Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. I’m excited for our guest today. She has built a pretty big TikTok following, which I’m really interested in hearing about. And she’s done some other cool things too. She’s sold a practice. She sort of redesigned her practice to fit her life.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I want to dig into all of that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So Adrienne Hines, welcome to the podcast. Why don’t you briefly introduced yourself and then we’ll dig in.
Adrienne Hines: Thank you, Jonathan. First, thank you for having me on your podcast. I’ve listened to this podcast and I really appreciate it and enjoy it. And I picked up things along the way as I was trying to make some of my own decisions.
Adrienne Hines: So it’s an honor really to be here. My name is Adrienne Hines and I am an attorney in Northwest Ohio.
Adrienne Hines: I have been practicing now for 28 years. And I had historically been a regular lawyer on a partnership trajectory, [00:01:00] and I kind of lived that life that I think we all thought was the way to go.
Adrienne Hines: And along the way, I became restless and aware that maybe there might be other options out there for me.
Adrienne Hines: So, I started to make some pretty bold changes in my life and my career. And, you know, some things that were happening in my family life or helping to propel that forward.
Adrienne Hines: But as I sit here today, I am no longer a partner in my firm. And I have a small bankruptcy practice that I handled myself of counsel to my former partnership firm.
Adrienne Hines: And I spend half the day as a bankruptcy lawyer. And I spend half the day as a bankruptcy influencer on the internet. And that’s what brings me here.
Jonathan Hawkins: I want to hear all about that. So let’s go back. So Your firm and sort of the I’ll call it the traditional career path for lawyers will say and so you were a named partner at that firm, right?
Jonathan Hawkins: So [00:02:00] sort of take us through the evolution of that. Was it the only firm you ever worked with or had you were you somewhere else first?
Jonathan Hawkins: And then you broke off and form that firm sort of take us through that.
Adrienne Hines: Yeah, so it was a pretty straight line. Because my parents were divorced when I was very young. And my mother ended up remarrying a lawyer.
Adrienne Hines: And before she had met him, I had believed in my mind I was going to become a lawyer.
Adrienne Hines: So it felt, like, it was meant to be and I went to college in law school and really looked up to him my stepfather and I ended up joining his firm. He was a senior partner in his firm.
Adrienne Hines: It was a small firm with four or five employees, six lawyers, that’s how it’s always been and I essentially worked at the knee of my dad and learned everything that he was doing and I became a miniature version of him, a female, you know, newer, younger version of him, but still very much in his shadow and learning things the [00:03:00] way he did things.
Adrienne Hines: I began to get restless. After COVID, COVID was really what opened my eyes and made me realize that there was just a lot more going on.
Adrienne Hines: And I started to see opportunity everywhere. I suddenly was able to step away from the day-to-day world that I was living in, the grind. And I looked around and it was a real time of creativity for me to see what was happening.
Adrienne Hines: I all of a sudden had no choice but to spend some time on the internet and I was starting to see how creative other people were being in this complicated time, and I started to sense and recognize that there was tremendous opportunity in ways that I had not considered up until that point.
Adrienne Hines: And so I began to get a bit restless. I really liked working out of my home. I’d always been somebody who wanted to be on the road. I was always the one going to court. I was always the one who just wanted to get out of the office. [00:04:00] And it was really nice to not have to be in an office. That was delightful for me.
Adrienne Hines: And I just, it was becoming very clear that I was becoming restless. One of the things that was happening is I had become a workers comp specialist in the state of Ohio.
Adrienne Hines: We have specialty designations. My dad was a workers comp specialist. I was a workers comp specialist. Workers comp was our moneymaker like injury work is where we were making our money.
Adrienne Hines: I was doing bankruptcy work on the side for a couple of reasons.
Adrienne Hines: First is that I had interned with a federal bankruptcy judge in law school, and so I had a relationship with a judge who was really trying to encourage me to do it.
Adrienne Hines: Secondly, my worker’s comp clients the system was so fragile that a lot of my clients would end up needing to file for bankruptcy because their claims were being contested.
Adrienne Hines: And so I really started doing it to help them, to, you know, make my mentor happy. But along the way, I began to realize [00:05:00] that these were my people. Like this was what I really enjoyed doing. And the contrast between my injury work and bankruptcy was becoming much more obvious.
Adrienne Hines: My worker’s comp practice was becoming more fragile and more chaotic, more politically driven, more unsafe in my eyes.
Adrienne Hines: And I was having complicated conversations with clients, lowering their expectations, a lot of disappointment.
Adrienne Hines: But if I talk to a bankruptcy client, I can usually take them from sadness to joy in about 15 or 20 minutes, 85% of the time.
Adrienne Hines: And those odds were really dragging me forward and showing me that I needed to lean into the things that I really liked.
Adrienne Hines: And that’s really what started my movement away from my named partnership. And that’s kind of how it began.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you know, I like that journey, you know, often we lawyers we get started and we just sort of get swept into this current and we just [00:06:00] go and we don’t have that moment to sort of step back and reflect, you know, COVID was a crazy time in all sorts of ways, but I think for a lot of people, it allowed us to sort of detach a little bit from, or get out of that current while say, and sort of start to reevaluate things.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, that makes a lot of sense to me. So, back to your firm real quick. So, you did worker’s comp. Is that, was the firm sort of a worker’s comp firm? Did you do other personal injury work? I mean, how did that fit into the firm overall?
Adrienne Hines: I would say we had a really unique firm. We had always been very independent lawyers and so, we actually, our firm was created in a way that I don’t think is all that common now that I talk to other people, but my dad and I were in charge initially of the contingency department.
Adrienne Hines: So for many years, we were the personal injury and the workers comp the med mal, that was all us.
Adrienne Hines: And then, I had a partner who did all criminal work and then I had a partner [00:07:00] who did all estate work and he was a part-time judge. And then we had a lawyer who just did domestic relations.
Adrienne Hines: So we had these, all these pieces to, you know, the general pie of the needs in our community. And we each had our own budget.
Adrienne Hines: So my dad and I and our staff, we would budget ourselves so we could pay ourselves what we wanted, but we had to bring it in. Right?
Adrienne Hines: So it was a very, we, and then we eventually brought another attorney in, he’d come over from another firm. And it was very clear he had an amazing trajectory in front of him in personal injury.
Adrienne Hines: He was really, he was young and he was hungry and he was paying attention and he wanted, I mean, he’s a level up guy and he is doing an amazing job. So we handed off the PI department to him and my dad and I continued the workers comp and the bankruptcy.
Adrienne Hines: When I finally made the [00:08:00] decision to leave it was the personal injury attorney that I went to, to talk about what to do with the worker’s comp practice because by then my dad had retired.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So let’s talk about, I say, you sort of, started to get these other interests and sort of think about designing your life maybe in a different way.
Jonathan Hawkins: And you said, all right, I think I want to ditch the worker’s comp practice and do other things.
Jonathan Hawkins: So. I think, did you, we’ll call it, you sort of sold the practice or they bought you out of the partnership.
Jonathan Hawkins: Is that how you would describe it?
Adrienne Hines: Yeah. I want to say that the straw that broke the camel’s back for me is in March and May of 2023. My husband was in a near-fatal plane crash and after his plane crash, it was pretty bad. He is doing great. He’s almost fully recovered.
Adrienne Hines: So we’re very fortunate, but it was that May of 2023 that the urgency became very clear and just things became clear to me.
Adrienne Hines: I needed to be with my family. I [00:09:00] needed to be with him. He was older. My husband and I took stock of our lives and we’re like, how much money is enough? How much do we really need? Is it worth it? If bad things happen, what does money help us? Right?
Adrienne Hines: So that was the moment that we really started to buckle down and start to figure how to gently, carefully, but responsibly step away from this practice that, you know, I was largely in charge of.
Adrienne Hines: And so it still took me another nine months to get the nerves up and figure out exactly what I was going to do. And I knew that it was going to be difficult to support myself with just the bankruptcy work.
Adrienne Hines: So, I was all along trying to build up my social media account and it got to the point where I was successful enough on the social media side that I felt like it was time that I could make that jump.
Adrienne Hines: And I went to my personal injury partner and discussed with him handing over my practice to him. You know, what our arrangements were aren’t really the point [00:10:00] and they’re confidential.
Adrienne Hines: But what I will say is that at all times, I had a tremendous amount of respect. I mean, these are guys that I’ve been with, I’ve been riding with them for years and years. We go on vacations together. We’re very close.
Adrienne Hines: And so, I think they were upset initially that I was leaving, that I was bailing, that I was breaking up the club. But I also recognize that I was moving in a direction that they weren’t quite moving in and I was becoming odd and I appeared as if I wasn’t working as hard as them.
Adrienne Hines: And I understood that’s how they were perceiving my actions and that’s when I knew it was probably time to start moving on.
Adrienne Hines: And so initially they were frustrated and upset because I’d been with them for a long time. But you know, I was also very clear that I would continue to help that I cared about the practice that had been built over all these years that my dad had handled, that I had handled. We had clients that were three for 30 years.
Adrienne Hines: So I cared a lot about my [00:11:00] practice and I wanted very much for it to continue in the hands of somebody who wasn’t as downtrodden on it as me, somebody who could breathe a little bit of life and really start to pivot and help our workers comp clients.
Adrienne Hines: So, there was no question. I feel like I left some money on the table. But I did it very knowingly and willingly because I wanted to continue a good relationship with them and I wanted them to succeed.
Adrienne Hines: And I knew that doing that would help them succeed. And in so doing, you know, we negotiated a very good of counsel deal for me.
Adrienne Hines: And I still have the comfort of having a structure around me. And my paralegal, you know, is paid through this, through the firm, through the system.
Adrienne Hines: So I don’t have to worry about details like payroll, and I don’t have to worry about you know, ordering supplies and all those things.
Adrienne Hines: It’s built into a budget and it’s basically a rental payment that I pay every month. And I have to bring the money in. And if I don’t have [00:12:00] enough money for my bankruptcy practice, I have to write a check, but I have overages it’s profit for me.
Adrienne Hines: So that is essentially what we’ve done. My, of council agreement has very delineated obligations on both the firm side and my side, they have to provide me with an office.
Adrienne Hines: Well, I get my paralegal uses that office and I work out of the home. So I have a lot of freedom in that way.
Adrienne Hines: So I’ve really taken the part that I love the most. And I’ve been able to find a way to do the things that I like while still building something, while still having tremendous growth potential, you know, while still having the opportunity to, you know, morph it into something, you know, as we go along.
Adrienne Hines: And that’s what’s pretty exciting right now.
Jonathan Hawkins: There’s a lot to unpack there and I guess I’ll start with number one, you decide, it’s time for a change.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then even though, you know, law firm partnerships break apart or change it for a lot of different reasons. [00:13:00] And then if somebody is leaving to basically create a competitor or to go to a competitor, it gets really strained.
Jonathan Hawkins: But even when you’re not, I’ve seen it where people, they just get upset. It can be for all sorts of reasons. Even if you’re not going to compete you’re basically giving them your practice and all these things.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, I understand how that can be emotional and I’m glad you guys got through it and got through it enough where you’re still with the firm, you’re of counsel, and that’s another thing that I think not enough attorneys sort of, consider that kind of relationship as a good alternative. It’s almost like riding a bike with training wheels.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you want to put all this time in the social media, which we’ll get to in a minute. You want to focus on the bankruptcy practice and ditch the other stuff.
Jonathan Hawkins: Having the support of a firm, but then also having the freedom to do these other things of council is a really good way to do that. Especially if you structure it where, you know, I assume you can work as much as you want or as little as you want. I mean, like you [00:14:00] said, if you don’t bring enough money in, you might stroke them a check.
Jonathan Hawkins: But, you know, it’s up to you whether you want to do it or not, right?
Adrienne Hines: That’s exactly correct and that was largely the point is so that I could have the autonomy and control I could come and go and not feel guilty and they could see me come and go and know that I’m not getting a paycheck from them and they don’t have to worry about what it is I’m doing.
Adrienne Hines: So, it is tremendously advantageous if you’re in a good place with your partnership.
Adrienne Hines: And again, when I say that, some people were a little upset or it was, we’re friends, you know, they were like, why are you, you know, we had a plan and I get it. It was very short-lived and it was not anything big. And I love them all very much. And I am very grateful to them.
Adrienne Hines: And it’s a testament to the fact that we have such an amazing relationship that, you know, we were able to make this change respectfully and authentically and transparently.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s dig in a little bit on the bankruptcy thing. So, you touched on it a little [00:15:00] bit. You know, I know a lot of sort of personal injury workers, comp type attorneys that say, you know, they really like fighting for their clients, and then, it’s a calling to them. It sounds like bankruptcy is sort of like a calling for you.
Jonathan Hawkins: So why don’t you take us through that? How did you discover it? And how did you find that sort of magic that you’ve found?
Adrienne Hines: It’s ironic because I’m not really good with numbers, which is why I just assumed that it would just never be a practice for me. When I interned with the federal bankruptcy judge in law school, the irony is I left that semester-long internship more confused than I was when I went in.
Adrienne Hines: And so, it’s a surprise to me that I ended up in bankruptcy. Because it wasn’t on my bingo card when I was coming out of law school.
Adrienne Hines: But along the way, number one, I realized that the bankruptcy law is pretty straightforward. It can be, a bit nuanced and there can be, you know, if this happens, then this happens. If A happens, then Y happens. If [00:16:00] B happens, then X happens.
Adrienne Hines: You have to understand those types of spokes in the wheel, but it’s pretty transparent process and there’s no emotion in it.
Adrienne Hines: And so, people come to me very emotionally, and if I’m able to calm them down, take a deep breath, and let them look and see what their choices really are that’s when people start to understand what they can do.
Adrienne Hines: So it’s no surprise that I was a psychology and sociology double major with a minor in philosophy, right?
Adrienne Hines: I’m a humanitarian kind of girl I wasn’t in math or science, I don’t have any of those skills. But I definitely, I have a lot of empathy and I have an ability to sit and talk to somebody and understand what it might be like to walk in their shoes.
Adrienne Hines: I’m very nonjudgmental and I found that was my lane to calm people down, help them take emotion away from what they were dealing with, and to start to show them their real, true options [00:17:00] and to talk about them as if they’re normal options and not outrageous and not crazy.
Adrienne Hines: And once people start to hear, you know, the reality of their situation, the true options that are available, why most of them are unsafe, and if I can walk them through this, they can usually see that there’s an amazing solution to their problems. They’re literally right in front of them.
Adrienne Hines: And so, I really leaned into these people and I feel for them because I’m a little messy with money, right? And I was raised by a single mom and I know what it’s like to struggle with money.
Adrienne Hines: And I know how ridiculous is it. That is to say, just pay your bills when you don’t have money to pay your bills.
Adrienne Hines: And I really began to realize that shame lives in darkness. And the more shameful we are about anything, the less likely we are to take in truthful and logical information about it, right?
Adrienne Hines: So people are very embarrassed and shameful about debt. So they hide it and when you hide something, [00:18:00] you’re not seeking out the right information. You’re doubling down on the wrong things.
Adrienne Hines: And so, I began to see that simply talking about bankruptcy as a normal legal option was in and of itself innovative. It was pretty cutting edge and I began to talk about my theories of finance. I believe we have to get through debt very quickly to get to the other side so we can rebuild wealth so we can get back in the game.
Adrienne Hines: And people started to respond to that and I could see that I was making changes. I was making headway with people. Stop worrying about what everybody else thinks and start taking care of themselves and I will say that you had a guest on not too long ago Len Spada and he said something that really struck with me.
Adrienne Hines: He said, you have to deeply care about your community, you know and I thought to myself I deeply cared about my audience. I deeply care about what’s happening to them, their fears and I feel [00:19:00] oftentimes like I’m on the bow of a ship, safe and dry, with a coat on, and I’m looking over the bow into the water, and there’s just people, you know, flailing around, and they’re grabbing onto each other, right?
Adrienne Hines: And they’re hateful towards each other, and they’re mad, and I’m just saying there’s a life raft right behind you, you know, and every once in a while somebody will turn around and they’ll grab it. And that’s what it feels like to be a bankruptcy lawyer sometimes.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I could tell that you are a very empathetic person, just, I can just tell.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’m sure that is extremely comforting to these folks and helpful for you and your practice. And maybe it’s your psychology slash all your background there.
Jonathan Hawkins: But yeah, so I got a question. So, this is something that’s a big issue. It involves bankruptcy, but really not because it’s the student loan issue that so many younger people are just, it’s the albatross of all albatrosses, right?
Jonathan Hawkins: And currently you cannot [00:20:00] discharge that in bankruptcy. And it seems like the solutions people are floating out there are, well, let’s just forgive it all. Let’s just forgive it. And of course that gets a lot of people mad.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’m curious, what are your thoughts on it? You probably see a lot of it out there. And then, you know, is that something you think should be dischargeable in bankruptcy?
Adrienne Hines: This is very controversial, I understand that. But I think that most people who are just lay people coming to the table don’t think anybody should be able to discharge any kind of debt.
Adrienne Hines: I mean, if you sat down and asked them if they should be able to discharge credit card debt, those people would say no.
Adrienne Hines: And if you ask them if Johnson should be allowed to file bankruptcy and reorganize, they would say no. There are just a lot of people out there who won’t ever understand where they fit into the world’s economy and how they got there. The reality is that you and I know is that student loans have gotten out of control.
Adrienne Hines: Maybe about 15 years ago, I had a client who came to me and [00:21:00] she had gone to Bowling Green State University, right outside of Toledo, Ohio for two whole years, and she came out with over $300,000 in student loan Whoa.
Jonathan Hawkins: Whoa.
Adrienne Hines: $300,000.. And of course, you know, I dive down, what happened, what is going on?
Adrienne Hines: And she went there and just got a lot of student loan applications in the mail. And then she had a shady boyfriend. He’s like, here, sign this, let’s get these student loans.
Adrienne Hines: She went to Vegas, she had cosmetic surgery, you know, I mean, she had $300,000 of student loan debt and she had to drop out after a second year.
Adrienne Hines: And the reality is that those student loans should have never been given to her. They weren’t in connection, they weren’t in conjunction with what she was doing.
Adrienne Hines: And so the problem that I have is that student loan lenders act in the same way that regular consumer lenders act, they act the way credit card companies act, they act the way payday lenders act sometimes.
Adrienne Hines: [00:22:00] And so, to that extent, student loan discussion is very similar to the discussion of why should anybody be able to discharge a debt in bankruptcy?
Adrienne Hines: And the answer is because a lot of this stuff is predatory. And I think the reason why bankruptcy exists to get rid of Credit cards and medical bills and personal loans and payday loans and all that. We call it general unsecured, non-priority debt.
Adrienne Hines: The reason bankruptcy exists for that debt is because we know it is the most dangerous low-level priority debt unsecured, right?
Adrienne Hines: And for that reason, those creditors get to get, take lots and lots of interest in exchange. But the problem with student loans is that they are not truly tied to need.
Adrienne Hines: And we are in an environment where the cost of education is just absolutely skyrocketing and exploding.
Adrienne Hines: Two children in college we saved for them and it is overwhelming. I think people who’ve paid for student, been paying their student loans, like me, I’m 53 years [00:23:00] old, my student loans are paid off.
Adrienne Hines: I think there’s a lot of people like me who are not empathetic and who want to look backward and say, I did it, you do it too.
Adrienne Hines: And I think that’s antithetical to, you know, historically what America has been, you know, our parents wanted us to do better than them. And that’s what seems to have been lost in that argument. I think we could re-overhaul the entire system. Right?
Adrienne Hines: And I think there’s a lot of ways we could have some solutions to this overwhelming crushing student loan debt, but I don’t think anybody’s really ready to do a total overhaul of the system.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it feels like to me, you hit on it. The lenders it’s like a moral hazard almost. It’s like they know that they cannot get discharged in bankruptcy.
Jonathan Hawkins: So they’re like, take the money, we’ll just follow you for the rest of your life. Where if there was a risk that it could be discharged, they would be more careful in the underwriting department, I would think, and they would not give as much money.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then, this is my [00:24:00] theory at least, and then, the knock-on effect is, the colleges that are just inflating the crap out of their, you know, fees and costs. They would then not have access to all this crazy free money that they have now.
Jonathan Hawkins: So then they would have to be a little bit more in control. And I think it would take some time to work through the system. But I just feel like, instead of forgiving, because that doesn’t fix any of the moral hazard stuff, just open it up to bankruptcy and I gotta say to people say, well, if you go to med school, I’m on my soapbox now. So sorry. But,
Adrienne Hines: I get it.
Jonathan Hawkins: They say, well if you go to med school, you should not be able to discharge all that debt.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you know, but going to bankruptcy is a big decision because it can affect all sorts of other things.
Jonathan Hawkins: So it’s not one to make lightly and just because you file bankruptcy doesn’t mean you meet all the parameters and you’re going to get it discharged.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, it’s not like you just automatically get it wiped out and you know all that. But it just seems to me that what they should open it up to at least allow bankruptcy [00:25:00] to sort of help clear some of these problems.
Jonathan Hawkins: And my other theory, and I’ll let you go, is at some point, there’s going to be enough young people voting and they’re going to make the change, I think, once they control stuff, but that’s my soapbox. I’m off. So.
Adrienne Hines: No, you and I are on the same path. I would particularly say that obviously, student loans had an amazing lobby in 2005 when the bankruptcy laws were being overhauled.
Adrienne Hines: The educational lobby, you know, the higher educational lobby was definitely lobbying with the student loan groups, but I will say that there is a distinction between federal student loans and private student loans. They’re both non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Adrienne Hines: And if I could wave, if I could start dipping my toe into the changing this process, I would start with the private student loan lenders being able to go into bankruptcy. You know, I think they’re the ones who are really troubling.
Adrienne Hines: And have troubling practices and are not very transparent. But that would be a very good place to start because they’re awful.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s a good point there.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to [00:26:00] shift gears a little bit. You know, you mentioned sort of the plane crash that your husband had, which is extremely traumatic. I’m sure that’s just crazy, sounds crazy.
Jonathan Hawkins: But another important part of your story that I just want to touch on is that you know, recently your daughter passed away. And I first want to say, very sorry for that you know, no parent wants to go through that.
Jonathan Hawkins: But I was curious, you know, you can speak as much as you want or as little as you want about it, but I believe that probably you are already on the path to changing your life and your career to sort of design it the way you want. And I’m sure that just continued you down that path.
Jonathan Hawkins: So if you want to speak about that, you can. But also. You know to bring it back for all the other lawyers out there that are just burning it, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: What advice would you give to them? As they are sort of just barreling down the highway and maybe ignoring some of the personal stuff?
Adrienne Hines: Yeah, great question. Thank you very [00:27:00] much. We are still only months out from this, not years.
Adrienne Hines: So, it is still very fresh. I appreciate that, but I do love talking about her and she played a very important role in how it is I ended up here.
Adrienne Hines: After my husband’s plane crash in May of 2023, very shortly after that, our daughter or something, we had twins, a boy, a girl, twins. Her son was out of Ohio State her daughter was at Denison.
Adrienne Hines: And after that school year, when my husband’s accident happened, she came home and it became very clear that our daughter had developed a drinking problem, an alcohol problem.
Adrienne Hines: And so after my husband’s crash, we spent the next six months really kind of trying to navigate that with her. She tried to go back to college and came home and checked herself into rehab. She spent her 22nd birthday in rehab.
Adrienne Hines: And what came out of that was we brought her home and created a sober living environment for her as her [00:28:00] next step in recovery, and she was doing amazing.
Adrienne Hines: And the advantage that we had at that time is that for the 10 months that she was sober before she passed, she was living in our house and I saw her every day.
Adrienne Hines: And we talked a lot and she was walking me through leaving the firm. She was very supportive of it. She was, you know, encouraging me to lean into the social media and she’s very empathetic like me.
Adrienne Hines: So she was just my biggest cheerleader in that regard. And when I left my firm, my last day was June 30th of 2024, and so July 1st was my very first day in my new world, my new reality, and my daughter passed away on July 30th, so I had 30 days with her.
Adrienne Hines: But I have a very popular LinkedIn post where I went through and I explained what had happened in the last moments I had with my daughter. And we were at the hospital. We had taken her to [00:29:00] the hospital. We thought she had a kidney stone. She was sober for 10 months, so we thought this was a routine issue. She went into the hospital.
Adrienne Hines: They said, Oh, it’s not a kidney stone. It’s pancreatitis. She’s going to be here a couple of days. We’re like, Oh, what? All right.
Adrienne Hines: And we left her in a regular room, a hospital room. It was my birthday. Left her in a regular room. Visiting hours were over.
Adrienne Hines: They said come back tomorrow at 10. And through the night, she went into organ failure. So they called us at 5 45 in the morning and said, we need you to drive quickly.
Adrienne Hines: And we need you to get here. And I still didn’t quite understand what might be happening. I understood it was a big deal, but I didn’t really see what was going on.
Adrienne Hines: And when we walked into the hospital we, heard the code blue being called and they rushed us to her bed, to her room and they were performing CPR on her.
Adrienne Hines: And I know your audience is probably really starting to get choked up here, but I want everybody to hear, you know, what happened to me in that moment because it [00:30:00] truly helped me to get to the point where I am right now.
Adrienne Hines: I’m not super religious. I’m just a regular person trying to figure out life. But as I was watching them perform CPR on her I glanced down at my watch and I will never forget it was 7. 07 and I felt like as I was looking back up I just had this flash of images through my brain, just a million images in four seconds or left less.
Adrienne Hines: And it’s hard to explain how they flip through there and some of them were little snippets of videos or little memories that I had. They were all of my daughters, but they were very decidedly all after-school memories.
Adrienne Hines: Now they weren’t when she was born. They weren’t her first walking. They weren’t even Christmastime or holidays. They were after-school memories or memories that I had when I had to leave the office and I understand my brain was saying to me, aren’t you glad you didn’t work any more than you had? [00:31:00]
Adrienne Hines: Aren’t you so glad you were at that tennis meet? You were at that play. You were at that PTA meeting and in that moment, any kind of resentment or frustration or feeling like I had been left behind, you know, in my career, it all, everything was gone.
Adrienne Hines: I had such tremendous peace in what I had done with my life and my career. And I thought to myself, I’m not sure how I would have been able to stand here watching this happen if I couldn’t say to myself, I balanced it. I worked and I gave my kids what they needed.
Adrienne Hines: And I was just exceptionally grateful in that moment that my daughter and I had both had the time to work out everything. We were in a really great place, you know when she passed away, not a lot of people are in a good place with their 22-year-olds when they die.
Adrienne Hines: And she left me with this truly great feeling [00:32:00] of just gratitude that I had crafted a career that fit me and that I wasn’t putting my foot on the gas on something that wasn’t working for me.
Adrienne Hines: And that was an extremely important moment for me. And it’s something that I want other people to hear. Because you know, when she was declared deceased at 7 15.
Adrienne Hines: So it wasn’t long after that, but no money in the world could have saved her. You know, I mean, I was at a hospital in the United States, you know, and we had health insurance and all the things and none of the money that I had made all those years doing injury work, nothing mattered, none of it mattered.
Adrienne Hines: And I hope that other people understand that you know, this thing we call life is crazy and complicated and confusing, but it’s not any one thing.
Adrienne Hines: And we have to balance it and we have to give time to our people. Cause that’s really what we’re here for.
Jonathan Hawkins: Thank you for sharing that. I saw that post which was very impactful but what you just said was even more powerful for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: And, you know, I’m a big believer in sort [00:33:00] of designing your life for you. I think a lot of times people, like I said, sort of get caught up in the current.
Jonathan Hawkins: And they don’t take the time to think about it. I’m glad you were able to do that. I’m glad you had that moment. I’m sure that was extremely comforting. And still.
Adrienne Hines: It was very comforting. and I pray, and I hope, that anybody else who’s in that situation will have that kind of peace, and that’s really why I felt compelled to talk about it, and I think it’s worthy.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, thank you. So I want to move on from that, you know, tough to move on from that.
Jonathan Hawkins: But maybe, let’s switch to TikTok, let’s talk about that. So, you mentioned earlier, you got involved with social media.
Jonathan Hawkins: I guess the first thing is, why and how? Was it your kids that got you there? Or did you just somehow catch the bug? How did you get involved there?
Adrienne Hines: Well, first off, I’m a pretty creative, kind of out-of-the-box individual to begin with. I have severe ADHD, and I was undiagnosed until COVID, [00:34:00] until right before COVID.
Adrienne Hines: About six months before COVID and I began to understand that you know, I’ve been through a lot of things I’ve done throughout my lifetime to try to fit into a box that maybe I wasn’t.
Adrienne Hines: It finally occurred to me maybe this isn’t a box I fit into. I think that was just the ability to open my eyes in that regard. But yeah, I went to TikTok and social media.
Adrienne Hines: I wasn’t a big fan of Instagram at the time. It felt a little fake and glossy, but my kids when COVID happened, my children were seniors in high school.
Adrienne Hines: So, you know, they their last sports season, they graduated, they had to go to college in that timeframe.
Adrienne Hines: So we were hanging out a lot and my daughter was going hard into TikTok and it just so happened. And it’s pretty funny, I went through menopause during COVID.
Adrienne Hines: And when I went through menopause, my hair went from straight to curly. I kid you not. My hair went from being a normal kind of wavy, straight kind of look to little Orphan Annie, [00:35:00] that’s where I find myself now.
Adrienne Hines: And I actually went to TikTok to figure out what to do with my curly hair. Because everyone was going to TikTok to learn things.
Adrienne Hines: Like, learn how to hula hoop, or learn how to, you know. And there was this whole world of women who were like, let’s try and see how curly we can get our hair.
Adrienne Hines: And that is actually why I first went to TikTok because I’m messy and I’m vain and I can go off on tangents and spend three hours looking at hair on TikTok.
Adrienne Hines: But I really loved the platform. I was getting a lot. I saw how different it was from, other platforms, we’re getting information in small little chunks, really delightful in the ADHDer’s mind.
Adrienne Hines: And I just thought that this was going to be like a creative outlet, kind of like Facebook, you know, we put stuff up there, so our friends see it. And that’s really what I thought it was going to be.
Adrienne Hines: My very first video was about me running, right? And do a cute little video with sound. Footballs and all that stuff. I was just being super [00:36:00] creative. And then I started doing videos about me cooking random things and nobody was interested, but I didn’t care. That’s not why I was doing it.
Adrienne Hines: And then one day I mentioned what it is I do. And I did a little video about, you know, things I would or would not do as a bankruptcy lawyer. And it went viral. It took off and in that moment, I had an aha moment. I was got ahh.
Jonathan Hawkins: Got hooked, right?
Adrienne Hines: I got hooked. And what I realized is I was able to do the thing that I really like, which is demystifying bankruptcy, helping people understand why it’s not bad, helping people gent, you know, I’m so scared. This sounds so scary. It’s okay, calm down. Take a deep breath. We’re going to walk through this.
Adrienne Hines: Let me show you how this works, you know, and I break it down in very simple, easy-to-understand terms and that was easy for me and I loved it.
Adrienne Hines: And so I don’t put a lot of content out about me running or cooking anymore. I do every now and then, but it is. I’ve got over 2,000 videos about bankruptcy, [00:37:00] about pretty much every aspect and every day I put several more out a lot of it’s the same information set a little bit different ways.
Adrienne Hines: But people have responded to it there’s a lot of people out there who are afraid and don’t know what their actual legal options are and who’ve been making a lot of mistakes and so it feels good to find them and help them.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so teach me about TikTok. I’m not on TikTok. I mean, I know about it. I’ve seen it.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, if it makes its way to Twitter, sometimes the TikTok videos will be on Twitter and I’ll see them there.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’m not TikTok. So, you know, how did you learn how to do it? And then, you know, you’ve got a ton of followers. Take through how that happened.
Jonathan Hawkins: And is it sort of saying that it’s flat, then all of a sudden you’ve got a ton or is it sort of a straight line up?
Adrienne Hines: Yeah, no, it’s a steady incline and it starts off pretty flat, you know, I think first off, I’m a techie kind of person, right?
Adrienne Hines: I’ve got an iPhone, I’ve got an iPad, I’ve got, you know, I’ve got my computer, I’ve got the watch, like [00:38:00] I’m that person, right?
Adrienne Hines: I want, I want the ring, I’m a techie person, I don’t understand, I’m not a computer person, but I understand technology and I love it.
Adrienne Hines: And so, It didn’t take me long to figure out how to use TikTok. It’s not that complicated of a platform, but I was following my kids and so I started an account and I was, my kids and I would follow each other and then I’d see what they’re seeing and then they’d send some things to me and then you start to curate kind of your own interests and stuff.
Adrienne Hines: The thing about TikTok is It’s short little snippets of video, just giving you information. There’s not a lot of typing or talking, you know, there’s not a lot of reading usually going on.
Adrienne Hines: It’s a quick format and it allows for people to ask questions. Like I put up a short video and people will ask questions.
Adrienne Hines: And a lot of how I built my account was curating it. I respond to every person’s question, private or public, every single one. And I take a lot of the [00:39:00] questions that are asked. If I do a video about, can you keep your car if you file bankruptcy? You know, I’ll do a video about it and I’ll get 92 questions about cars.
Adrienne Hines: And so I take some of those and I make new videos off of what people are you know, understanding from what I’m saying, so it begets itself, but again, going back to what Len Spada said, you know, you have to care deeply about your audience for me. And I think that I really do care.
Adrienne Hines: I really do care about strangers out there coming across somebody who’s going to make them feel bad about their debt versus somebody who’s going to help them see that there’s a path out of this forest. Right?
Adrienne Hines: And so, I just kept doing it and I would, every once in a while, you have a video that gets a lot of traction and then you get, you know, 5,000 more followers and it kind of levels off again.
Adrienne Hines: It’s a lot like, like this, right? Ups, two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back. And so it can be slow.
Adrienne Hines: But [00:40:00] it has grown steadily and I’ve been very successful in that endeavor and it’s very exciting.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s cool. So let me talk sort of technical question.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, how did you learn how to cut the videos or is it you just film one video and that’s it or are you going in there and editing and cutting and doing different perspectives and all these things? How did you learn that part of it?
Adrienne Hines: Great question. Years ago, I bought a digital camera and I didn’t understand photography. I’d never taken any photography classes, but I was able to start a side business briefly where I took pictures of people, kids graduating from college and graduating from high school, families, weddings, that kind of stuff.
Adrienne Hines: And I didn’t know what I was doing, but I understood that I had the eye for it. Right?
Adrienne Hines: And I could have been an amazing photographer if I’d ever really figured out, you know, all of the F stops and all that stuff. I just wasn’t really into figuring that out.
Adrienne Hines: So I think I’ve always had a very creative side to me and I think I have a visually creative [00:41:00] mind. And so, I know what I like to see and I’ve watched a lot of videos.
Adrienne Hines: And so, with TikTok is very easy. A lot of the time I’m recording on the TikTok platform. And so TikTok gives you very specific things you can do to edit videos. But I also know that TikTok is more likely to push out videos.
Adrienne Hines: If you’ve created them in their platform, as opposed to creating them outside the platform and bringing them in, so a lot of the videos I make on they are on TikTok are made in that TikTok platform.
Adrienne Hines: I have a lot of other video editing software that I don’t use a lot. I want to get to the simple thing. And I think TikTok lends itself to a little bit more gritty kind of on-the-fly kind of videos.
Adrienne Hines: So that suits me a little bit better cause I’m not super disciplined, right?
Adrienne Hines: I like to grab my phone and make a quick video and I’ll edit, you know, just the ums and the ahs, and maybe I’ll put a little bit of music behind it and I’ll throw it up, and I can do [00:42:00] that walking into a grocery store these days because I’m just really fast at it.
Adrienne Hines: But it’s a lot of real-time, what am I thinking, and oh, you got this question, don’t do that, that’s crazy, listen to me, stop, don’t eat lunch before you hear this, so I’m kind of responding a lot to the community that’s coming at me, that’s interesting.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know, this brings up sort of a couple of things. There’s a lot of lawyers out there that, first of all, there’s so many different platforms, you know, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. I’ve started to dabble in Instagram.
Jonathan Hawkins: I have a Facebook account, but I’m never there. I do not do TikTok. I have a Twitter account and I lurk. I just got some Blue Sky accounts.
Jonathan Hawkins: So there’s all these different things you can do out there.
Jonathan Hawkins: And they’re all a little bit different. And they all have different personalities. Like, I just wouldn’t know what to do on TikTok.
Jonathan Hawkins: But let’s say you can sort of figure that out. But one of the big things, lawyers, they’re scared of looking stupid. They’re scared of being wrong. They’re scared of taking a risk.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I guess two questions. Really, how did you get over, if you did, have any sort of initial fear of [00:43:00] getting on here?
Jonathan Hawkins: And then what advice would you have for somebody out there that wants to get involved on some platform?
Adrienne Hines: That is a great question, Jonathan, and it is relevant because there were two things happening. As I was starting to put a little bit of content out about bankruptcy, number one, I became exceptionally obsessed and anxious about what the bankruptcy judges and the trustees in my community, in my courts, we’re going to say, I was monumentally afraid and embarrassed and terrified.
Adrienne Hines: Every time I put a video out that the Department of Justice, you know, through the U.S.T trustees program was going to call me and tell me I’m in trouble somehow.
Adrienne Hines: And you know, I Dribbled stuff out slowly. And I was afraid of what my partners and the lawyers in my community would think, because this feels like silly and, you know, they didn’t really understand kind of what I was trying to do.
Adrienne Hines: And I’m not even sure I knew what I was trying to do at that point other than to find some kind of balance of, [00:44:00] you know, some kind of creative outlet.
Adrienne Hines: And I will say to you that at one point in time, one of my favorite bankruptcy trustees reached out to me to tell me that they thought that what I was doing was really cool.
Adrienne Hines: And then I had another bankruptcy trustee reach out to me who I’d gone to law school with and she also reiterated that, you know, she thought my account was really neat and that I was doing a great job.
Adrienne Hines: And that alone kind of gave me the giddy-up to continue to do it. But I also began to realize one of these things that I felt like I not been really clued into is, you know, asking for forgiveness, not permission.
Adrienne Hines: And I started to realize that so many other people around me, we’re moving forward and not caring what anybody thought. And that’s exactly what I was trying to get my audience to do is to listen to me and take bold choices and do something scary because it’s probably the right thing to do.
Adrienne Hines: And so I was able to push through that, but I have to tell you, I was terrified and was [00:45:00] very concerned that maybe this was a big mistake by putting my life and my thoughts out there and having them dissected by the people with whom I practice law.
Adrienne Hines: And it turns out that even today if anybody came in and said they had a problem, I would not care at this point. You know, I know what I’m doing. I’m very clear. I have a very clear plan.
Adrienne Hines: And I’m very comfortable with what I’m doing, but it was terrifying and I can see how a lot of lawyers, you know, I’m a risk taker. I look around, I see other people getting into trouble. And I think other people doing things, not getting into trouble.
Adrienne Hines: And I think if they can, if they’re not even getting in trouble for commingling funds, like, how am I going to get in trouble for trying to help somebody be really nice to them?
Adrienne Hines: But what I have done though is, I have gotten myself into the speaking world, right? And I forced myself to do a speech to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys in December about legal ethics and social media and AI.
Adrienne Hines: And it’s forced [00:46:00] me to kind of make sure I’m on top of all the things I’m doing because I was not disciplined enough to go make sure I knew all those rules before I started.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s gonna be a good speech. You’ll have to put that up on, get a video of it, and put it up on social media somewhere. You know, it’s funny that initial fear, I mean, I’ve had it so many times in my career. I think back to my first deposition.
Jonathan Hawkins: I was scared shitless and I didn’t even have to ask a question. It’s like, but yeah, I first started posting on LinkedIn, you know, you feel like you’re exposing yourself and that somebody is going to come out and tell you you’re stupid or you got something wrong but now I don’t care.
Jonathan Hawkins: Just like you, it’s just like, I don’t care. I just put it out there from wrong. I’ll just, you know, I’ll admit it and fix it or whatever. I just don’t care. And it’s.
Adrienne Hines: Exactly. And wrong is in the eye of the beholder as well. And I just don’t care anymore. I know that most of the information that I’m giving is exceptionally helpful and you know, rooted in clear legal practice and thought [00:47:00] if I make a mistake every now and then I’m learning that thing.
Adrienne Hines: Obviously, things are very different around the United States. Like, it’s always my clients can buy a car the day after they file bankruptcy. But I’ve learned in other jurisdictions, their courts make them wait until a three-bankruptcy hearing has been held.
Adrienne Hines: So I’ve learned a lot myself through this process. And then I’m able to kind of incorporate that, you know, I’m able to kind of micro correct a little bit and say, in my jurisdiction, we can do this. And yours, you’re going to have to ask your lawyer.
Adrienne Hines: So it’s helped me understand more about the practice of bankruptcy as well and how differently it can be done around the United States. That’s been interesting for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about some of the opportunities that you’ve come across your desk that now that you’ve sort of blown up on TikTok in the bankruptcy space.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, what is probably open doors that you didn’t even know existed and I’m curious what sort of opportunities you’ve seen?
Jonathan Hawkins: How has that opened your mind and maybe what’s the next, you know, a few years look for [00:48:00] you as you sort of look out there as you’ve moved away from your traditional law practice and you’re becoming more of an influencer?
Jonathan Hawkins: Tell me a little bit about that.
Adrienne Hines: Yeah. So as my audience was starting to grow and it was growing organically, I don’t pay to grow my accounts or anything like that.
Adrienne Hines: It had been growing organically, and I began to realize that I had something. I had an audience, I had a very loyal audience and it was just growing.
Adrienne Hines: And I began to rack my brain as to what it was I could do to convert this. To monetize this in some way while still being, you know, without being a scammer, without doing all anything that it wouldn’t be in line with what I want to do.
Adrienne Hines: And I ended up what I do, what’s come across my desk are a lot of different opportunities. I’ve been in Newsweek, right? I’ve been in a lot of those things. I actually had a Hollywood casting agent come to me to [00:49:00] discuss something that fell through.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s pretty cool.
Adrienne Hines: Who knows what comes from there? So, you know, I’ve had some really interesting things happen from my TikTok, but what the most important thing I think that most of your listeners want to hear is that I found a way to monetize this.
Adrienne Hines: And one of the things I realized as my account was growing is people would say, can you represent me in New York? Can you represent me in Texas? Can you represent me? I live in Iowa.
Adrienne Hines: And the answer is no. And no, I can only represent people in Ohio. And I’m only in the Northern Federal District cause I’m too lazy to get into the Southern Federal District. So I can only represent the northern half of Ohio.
Adrienne Hines: And so, the bigger my account grew, the more desperate people were. I need somebody, I need some money.
Adrienne Hines: So, I went to a NACPA convention, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys convention in 2023, and I started to get names and started to do research on people that might be [00:50:00] able to help me monetize this.
Adrienne Hines: And I spent a whole year kind of getting my account ready and doing everything that I wanted to do. I went back to that convention and I cornered a couple of people and they were very delighted that I cornered them. And what they had is they have a structure where they sell bankruptcy leads, right?
Adrienne Hines: They’re marketing, they’re a bankruptcy marketing lead company. They do all sorts of areas of this, but they have a network of lawyers and they’ve all primarily come from the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. They’re high-level, respected attorneys who are experienced.
Adrienne Hines: And so, my followers who come to me who say, can you help me? The answer is, I cannot help you but there’s a link in my profile and we can pair you with a bankruptcy lawyer near you for a free consultation and that’s what I’m doing.
Adrienne Hines: I’m basically passing these people through to get them a free consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer near them and then, you know, that lawyer [00:51:00] pays for the lead.
Adrienne Hines: And so that is one way that I’m monetizing the account. And so for example, I have usually about 200 leads per month are guaranteed to come through my account just on the referring out.
Adrienne Hines: It has also increased my own business, right? My own Northwest Ohio business. I’m very robustly full, my calendar is full. But I’ve also started to take other pieces of the pie.
Adrienne Hines: So one of my biggest frustrations as a bankruptcy lawyer is that most people go into bankruptcy with negative equity. And we want them to surrender a car, but they’re very untrustworthy about where they’re going to get another car.
Adrienne Hines: And I found a dealership that only sells cars to people in or coming out of bankruptcy. And I love them. And I flew to Arizona to inspect their program. And now they are also in my referral programs, I’m trying to buttress up all the pieces of the pie, [00:52:00] trying to provide, mortgage help for people on the other side of a bankruptcy.
Adrienne Hines: So they know what it’s going to be like to buy a piece of property down the road, what they need to do to build their credit. My goal is to provide resources that are trusted for potential bankruptcy clients, they can get from beginning to end safely, respectfully with people who are going to do a good job for them without getting screwed over.
Adrienne Hines: That’s what I’ve been building. And that’s how I monetize my social media accounts.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s really cool. And you know, as you’re saying all these things, I’m thinking of about 10 other ideas that you.
Adrienne Hines: Mm hmm.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m sure you’ve already thought of them, but I’m just like, wow, there’s a lot you can do there. So.
Adrienne Hines: I mean, imagine if I shifted to PI leads.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh gosh, I know.
Adrienne Hines: I mean, like, you know, imagine, because I understand that world very well, but imagine if I started, if I took this audience and just started hammering PI leads. Right? There’s a lot of.
Jonathan Hawkins: Lots of time there.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so you’ve built this and you continue to [00:53:00] build it. So how do you balance that with your law practice?
Jonathan Hawkins: How are you figuring out how much time to devote to each? Because at some point I can imagine one could overwhelm the other.
Adrienne Hines: Well, I’m still navigating that. That is a good question because it is difficult to figure out where to put your energy.
Adrienne Hines: And one of the things working with my business partner, who is a you know, lead generator, marketing all of these things, his team has taught me a lot about how to be a more effective and efficient bankruptcy lawyer.
Adrienne Hines: So I’m using some of their resources to start to help me. So for example, I’m using a service they offer to screen all my intakes because I’m kind of a famous person.
Adrienne Hines: And so a lot of people call and my staff don’t have the time to sift through people who really aren’t going to be moving forward, who just kind of wanted to talk to me and just say, should I sell my truck or keep my truck? Right? Like we don’t have time for that.
Adrienne Hines: So, I just did that about a month [00:54:00] ago. And it’s not cheap, but I think I’m going to start to see positive returns and that is taking time and space away from my paralegal and if we got 20 calls a week and only eight or nine of them really should be on my calendar, that is a huge saving for me.
Adrienne Hines: And those eight or nine that are on my calendar have already spoken to you know, experienced it intake people, right?
Adrienne Hines: Paralegals who have walked them through a lot of stuff and understand what’s going on with them.
Adrienne Hines: So that’s one of the things that I’ve done. I’m not very good with my CRM system, I don’t have a really good CRM system going yet because I’m still really connected with the firm and I’m not really tied into some of what they’re doing.
Adrienne Hines: And I think my needs might be a little bit different than their needs. So I’m working on trying to come up with an effective CRM system. But thankfully, I don’t have to worry about like, malpractice insurance and all those things.
Adrienne Hines: Those are all being paid through the firm, through monthly dues. So, [00:55:00] yeah, it’s interesting.
Jonathan Hawkins: You got a couple of fire hoses coming at you. And you just gotta.
Adrienne Hines: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a challenge. But, a good challenge to have, right?
Adrienne Hines: It’s a labor of love. And, again, I care deeply about these people. I really enjoy this community. I feel exceptionally helpful and I feel like I’ve got a lot of information that I’m happily willing to give away for free if anybody wants to listen to it.
Adrienne Hines: I think part of my job on social media is I really feel like I’m trying to take away shame and embarrassment from the discussion of debt.
Adrienne Hines: And I’m also trying to help every regular person out there level up and become an advocate for themselves even if they go to a lawyer if they feel that lawyer is browbeating them or, you know, if they’re afraid of the lawyer, I’m going to teach them to what questions to ask and to flip the script.
Adrienne Hines: You’re the consumer. You know, they want you to pay them. You make them earn your business.
Adrienne Hines: So I feel like I’m trying to elevate my colleagues and the kind [00:56:00] of care and service that we provide across the board, because it’s clear to me, there’s a number of them out there who are not probably doing the very best that they could do.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, this is all really cool. I like what you’re doing. And I know you’re gonna continue to really do some other cool things that probably you can’t even imagine doing at this point.
Jonathan Hawkins: But, so as we wrap this up I always like to ask my guests sort of any advice that they may have for other lawyers out there, other law firm owners.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it could be somebody just starting out or somebody who’s been doing it a while. Any thoughts there?
Adrienne Hines: I wish that in the beginning of my career, somebody had looked me in the eye and said, this isn’t all. This isn’t all there is. Keep your eyes open.
Adrienne Hines: You know, there’s so much opportunity everywhere. If I was younger, there’s a thousand other things I’d be doing in addition to this right now, just because I see an opportunity.
Adrienne Hines: And I think, don’t put on the blinders. You know, life exists outside of the blinders. [00:57:00] And not only is it important to craft a career that you’re proud of and that you can at least enjoy, you know, most, more than half of the time you’re enjoying it. We don’t all enjoy everything we do.
Adrienne Hines: But also understand that you don’t have to do this. There’s other things to do and you can do this for a while. There’s always going to be another option down the road.
Adrienne Hines: So try it, see how it goes, but don’t ever be afraid to move on. I wish I had known that, right?
Adrienne Hines: And I wish somebody just said that to me. I would have been more quick to embrace new ideas or new ways of doing things.
Adrienne Hines: I was definitely raised in an environment where it was, this is how we do it, you know, and it took younger lawyers coming in for me to see that other people are starting to do things in different ways and I need to get on that, on board with that.
Adrienne Hines: I think my advice would be more to people in my age category who’ve been doing things a lot, a long [00:58:00] time, the same way, it’s not necessary.
Adrienne Hines: Change feels good and when you are standing in the shadow of something tragic and things have happened in your life, you’re going to want to look back, you know, how are you going to feel about your work, your home life, those types of things.
Adrienne Hines: That’s what life is, right?
Jonathan Hawkins: Adrienne, I’ve really enjoyed this. This has been fun. And I’m not sure I’m going to get on TikTok, but if I do, I’m definitely going to go follow you.
Adrienne Hines: That’s okay. Keep an eye out for me on YouTube. We’re going to start moving in that direction.
Jonathan Hawkins: Perfect. So for people out there that want to find you, give us your TikTok handle and any other place where you want them to figure out where to find you.
Adrienne Hines: Thank you. My handle on all my socials are @TheLadyLikeLawyer, at the lady-like lawyer on Instagram, TikTok.
Adrienne Hines: I’m the Ladylike Lawyer on Facebook and Threads and YouTube, but I also have a website, www.TheLadyLikeLawyer.com [00:59:00] and you can reach me there, you can call my office, you can send me an email from there.
Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome. Again, Adrienne, I appreciate it. It’s been real fun.
Adrienne Hines: Thank you very much, Jon, it’s been nice.
