Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to the family and partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. Today, we’ve got a high-dollar, high-profile plaintiff attorney. I’m excited to talk about some of those Tedra Cannella is a plaintiff’s attorney here in Atlanta. And like I said, she does some pretty big cases.
Jonathan Hawkins: We’ll talk about a recent verdict. She got a 131 million, which is, yeah, I want to learn a little bit of the details and apparently it was a bench trial, so that is really going to be interesting.
Jonathan Hawkins: So Tedra, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us about your firm. So the types of work you do may be the size of your firm and all of that.
Tedra Cannella: Sure. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So I am a partner at Canela Snyder, which is a firm I founded with a good friend of mine, Rob Snyder. And the easiest way to describe what we do to me is fancy personal injury.
Tedra Cannella: So we do anything that’s big damages. And requires a little bit [00:01:00] of extra money or expertise staff, that kind of thing.
Tedra Cannella: And product liability is the big niche that we have. We also do other things like trucking or third-party liability in a worker’s injury case premises, liability, that kind of thing.
Tedra Cannella: And Rob does key Tam, which is a federal whistleblower case, which are fun. I don’t like those but that’s something that he’s great at.
Tedra Cannella: So we have, we’re in downtown Decatur and we have 6 lawyers now Rob and I are partners. And then we also brought on Sashi Cole, who’s awesome.
Tedra Cannella: And she a started as a partner earlier this year, 3 associates, two paralegals, three admin, including a legal assistant of mine who taught me how to practice law, retired, and then came out of retirement to help us part-time, which is maybe one of the things I’m most proud of at this firm. And we’re looking to hire somebody else.
Tedra Cannella: So yeah, we’ve grown a lot in the last two years. And it’s been really fun. We have a great team. We do a lot of spitballing and [00:02:00] collaboration and it makes every day a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed it.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. You guys are growing a lot. I remember when you went out, I guess it’s just two or three of you and
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, that’s right.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s there for those people who are not from Atlanta Decatur is basically In Atlanta, it’s inside the perimeter, its own little city, but it’s in there. You know, that I used to live over there.
Jonathan Hawkins: They used to have this T-shirt. And I think it was Decatur was a drinking town with a festival problem.
Tedra Cannella: Yes.
Tedra Cannella: It is kind of, it’s a little happy, little walkable yuppie hippie kind of world, but
Tedra Cannella: Yeah.
Tedra Cannella: It’s a good place to live. There’s a lot of lawyers down here. You can go out to lunch, walk to lunch, and see people you know, and it’s a good community.
Jonathan Hawkins: A lot of good restaurants and a lot of good cocktails down there. So we’re going to dive into all that stuff. I’ve interviewed a good number of plaintiff contingency lawyers of different types. But, like you said, you guys do some high product liability for sure type cases.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I know that’s your background you know, suing Ford and seat [00:03:00] belts and this kind of thing. Those are expensive cases, right?
Tedra Cannella: They are. Yeah. If you end up at trial, you will have expenses around a million. So, it’s a big investment. We’re very picky about the cases we take. We only have about 20 to 30 cases in the office at any time. And maybe 5 or a product liability because they are such a big investment time-wise, money-wise, resource-wise, staff-wise everything.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, those experts, they can.
Tedra Cannella: Right. And you know, you buy a car to drop it on the roof. That hurts too.
Jonathan Hawkins: Next time you do that, invite me. I want to go watch.
Tedra Cannella: It’s pretty fun.
Jonathan Hawkins: I started out in I guess my first law firm job, we did Michelin Tire Defense. So, I played in the world a little bit. So, yeah, it was interesting. I remember I think it was a Ford, like a 15-passenger van or something, which are very unstable.
Jonathan Hawkins: They flip pretty easily. And I remember we were the tire. So it was, they sued Ford and the tire. And I remember going up [00:04:00] to Detroit for a deposition of some Ford person. And I guess the plaintiff’s attorney, I remember I was just blown away because I’m a young associate.
Jonathan Hawkins: He had nothing except a blank pad and he took the entire deposition of this guy. I think it probably taken it a hundred times. So he knew exactly what he’s going to ask, but he did it with no notes, no documents, and he’s referring to these studies and all this stuff. It was just, it was amazing.
Jonathan Hawkins: So,
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. It’s definitely, you learn a lot about a really specific thing. So, I can’t fix a car, but I can tell you in minute detail how the seatbelt works.
Tedra Cannella: So. It’s kind of a weird expertise, I guess.
Jonathan Hawkins: So maybe I should ask, are there certain cars you will not buy?
Tedra Cannella: Oh, lots of them. Yeah. I always tell people, you know, don’t ask me if you don’t want to spend a little bit of money, if you just want to buy your Honda Civic and live blissfully ignorant, then go for it. But I’m big [00:05:00] into German cars. I like Subaru. I like Volvo. Those are the ones that generally are pretty reliable.
Tedra Cannella: But beyond that, you know, don’t ask if you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. I’m not asking All right. Well, let’s go back. So out of law school, you clerked for federal judge right out, correct?
Tedra Cannella: That’s right.
Jonathan Hawkins: So How did you like that experience? I did that as well. I thought it was incredible. Was it a trial judge or an appellate judge?
Tedra Cannella: This district court judge Hugh Lawson in the middle district passed in the last year or so. It was incredible. I loved it. He was originally a state court judge and he was one of these guys who worked in a small town, had a practice in a small town with his dad, and came up that way and had been on the state court bench and then appointed by President Clinton. And he just had the most incredible instincts and zero ego.
Tedra Cannella: And so, we had a great time. You know, we went out to lunch every day, these little Macon meet and threes. And it doesn’t take long to know all the [00:06:00] lawyers are making. So, you know, it was just a really cool year. It’s a great place to be poor.
Tedra Cannella: I really was able to take advantage of everything on the federal clerk salary that Macon had to offer. But yeah, you get to see behind the scenes what judges are thinking when lawyers do different theatrics or make mistakes or do great things as well.
Tedra Cannella: And it was a kind of a street education, a version of that in the courtroom he would just kind of on the instinct things he could just, he would just know.
Tedra Cannella: And on anything that was legal, he would say, I hired you guys. Y’all are supposed to be smart ones. You tell me what to do right. I’m going to do the right thing. So, that was pretty cool to be able to be thrown into that a little terrifying, you know, but pretty cool to be able to have that kind of influence.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I thought it was a good transition from the theoretical book stuff from law school into the real deal practice. So you got to see some of it.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, obviously you didn’t see all of it that happened outside of the court, but you got to see the [00:07:00] briefs, you got to see trials, you got to see hearings, all that.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it was a good transition for me. I imagine similar for you.
Tedra Cannella: It really was. And just going from being dirt poor to being, you know, regular poor was fun. And just, you know, I remember seeing Judge Lawson deal with different lawyers. And so, the 1st question, if there was a discovery dispute or something like that, his 1st question to me, who are the lawyers? Right?
Tedra Cannella: And that would immediately tell him, you know, how to consume the information he was about to get and you hear people say, you know, you got to keep your credibility and you’ve got to preserve that judges talk to each other. That’s 100% sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: Mm-hmm.
Tedra Cannella: Because if you walk into the room as somebody he can trust, that’s going to be a different hearing.
Tedra Cannella: And then if you walk into the room as somebody who’s misbehaved in the past.
Jonathan Hawkins: And you know the federal judges since they don’t have to get elected. They tend to be a little harder I’ll say.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. Right. They suffer no fools.
Jonathan Hawkins: I [00:08:00] remember, I’ll tell you this story real quick so I clerked in Savannah and there was a week where we were just getting I mean stacks and stacks of motions and briefs It was just like boom. It’s some discovery issue. I think And it got to the point where a judge I was clerked for is just like, all right, I don’t even want to look at these.
Jonathan Hawkins: It was a Wednesday and he went through his secretary and said, call the attorneys. We’re having a hearing here on Friday. And these attorneys were both based out of Atlanta and he’s like, and I want the CEOs of companies here too.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so it was Wednesday and they were there Friday and they were there all day. And all of a sudden everything got resolved real quick.
Tedra Cannella: Everybody could get along all of a sudden.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So you went from the clerkship straight to a plaintiff’s firm, right?
Tedra Cannella: Yes, except for I did take a few months and I worked in the Obama campaign doing a voter protection in 08. So that was fun. I was scheduled to start at my old firm Butler Wooten right away, but they let me take a few months to go do that.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. So, my experience, so I’ve told this story [00:09:00] before. When I was in law school, I wanted to go be a plaintiff’s lawyer, but there were just so few jobs that you could get straight out of law school on the plaintiff’s side.
Jonathan Hawkins: They want you to go work for a defense firm for a while. You got one of the few that apparently were out there. So
Tedra Cannella: I lucked out. Yeah. It was a lot of help from people. I’ll say, you know, after I got the job, I sat down to write thank you notes to people who helped me and just looked at how long the list was kind of. I remember that sticking with me, just, you know, the dean, professors, all these people, because especially figuring out who the good firms are.
Tedra Cannella: That was the biggest challenge for me. You know, who am I supposed to apply to? Who’s the idiot and the ambulance chaser? And who are the quality lawyers? That’s impossible to know as a law student or a law clerk. And I had a lot of help with that and people reaching out to different firms to try to help me.
Tedra Cannella: So that’s how that happened really. Otherwise. I had an offer from McKenna Long and Aldridge who doesn’t exist anymore and I was going to take it. So, you know, for several [00:10:00] reasons that it became clear to me that was a bad decision.
Tedra Cannella: And when I talked to people about it, they really went out of their way to lend a helping hand. And that’s something I try to pay forward as well to other people.
Jonathan Hawkins: So it sounds like you knew you wanted to be a plaintiff’s lawyer. Is that right?
Tedra Cannella: I think at different times I did and sometimes I didn’t. So when I was in an undergrad, I got burned real bad. And I ended up volunteering at this camp for burn kids that the Georgia Firefighters Foundation does as a camp counselor. And that is what kind of propelled me into law. I did a couple of years as a paralegal at Legal Aids.
Tedra Cannella: Before I went to school back to school and I loved it. I loved working for people who really needed the help, but it got very repetitive. And so I wanted to figure out a way that felt more challenging and, you know, a little bit more dynamic. I also wanted to not be you know, scraping the bottom of my bank account every month to pay my bills.
Tedra Cannella: I remember when I was at legal aid in Atlanta, I walked into the conference room that had just been used [00:11:00] for orientation for new lawyers and they had the salary up there forever since 1970, whatever it was when legal aid was founded and it had gone up maybe $5,000.
Tedra Cannella: You know, from 19 90, 70 something to 2002. And I thought this is not, yeah, I don’t have a trust fund, so we need to do better than this.
Tedra Cannella: But anyway, so I really liked working with that community. And when I went, when I did a summer at McKenna because $2,000 a week was more money than I could ever consider having. And I thought, well, let’s do that for the summer.
Tedra Cannella: And they put me on the product liability team, and I loved it was so interesting, you know, but my first assignment was to go through a case where the plaintiff was an Emory student who’d been burned in a car. He was treated at Grady by a guy named Dr. Ingram and he volunteered at camp at the same camp I volunteered at.
Tedra Cannella: And all those things were true of me too. I had gone to Emory. I went to Grady. That was my doctor. I volunteered at the same camp. And so I thought this is a sign, [00:12:00] you know, I’m on the wrong side of this bee. And that was kind of what made me start looking at plaintiff’s firms and thinking hard about, well, this could be a good intersection between what I love doing, which is helping the people at legal aid, and what is interesting to me, which is this kind of expert work and, you know, sophisticated type of practice.
Jonathan Hawkins: And for those who maybe aren’t from Georgia who don’t know, I mean Butler Wooten it’s, I guess has split apart and it’s in different sort of pieces now, but that was the firm. I mean, big time, plaintiff’s firm, successful firm in the state of Georgia. And so that’s a really good job to get, right?
Tedra Cannella: It was a great job to get Lee Martin May, who’s now a federal judge, had come to our torts class first year and presented a case that she tried to a hundred and some million dollar verdict with Jim Butler and showed us. You know, the testing they had done and all that kind of stuff.
Tedra Cannella: And I just remember being so kind of [00:13:00] wowed by this. Like, this is like Erin Brockovich stuff over here. You know, it’s a great firm. It was a great place to learn and grow up as a lawyer for sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I talked to, plaintiff’s lawyers throughout the country. And I always ask how the verdicts and every state’s a little different. Some states are harder to get verdicts in Georgia, at least in recent years. There’s been some big ones and a lot of big ones and all types of cases, but it wasn’t always like that.
Jonathan Hawkins: But Butler Wooten pretty much did that a lot back in the day.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. I mean, they were the first out there getting those big verdicts for sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, that’s cool that you were able to get there, I’m envious, I would have loved to have gone there out. My life would be a lot different if I’d gone. But okay.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you were there, you learned a lot. You worked your way up, you made partner there, right?
Tedra Cannella: Correct.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how many years were you there?
Tedra Cannella: Now let’s see. It was 08 to 20 into 21, whatever that is.
Jonathan Hawkins: So
Tedra Cannella: It’s a lot of math
Jonathan Hawkins: A lot of years. And at some point,
Tedra Cannella: 13 or 14 years, something like that. Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s for some [00:14:00] time, were you the managing partner there too?
Tedra Cannella: I was, yeah
Jonathan Hawkins: Tell me about that. What was that? How did your responsibilities change if at all in that role?
Tedra Cannella: It was, they changed some, I would say we had a great support staff there, so, you know, that was a firm that had been around for decades and there wasn’t a lot of need to go in and reinvent the wheel. So there was a lot of systems in place. And I didn’t have to learn how to, you know, manage my old accounts.
Tedra Cannella: We had an accountant on staff. So, things like that were already done for me. And I was just there saying, okay, let’s think about marketing and let’s do this or let’s do that, but it was really secondary to practicing law.
Tedra Cannella: And. You know, it was interesting. I got more involved in the management side, but it was only for about a year.
Tedra Cannella: And I always kind of laugh, like the year that I was managing partners, the year that the firm blew up and, and when people went their separate ways. So I don’t know how good was at it, but I tried my best.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s funny, I guess two firms go for me. [00:15:00] I made partner when it blew up and dissolved that I was like, okay, I got on the inside, and then it just, I guess it’s my fault.
Jonathan Hawkins: But yeah. So, you know, that was a type of firm too, you guys are flying all over the country doing, you know, expert depositions and all that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And, and you guys probably had a jet, at least one, right? That or did you have to fly a commercial?
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, we had a plane. And we had a hunting plantation and full-time investigators who are former detectives and sheriffs and things. And, you know, we had all the tools you would need. It was a ton of overhead as well. So, you know, there’s pros and cons to all that, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about. So, while you’re there, you’re seeing sort of the biggest, most sophisticated cases out there. You have all these resources at your disposal to really pursue those you know, a lot of overhead, but, you know, you guys probably making some good money too. At some point, the firm breaks apart and then you’re on your own.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know, what’s it like having all that at [00:16:00] your disposal to then starting your own thing and not necessarily having all that?
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. It was a little jarring, I suppose, but it was honestly, it was a really joyful experience. So I want to say it’s scary but I didn’t feel that fear, you know, it was a decision I made and I just never had planned to do it. I never cared if my name was in lights or if I was the, you know, star of the show or any of those things.
Tedra Cannella: That was never a goal of mine in any way. So I had no. Website? No. You know, no plan, no marketing materials, no anything. I didn’t know who to call for my malpractice insurance. I didn’t know anything, so, you know, it was an adjustment and I also didn’t know if I would have any cases. I didn’t think I would have any cases when I left, I figured they’d stay behind.
Tedra Cannella: I was just like, I’ll go do dog bite cases and slip and falls and whatever needs to be done, as it turns out Rob came with me and we were able to amicably take the cases that we were [00:17:00] working on.
Tedra Cannella: So, you know, we had a stash of cases and that didn’t become a big hurdle for us financially. We were okay. I had a heat lock on my home. I had my home equity line of credit. And that was about it, you know, savings of course, but yeah, it was scary, but it was just really invigorating, I guess, was the right, is the right word. I’ve just felt like this energy about it and I was excited.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how much time did you have to make the decision and sort of get going? You know, some people see it coming, they have months, they really plan and they get their budgets.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, it was over the weekend. It was not something that I had even a contingency plan for. So, you know, I left on good terms with everybody and I stayed in the building until the end of the year for, you know, a month or 2 and helped kind of transition things and all that.
Tedra Cannella: So it wasn’t like, a big pack up your boxes over the weekend and then you’re gone the next day. It wasn’t like that, but so I did have [00:18:00] some kind of offering up there, but it was not a plan.
Tedra Cannella: So I guess, if I was going to give advice to somebody, it would be to start thinking about these things sooner than I did.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yes. Okay. So you decided over the weekend that you’re going to do it and you went out with your partner, Rob. How did you decide that? So whether to have a partner who would be and that sort of thing takes us through that thought process.
Tedra Cannella: I think for me, practicing law is fun with other people, doing it by myself. I was excited, but I always would rather practice with somebody else because that’s what makes it fun.
Tedra Cannella: That’s when you have these new ideas and you get to commiserate together and you get to share the highs and the lows and, you know, draw straws over who’s going to go to North Dakota in the middle of the winter.
Tedra Cannella: And, it’s just so much more fun to do it with somebody else. And Rob and I had been partners in Atlanta for years and just really worked well together. We really were good at kind of filling in each other’s holes and kind of being like, okay, well, you’re busy now I’ll take this and I’m busy now and you’ll [00:19:00] help with this.
Tedra Cannella: And so, we knew we were good at that already and that’s just a no-brainer to practice with Rob if you wanted to do that. Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s so huge. I mean, it’s a known commodity. You guys work together. You know, I’ve talked to a lot of people who are, Forming a partnership with someone that they know, but they’ve never worked together. it’ll work, but you never really know till you’re there.
Tedra Cannella: You don’t, I mean, it’s like going on a blind date and getting married. It’s wild. And Sasha joined us this earlier this year, as I mentioned, and that’s been an amazing addition, but we have such a good relationship.
Tedra Cannella: You know, it was a hard decision to bring somebody in because we thought, what if it doesn’t work? What if it, you know, what if it goes wrong? And we’re very fortunate. It’s been awesome.
Tedra Cannella: So, I think that decision is, it’s hard and if it goes wrong, you probably got to make that decision pretty fast and then break it up. I’ve watched one of your other podcasts where somebody said they were, they were about four months in for, they weren’t talking to the other partner.
Tedra Cannella: And you know, that’s bad news. But yeah, we were lucky. We knew it’s [00:20:00] like you said, no commodity. We’re good to go. And we have very similar values as far as the kind of case we want to take as far as our work ethic how we view money and how we view management, like all those things were just very much in step with each other.
Tedra Cannella: So it’s been a great partnership.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. All of that’s so important. So take me through that maybe the change in dynamic when it was just you and Rob to now having a third partner. How has that sort of changed and how have y’all made that work?
Tedra Cannella: You know, we have this big case right now, which is a key tam case and on the other side is scattered and all the, you know, white shoe kind of white shoe firms.
Tedra Cannella: And that’s been crazy busy. So we knew we needed somebody else to help carry that burden and that load. And it was just a matter of figuring out who.
Tedra Cannella: And Sasha is somebody who I’ve known for a long time. Rob didn’t know her as well, but I’ve known her a long time and she is universally respected and loved by anyone who’s come in contact with her. So [00:21:00] as far as the good person side of it, you know, that was never a question. And you know, her work is incredible as well.
Tedra Cannella: So, it hasn’t changed the dynamic between me and Rob. It’s really kind of added to the pool of resources that we have as the three of us together, you know, we’ve got, now we’ve got three people who care about the firm, who have good instincts, who are hardworking and who have the capacity to bring in business.
Tedra Cannella: So it’s really just kind of solidified everything. It’s been a good move for us.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about this key tam cases real quick. So I know a little bit about them. I mean, there’s some that you refer into the government and then they, the government sort of takes them and then a number of years later, they crack it open and you get a check and they announced this, and all that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then there’s others that the government say, well, you guys go handle it. It sounds like that’s the that’s, are those the types of cases you have on the key tam stuff?
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, we have some that are under seal still. So, you know, we’ll see if the government [00:22:00] takes them. We have some, this one is not under seal and it’s in litigation. And yeah, the government declined, which creates a huge pool of work and you know, we’re the little engine that could over here with our little, you know, six lawyers and not even all those lawyers on the case and, and they’ve got, there are dozens of lawyers deep.
Tedra Cannella: People we don’t even see. So, I know we had one in front of Judge Totenberg and her clerk told us years later after he had left, like when I found out there was just four of you on the case, you know, it was just shocking to him because the level, the volume of briefing and documents and all this stuff going on, it just doesn’t seem possible.
Tedra Cannella: So you really got to be geared up to be able to handle that. And It’s a lot of work. And the way it gets kind of, taken to account is that your portion of the fee or the portion of the recovery goes up the more work you’re doing. So, it can be a great return on investment if you win and if the company has the resources to pay.
Tedra Cannella: But it’s a huge [00:23:00] risk as well, just like the product liability cases. And it’s fun to be able to stand in the shoes of the federal government and say, you represent the United States of America. And there are good cases against companies that are behaving badly, but boy, is it a lot of work?
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I mean, shoot. You have multiple big firms with dozens of lawyers on there. I mean, that’s, you know, impressive that you guys can hold your own. I know that is a lot of work and that might be part of the strategy on the other side, bury your ass work. Right?
Tedra Cannella: Right. I hope you can get away with something because nobody had time to look at it, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So, another thing I wanted to touch on. So, you know, you’re a female plaintiff’s law firm partner in what I perceive as a largely male-dominated space, a lot of cowboys, you know, walking around.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what’s your perspective on that? Am I wrong? And then, what are your thoughts on being a sort of a high profile [00:24:00] female partner in the plaintiff’s contingency space?
Tedra Cannella: I think it’s there there should be more of us because it’s a practice that is really well suited for women in a lot of ways. I think there’s not enough or not as many as there should be because of an institutional difference in the way people hire a plaintiff’s firm.
Tedra Cannella: So at Butler Wooten, like you mentioned, I got a job right out of clerkship with Butler Wooten, and that’s the way they used to hire just, right out of, clerkship, right out of law school. And then it was pretty easy, relatively easy to recruit women. They were paying more like big law firms.
Tedra Cannella: It wasn’t this eat-what-you-kill kind of model. But once we transitioned as a firm, when I was there to looking for people with 3, 2, 3 5 years of experience, the pool of women lawyers completely dried up.
Tedra Cannella: And so what occurred to me is when you’re a woman and you start working at a defense firm, which is what the usual path is into plaintiff’s work, right?
Tedra Cannella: You’ve a couple of years, two, three [00:25:00] years of defense firm, and then you come over, that is the worst time to make a jump for a woman. Because you are then thinking about having a kid, you’ve collected all this goodwill, you know, you can kind of get, you can get a little bit of a pass when you’re on coming out of maternity leave, you might be able to negotiate a work from home or reduce schedule.
Tedra Cannella: People are going to be understanding. It is the worst time to start a new job. Right?
Tedra Cannella: So, when you’re looking for somebody with a little bit of experience, that specific piece is the hardest time to recruit a woman to. So, I think that that’s something that we have to kind of catch law students in the front end, we have to say, ladies, think about this.
Tedra Cannella: It’s not just these big personalities, you know, male personalities with, you know, I don’t want to use bad language on your podcast, but
Jonathan Hawkins: Go for it. Whatever you want to say. doesn’t matter.
Tedra Cannella: It’s not just these big swinging personalities out here. Okay. You can [00:26:00] be successful as well. And it’s not a practice that rewards sitting and doing your 15-minute increments. It’s a practice that rewards results. So a mom trying to get to your daughter’s recital, that’s an efficient lawyer right there.
Tedra Cannella: If you can get your stuff done and go to a recital, nobody cares. And so I think there is a real opportunity for women to take advantage of the way plaintiff’s work is structured, but the way that we hire just doesn’t lend itself to bringing in people at the right time. Unfortunately, we got to bring them what’s in there.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it seems like, you know, I could be wrong here, but that could be an opportunity for a firm to say, you know, at this age or this age of out of law school It’s risky for everybody, but it’s sort of like, hey, we can design a position that works for both sides with the idea of, you know, the long term. Right?
Tedra Cannella: The long [00:27:00] term. That’s right. And I think we need to really try. It’s hard for small firms, but really try to offer good parental leave policies. You know, we do 3 months of paid leave. That’s. Generous on the plaintiff’s side and very standard on the
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s very generous.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, but you know, if you don’t do that, how can you expect people to really make that decision and come over here?
Tedra Cannella: So, it’s hard. It’s expensive, but it’s an important thing to do. And you turn out, you get a perspective and a lawyer that it’s not otherwise available to you.
Tedra Cannella: So, you know, I mean, women plaintiff’s lawyers have a lot of advantages over men going out and talking to witnesses, even that easy, right?
Tedra Cannella: Talking to clients being in front of the jury. Those things are all uniquely going to be easier. And women will have more access to that as a general matter. So, you get the benefit, you just have to pay for it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So for women [00:28:00] lawyers out there who are thinking about, you know, maybe making the switch any advice for them?
Tedra Cannella: Talk to me, come talk to me. We are always looking for good women lawyers who are, you know, smart and have the bells and whistles. Think about it earlier instead of later. And also don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.
Tedra Cannella: So I know some fabulously smart women lawyers who are doing brief writing and expert work, and they’re more in a supportive role because they don’t like being out in front. That role exists and is very much appreciated and needed.
Tedra Cannella: So, you know, ask for what you want and see if you can find it and find some allies. It’s a small bar. The women in the Plano’s bar, it’s small, but it is mighty and we’re very loyal to each other and we help each other. So a lot of people who’d be willing to help.
Jonathan Hawkins: No, we’ll say this too. I’ve talked about my I’ve experienced myself. I don’t really do plaintiff’s work. I’ve talked to non plaintiff’s attorneys and there’s [00:29:00] this huge need for really good attorneys. And I feel like there’s a huge population of really smart, badass women, lawyers, well-credentialed, all that, that maybe have taken some time off to have kids or whatever.
Jonathan Hawkins: They want to put a toe back in the water. And it’s sort of like they’re out there and they just can’t find each other.
Tedra Cannella: Right.
Jonathan Hawkins: Feel like, you know, years ago when I was a young associate, there was some recruiter or, I don’t know, some sort of business here in that connected sort of the former big law.
Tedra Cannella: Council on call maybe.
Jonathan Hawkins: Maybe I can’t remember, but it was like their niche was, you know, the women it was women only from like big firms who would get, you know, they’re all top of their class, you know, really good, all that stuff, but they didn’t want to work full time.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then you had firms that had a need and were willing, maybe their firms back then were less willing to do these sort of part-time gigs. But nowadays I think firms are wide open to it.
Tedra Cannella: [00:30:00] Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: So that’s a great business model. Somebody needs to get that back together if it’s not.
Tedra Cannella: They do. Absolutely. I would love it. I mean, the need is out there. And like I said, the population is out there. We just got to kind of pull them together in the same place. But until then it’s a very relational thing. And there’s a lot of people who would be willing to help.
Jonathan Hawkins: So it sounds like culture is a big thing for you and your firm and what you’re building over there. And this is one piece of that. What other sorts of things are you looking at as you build your firm and build it the way you want it to be?
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. So, somebody said to us when we started, we have a business coach and as a variety of other things that we kind of contract out. We’re big on contracting out and our business coach, Sarah Nell Walls, she’s awesome. And she met with us early on and talked to us about creating not just what we didn’t want.
Tedra Cannella: Don’t focus on what you don’t want to do, but what you do want to do. Right? And so, we sat down and put our heads [00:31:00] together. And for us, we love, you know, excellence, number one, excellent work product. That’s the number one thing, of course. And then we wanted to have like a workplace that was as transparent as possible.
Tedra Cannella: But what I now know to be called radical candor. So you say, okay, you did a wrong thing. You did the wrong thing. Here’s how you do it. Right? Don’t do it again.
Tedra Cannella: There’s no drama to it, and it’s very matter-of-fact, but it comes from a caring place. And it’s all about clarity. So we wanted to have that, and we wanted to focus on training people to and, you know, bringing up lawyers to be not just someone who’s turning out our work product and doing the grunt work, but also somebody who’s ready to take over in a case.
Tedra Cannella: So those were the things that we focused on doing and I think we’ve done a pretty good job. I was talking to Rob this morning, the busier you get, the harder it is to focus on anything but the practice of law.
Tedra Cannella: So I think there’s a little bit of, you know, two steps forward, one step back on things, but overall we’re moving [00:32:00] in the direction that we wanted to, and I’m really happy with that.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, you just hit the nail on the head there. I think you have to be deliberate in what you’re creating but, you know, we get busy. It’s hard. It’s not easy. like, I want to do it. We all want to do it. But sometimes you’re, you know, you got a trial for 3 weeks. It’s hard to focus on the firm during that 3 weeks.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then probably the 3 weeks before the trial. Right?
Tedra Cannella: Exactly. Yeah. you gotta close cases and make money to pay the people that you want to manage. And really, we don’t managing is not the goal. Like, I don’t want to be a big firm with a bunch of lawyers who can do a lot of work and I get to sit back and do whatever I’m doing.
Tedra Cannella: I want to manage in a way that allows me to practice law. And so that is why we do a lot. We’ve got a COO a fractional COO, Jill James, who is awesome. And she handles a lot of the administrative stuff. And we try to kind of push down as much of that as we can to other people so that we’re practicing law.
Tedra Cannella: But yeah. When you’re getting crushed, you don’t have time to say, [00:33:00] Okay, here, let me give you this detailed feedback on this brief, you know, cause you got to do 10 more briefs. I don’t have time.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And another thing about culture, you know, that, I think a lot of firms in the practice of law is just notorious about just sucking you in and just dominating your life.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’ve got the culture within the firm, but then also the way you, you know, the effect on your family. I know you’ve got a daughter and Rob’s got kids and how do you balance? Sort of the home life with the firm. Can you, is it even possible? I don’t know.
Tedra Cannella: I remember Lee May told me if I hear one more CLE about firm life or work-life balance, I’m going to scream. She’s like, there is no work-life balance. It’s a joke. You know, yes and no, I think we try to do it, or at least I try to do it in fits and spurts. So there’s times where I can go to every game and every, you know, [00:34:00] meeting and every everything.
Tedra Cannella: And there’s times where I can’t, and when I can, I do it all and we do a lot of vacations and that kind of stuff. But, you know, I’m divorced, so I’m actually single mommy, which actually is a lot of.
Tedra Cannella: From my perspective, it’s been a lot easier. So, I have days where I don’t have my daughter and I can just kind of plow through things. That’s easy. And then when I do, I can focus more on her.
Tedra Cannella: And Rob has his wife is at home with the kids too, so she’s incredibly supportive and we’re very fortunate in that way. You know, I have a supportive ex-husband and he has a supportive wife, and yeah. It works out. I think we’re doing it pretty well.
Tedra Cannella: But yeah, I’m better at taking vacations than Rob. He’s too type A to take a vacation when he’s busy.
Jonathan Hawkins: Got to take those vacations. You got too. You’ve burn out. Yeah. So, another thing I want to ask you about we sort of touched on it, but you know, you did big cases before you still do the big cases that take a lot of investment.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, a big [00:35:00] issue with plaintiff practice is the ebbs and flow of the cashflow you know, you’re one minute you’re swimming in it and then for long periods of time you’re not.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how do you, no one balance the cash flow issues? But then also the financing issue for these big cases. How have y’all learned to deal with that?
Tedra Cannella: So we’ve been fortunate. We have a healthy seven-figure line of credit. We don’t really use it unless, you know, we use it for the key Tam case, but we don’t use it for other cases.
Tedra Cannella: So we’ve just self financed and we’ve been fortunate that way. And that’s another place where it’s, good to have a partner who sees things the same way you do.
Tedra Cannella: So we would both rather leave money in the firm and not have to worry about, you know, did I make that decision because we needed money or did I make that decision because it was the right decision? Right?
Tedra Cannella: That is never a place where I want to be. So we keep my enough money in the firm to pay the bills, to pay the case expenses. And [00:36:00] we haven’t had any problem there, which has been very fortunate.
Tedra Cannella: But yeah, there’s a lot of different things that go into that. Because if you look at well, we could, I know some people charge interest to their clients.
Tedra Cannella: So these big case expenses, we don’t do that because for us. You know, that’s how we justify our contingency fee, right? I mean, we’re the ones taking the risk and we’re the ones bearing the cost.
Tedra Cannella: And so, we haven’t done that. And that’s just, we’re on the same page about it, which has been nice. But yeah, you can get a big line of credit and pay it off, you know, run it up, pay it off, run it up, pay it off.
Tedra Cannella: But we, maybe we’ll do that one day, but that’s just not how we’ve had to do it yet.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know another thing that you and Robin are on the same page on the financial piece keeping money in the firm and all that’s huge I’ve seen partnerships where you know you’ve got one that’s a spendthrift that just is always like, give me more money. You know, I got to do this, that, and the other.
Jonathan Hawkins: And it creates a lot of tension when one is maybe doesn’t need it or doesn’t want to spend it, so that’s huge. So, you guys are on the same page.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So we talked about earlier, we [00:37:00] teased it. So you had recently, I think $131 million verdict that was on a bench trial.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, I want to hear more about that. I mean, that’s a big verdict with a jury,
Tedra Cannella: Verdict. It was not a jury. was a federal judge.
Jonathan Hawkins: Tell me about that.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. That was a product case. It was a baby of mine. I got that, I worked on that case right about when I made partners when I started working on it. And so it was a labor of love. Our client was the wife of a guy who was on his way home from work.
Tedra Cannella: He swerved going down the highway to avoid a turtle in the road, went off the road, and couldn’t get control again. Cause it was a big steep Hill and hit a cluster of trees.
Tedra Cannella: And his airbag didn’t go off and his seatbelts pulled out 20 inches, which is a lot. Yeah. And that’s not normal. So, we took the case, we filed it in federal court.
Tedra Cannella: We had a judge who was not sympathetic to our cause by any means. And we resolved it against, we call them OEM, the auto manufacturer, [00:38:00] and we kept it pending against the seatbelt manufacturer, which was a really unusual choice at the time.
Tedra Cannella: So oftentimes we would file against a component manufacturer, just to get their documents, and then we’d end up letting them go, because, you know, we’ve got the big we’ve got the big guns here. They’re the ones who made all the decisions supposedly.
Tedra Cannella: And so let’s just focus on 1 defendant. But in this case, we kept the seatbelt manufacturer because we felt like it was such a bad design. It was a component that could never be safe in any car. You should never have 20 inches of school out ever.
Tedra Cannella: The Micah who was in the car driving he hit the steering wheel so hard that you could see the stippling that the steering wheel dots, know, on the grip, you could see it in the autopsy picture on his
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh man.
Tedra Cannella: So, it’s never a good design and we thought you know that these guys should have never sold it. They should have never manufactured it.
Tedra Cannella: So let’s take a swing at him. And we lost on summary judgment, the [00:39:00] judge that we had found that the seatbelts even though these guys manufactured it said manufactured by Autoliv on the seatbelt He said they’re not a manufacturer under the law.
Tedra Cannella: And so he granted summary judgment and Autolive had sent our client an OOJ. So losing summary judgment meant she was on the hook for some of their attorney fees.
Tedra Cannella: And that was devastating to me, to her, it was awful. And we thought, well, if we go appeal this, we knew it was wrong, but if we peel it and we get back down, we’re going to have this judge who hates us.
Tedra Cannella: We’re going to try the case with him, you know, making all the decisions. Maybe we’ll be responsible for even more attorney’s fees, right?
Tedra Cannella: So it was a big risk. But at the end of the day, we went ahead and appealed it, and in the 11th circuit which is no friend to plaintiff’s lawyers, right?
Tedra Cannella: So we get up there and I argued it and It was such a fun argument. And they were kind of like, didn’t you manufacture it? And they turned it around, they reversed it [00:40:00] five days five business days, yeah, which is really rare.
Tedra Cannella: So we go back down and right about the time it gets reversed, our trial judge announces he’s going to retire. So we’ve got, I think we got the decision in April and he was going to be gone in June or July and so there was this fear, right?
Tedra Cannella: That as his last act of hatred, he would put us on the trial calendar and, you know, we’d have to try it in front of him, but ended up working out that we got a new judge assigned.
Tedra Cannella: And very fair judge, very balls and strikes judge known for just calling them like they are. And so, you know, we elected a bench trial, and,
Jonathan Hawkins: Take me through that. Why bit trial versus jury trial?
Tedra Cannella: Well, we had done it multiple times before. And the thinking is when you have a really strong defect like that, right? You don’t take a case unless it’s a great defect and a great case because they’re too risky. But so when you’ve got a great [00:41:00] case like that, the defense strategy is to just throw a bunch of baloney defenses and hope you catch 1 of 12 jurors and hope you get a compromise for it.
Tedra Cannella: And we said, well. We don’t, you know, we just want somebody who’s going to look at the facts. We don’t want to risk that and just give a good verdict. Right?
Tedra Cannella: So, it usually the defense will always say no. Which is funny because right on appeal of a big verdict that was, oh, the jury is, they were just inflamed, you know and they were out of control.
Tedra Cannella: And so, you know, when you say, well, we want to bench trial, but they didn’t want to do that. So, kind of helps there that was a Jim Butler design. It was very effective.
Tedra Cannella: But anyway, he the defense lawyer, the defendant agreed to the bench trial, and we thought, great, you know, we can try this case quick.
Tedra Cannella: We cut through all the baloney, all these silly things they’re going to argue, they probably won’t even argue them. Well, it turns out they did. And yeah, he, it was a 27 compensatory verdict with 50% of the [00:42:00] fault on our defendant and 50% on the original manufacturer and then a hundred million impunities.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah, right. And in Georgia, which of course the judge knows 75% of that goes to the state and you know, that, it sounds like a big number, but for a company like how to live it wasn’t, and he knew that.
Tedra Cannella: And so it was a really fair verdict in our view. And it went up on appeal. There wasn’t a lot for them to appeal, but they did appeal and we appealed to, because we felt like the 50%, we should recover the whole verdict instead of the 50%.
Tedra Cannella: So we each had our issues. And then while it was on appeal, it resolved.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, congrats. That’s awesome.
Tedra Cannella: It was great. I will say it’s a really weird experience to get a nine-figure verdict over email.
Tedra Cannella: Just a docket entry. I was just making breakfast for my daughter and I looked down and my phone’s blowing up and I was like, what’s going on?
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s awesome. Yeah, [00:43:00] cool. Just out of nowhere. It’s like winning a lottery out of nowhere.
Tedra Cannella: It was I mean, the blood, sweat, and tears that went into that case, nine years.
Jonathan Hawkins: Nine years.
Tedra Cannella: Two appeals. Yeah. And just a ton of risk for a client who believes very much and getting the news out about this defect and you know, super gratifying.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s really good. Congrats on that. And that’s really good.
Tedra Cannella: Thank you.
Jonathan Hawkins: So another thing I wanted to talk about, you know, in building the firm. A lot of people, it’s all about the people, and the whole higher, slow, fire, fast, and, you know, get the right people in the seats, you know, players get right for culture.
Jonathan Hawkins: All that’s true. All that’s true. So what’s been your experience in terms of building your team and building the firm?
Tedra Cannella: Oh I heard a study and I think it’s probably right that you have more success hiring people off the resumes than meeting with them and then making a decision because you know, your biases slip in and people are on their best behavior and you really can know somebody in a couple of interviews.
Tedra Cannella: So I’ve never [00:44:00] had the guts to go that route and not interview somebody, but I will say have been wrong so many times. There was a point where Rob and I were like, we just don’t know. We can’t, we’re not good at it. We’re bad. We can’t hire. So I think, we’ve done our best and some people have worked out and some people haven’t.
Tedra Cannella: And the things that we try to focus on are a, making sure we’ve seen our own faults and somebody not succeeding. Right?
Tedra Cannella: So somebody is not succeeding. The number one thing we do. Is say, what are we doing wrong? Right? We haven’t been clear. We haven’t, you know, told them what they need to do, and we haven’t given them enough instruction because people we hire are smart. They care about the work. Right?
Tedra Cannella: And so that’s kind of where we start from. And once we’ve been clear, I met with somebody and kind of made sure that they’re have the opportunities and the ability to speak up if they’re not if there’s some hitch in the getting right that we can fix.
Tedra Cannella: Once we’ve done all that, if it’s not a good fit, we accept it right. And [00:45:00] say, it’s not going to work. We got to move our separate ways. So it’s not a decision that we try not to belabor it now. We have in plenty of situations, but we’ve made some hard decisions on letting people go.
Tedra Cannella: And I think that’s why I said, mentioned to you earlier, I think hiring is less important than firing because when you hire, you have almost no information when you fire, you have a lot of information, right?
Tedra Cannella: And so you can’t expect yourself to make a perfect hiring decision, but you should expect yourself to make a good firing decision.
Tedra Cannella: And my experience is people know they’re not doing a good job and they feel horrible about it. Right? So some of the happiest people I know have been, you know, post-firing, finding the right fit.
Tedra Cannella: And, it’s just kind of, self-important to think. Well, if they can’t keep this job, they’ll never be happy. Like I’ll make them too sad. Like, no, you’re keeping them from the job that they’re good at, right?
Tedra Cannella: And that’s going to use their strengths appropriately. So try to kind of reframe that as far as building and developing our team and [00:46:00] our minds.
Tedra Cannella: And hopefully we’ve done a pretty good job. I hope whoever’s listening to this doesn’t think they shouldn’t apply because they’re going to get fired.
Tedra Cannella: But I think the good people know that you know, you come in, you do a good job that gets rewarded. Right? We want to pay people well, we want to respect their time. We want to listen to them and give them a voice and decision-making and growth and all those things. That’s the kind of team we want.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I’m with you, I think some people, like you, said that they know it’s not a good fit and it’s sort of a relief to them. Although you know fire let somebody go, it’s not fun, you feel bad about it, but it’s funny my friend Ben Glass, he talks a lot, you know about letting someone go and lawyers tend to keep people on much longer than really they should.
Jonathan Hawkins: They’re not with a nice person. They’re this in sort. He says, look, if all you can say is they’re a nice person, that’s a big red flag. And the big question is knowing what you know today, if they came to you, would you hire them? And if the answer is not a hell yes or a strong yes, then you probably need to let him go.
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. That’s a good way to put it. It’s hard though. And you invest so much [00:47:00] time in people too, that you just, you want to believe,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. All right. So, I want to touch real quick on how you get your cases. So you’re doing low volume, you’re a low volume shot with big cases.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, how do you guys market? I assume it’s attorney referrals, but how do you get your cases?
Tedra Cannella: Yeah. So almost all of our cases come from other lawyers. So we don’t have to do a lot of the social media. We don’t do obviously any TV or radio or anything like that.
Tedra Cannella: We go, we help people. So lawyers need things, you know, we’re always happy to help people. We just speak at different things and we’ve got a marketing team.
Tedra Cannella: That’s another thing we’ve marketed. We’ve contracted out. So they do the LinkedIn posts and all that kind of stuff with our approval. But you know, really it’s just been personal relationships and just making sure that we’re available to people. I mean, if you need help on a case and you just need a brief, I’m going to send it to you.
Tedra Cannella: So, you know, build relationships that way. And really it’s been a lot of friends or maybe every [00:48:00] once in a while, somebody who I heard as CLE or something like that. But most of it is just relationship building, which is just being like out there and having friends, which is actually, you know, it’s a kind of a fancy word for be a normal human being.
Tedra Cannella: And that’s worked pretty well for us.
Jonathan Hawkins: Get up from behind your desk and go hang out with people, right?
Tedra Cannella: Right. And do good work. You know, we’ve got these great results. And so people don’t have to feel like they’re doing us a favor, sending us a case because they know they sent us a case. We’re going to get a good result and they’re going to get a good check and everybody’s, so that’s the number one thing.
Jonathan Hawkins: So obviously you’re hearing it here in Georgia. Do you do work around the country and in other areas too?
Tedra Cannella: We do. Yeah, we’ve got cases. Let’s see, I’ve got one in Florida. Now we’ve got one in, I think it’s in Kansas. Obviously plenty of Georgia cases.
Tedra Cannella: So, we’ve had them all over the place. If they’re the right fit, the right case, especially products case, you know, those are Big cases that justify the travel and that kind of thing.
Tedra Cannella: But yeah, we take them, we take them all over the place.
Jonathan Hawkins: So within the products space is it are [00:49:00] there particular niches within that you do or is it just? Any type of product case?
Tedra Cannella: Right. Our specialty and this is not my best marketing pitch. It doesn’t have like a snappy name, but what we’re really good at is fighting the big dogs. Right?
Tedra Cannella: So we are really good at fighting document battles and doing expert discovery and uncovering people, hiding things, and that kind of stuff. We’re great at that. And so that translates. I don’t need to know exactly how a carburetor works. I don’t need to know exactly how the seat works. I can figure that out with talking to an expert in a day.
Tedra Cannella: So it doesn’t matter which defect it is. It’s more about the machine that we’ve built that can fight the big fight.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so let’s shift back to your firm. You’ve been doing it for two years now. So yeah, you got a little time under your belt.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what’s been some of the biggest challenges in getting the firm off ground and just keeping it running?
Tedra Cannella: I think the higher the people, you know, hiring the right [00:50:00] people and equipping them, taking the time to train them and taking the time to listen to them and to put in processes and procedures and all that kind of stuff. We got File Vine, which has been a very polarizing experience.
Jonathan Hawkins: How long did it take? I’m here. It takes forever to get implemented.
Tedra Cannella: I can’t speak to that without risk and getting sued by Filevine.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, they’re not a sponsor, so we can say whatever we want.
Tedra Cannella: I mean, we have four terabytes of data. Okay. So, you know, big cases, big document productions. And we kept saying that to everybody and they kept me like, Oh, we can do it every weekend, you know, and nobody really heard us. So that was frustrating because it ended up taking two different companies.
Tedra Cannella: You know, one company actually quit. They resigned trying to transfer our data. And so Filevine graciously paid a more sophisticated company to get involved but ended up taking 6 months just to get the data.
Tedra Cannella: So, you know, that’s no customization, not even using it the 1st day. So that was frustrating and I’ve got a love-hate relationship with it. Obviously, [00:51:00] it’s definitely increased our efficiency on some basic things.
Tedra Cannella: And task tracking is awesome. You know, love it for a lot of things, but you know, being trying to get the firm in a place that is efficient. Without losing the kind of sophistication that we have around.
Tedra Cannella: Some things is a challenge and just making sure we’re properly staffed and that everybody has the tools they need and the training they need while we’re also doing excellent work. And these big cases, that’s a lot of balls in the air. But that’s why we have me and Rob and Sasha.
Tedra Cannella: And so together, we’ve been working on it. I think we’re doing pretty good job.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, the whole tech stack issue, like I’m probably. Oh, I know I’m about to rehaul our entire tech stack because, you know, what used to work is not working anymore and I’m trying to keep hold off as long as possible because I just know it’s going to be a pain in the ass.
Jonathan Hawkins: And the other thing is like, you think I want to get something that can scale [00:52:00] with this because I don’t want to have to do it again anytime again.
Tedra Cannella: Right. Yeah. It’s that hiring and firing decision all over again. Right.? I mean, you put so much time into it. There’s like the thought of getting rid of File Vine right now. I have to shove it out of my mind. It’s too awful to think about, but
Jonathan Hawkins: To be fair to Filevine. I know people that had I’ll say challenges getting it implemented, but a lot of people love it once it’s there. And then, you know, I think every practice management system out there is flawed in some way and it’s, there’s no system and you just sort of gotta get the one that works best for you and then just ride it as much and as long as you can,
Tedra Cannella: Right. Until your employees just finally say, okay, fine.
Jonathan Hawkins: And that’s the, you got to get people to use it. That’s the other piece.
Tedra Cannella: Gotta get people to it. Yeah. No, it’s not terrible. It has a lot of benefits, but yeah, it’s nobody likes to learn a new thing and nobody wants to do something different and take the time to figure it out.
Tedra Cannella: And it’s not good in some ways. And I’m not like the [00:53:00] old system better for this or that thing. So, you know, that’s been a challenge, but as far as the practice, I mean, it’s just been, honestly people always encourage people to think about starting their own firm because there is nothing better than being the captain of your own ship.
Tedra Cannella: I think, and I just didn’t even think about it until it was upon me and I did it. And I think it’s worth exploring the idea, even if you don’t think it’s like your personality or it’s not worth the risk or whatever. It’s honestly so fun and it has made the practice of law a really joyful experience coming into the office every day.
Tedra Cannella: Nine days out of ten, I leave here thinking what a fun day. You know, it was a good day. I liked it.
Jonathan Hawkins: So for those out there that are thinking about it, and this is the time of year when, you know, we’re in October, this is the time of year when people are really starting to think about it for a January start, what advice would you give? Somebody out there thinking I’m going to start my own firm.
Tedra Cannella: Oh, I [00:54:00] would say number one, get your home equity line of credit in place before you leave. That’s the practical piece. And the other one is to make a list of people who you think would help you. You know, send you cases and just to help with the administrative stuff and start having lunch with them. Just talk about it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s so there are a lot of people out there who’ve done it. A lot of people out there that are willing to help. So that’s huge.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, Tedra, thank you for doing this. It’s been fun again, congrats on that huge recent verdict. And it’s good to hear that you’ve resolved it and I presume collected it. You don’t have to say whatever it was you resolved.
Jonathan Hawkins: So for people out there that maybe have some cases they want to talk with you about or want to get in touch with you.
Jonathan Hawkins: What’s the best way to find you?
Tedra Cannella: You know, we’re in Decatur, but just shoot me an email. I’m easy to get in touch with TDR@CanelaSnyder.com.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Well, thank you
Tedra Cannella: Thank you. Jonathan. Really appreciate it. It’s fun to talk.
