could follow per year or something like that, with like traffic tickets and all this other kind of stuff?
Jacob Tingen: I didn’t cite that statistic but you just did. That’s really cool, where’d you read that one?
Andrew Michael: No, I just, like … I was looking through it and there was among traffic tickets, tenant laws, billing …
Jacob Tingen: Right, yeah. People encounter so many legal issues a year and they go without legal help, yeah.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, there’s so many issues that it’s hard to find definite statistics, but I saw this one guy that was estimating five to six for every Virginia resident, especially like college students.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, no, so let’s pitch this. If you’re a parent of a college student, we looked into … When we were looking into Access and criminal law, VCU is right down the road. Most criminal convictions and charges occur between the ages of 18 and like 25.
Andrew Michael: I think the actual number’s like 24, that I was looking at as how Virginia breaks them up.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, yeah. So, essentially if you get through to 30 unscathed, you’re probably gonna avoid problems with the law most of your life, which is good news for everybody over 30, but I guess my pitch here is it would be helpful to have an attorney who can help represent your children through those harrowing college years when they are more likely to need legal help than they would otherwise.
Andrew Michael: I mean, they’re more likely to need legal help and also especially for college students, they’re significantly far away from their parents, which would normally offer them help. So having the peace of mind of if my student throws a trashcan out of the back of the car while drunk or something …
Jacob Tingen: I mean, that didn’t happen in my college days, but that sounds very specific, Andrew. I’m just gonna say, I’m just gonna throw that out there. That seems a little specific, but we’ll roll with that.
Andrew Michael: Yeah, no. Something where you get the peace of mind for, like, if anything does happen, I know that the kid will be covered basically.
Jacob Tingen: Is there a story coming here? Are we gonna hear the …
Andrew Michael: No, no.
Jacob Tingen: Okay. All right, no stories.
Andrew Michael: We’re 30 minutes.
Jacob Tingen: We’re 30 minutes.
Andrew Michael: That’s for some other time.
Jacob Tingen: All right. Good,
Andrew Michael: But yeah, is there anything else you wanted to cover or talk about or …
Jacob Tingen: No, I mean, we’re just excited. So, Tingen Williams has done, like I said, immigration, trademark and business for a while and now we’re kind of expanding the trademark and business side and excited to be adding officially in addition to just traffic, straight up criminal representation and also personal injury has just been a lot of fun so far, so we look forward to representing people in a wider variety of practice areas.
Andrew Michael: Yep. It should be a really exciting time, especially over the next couple of months.
Jacob Tingen: Yeah, it is. It is. Thanks.
Andrew Michael: I think that’s it for today. So, we hope to see everyone next Wednesday. Same time, same place, and thanks for tuning in.
Jacob Tingen: Thanks, Andrew.
Andrew Michael: Yep.
