Less Than a Year In

Colin Ram: [00:00:00] A good thing about being a lawyer. Well, I shouldn’t say this because I’m a contingency plaintiff’s attorney. So you can, you do take a lot of risk doing this job and you can put in a lot of money in cases. But I guess the only other job you can do that as a trader, you can walk into the morning and walk out in the afternoon with less money than you came in with, and that’s the danger of trading you can.

Any other job at least you can have the worst day in the world. At least you’ve got, you’ve made some money that day just from purely clocking in and clocking out. But as a trader, you can walk out a hundred grand poor at the end of the day if you’re not careful.

So

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Family Partner [00:01:00] Podcast. I’m your host Jonathan Hawkins. I’m excited about today’s guest. That’s a good friend of mine, Colin Ram. He is a personal injury lawyer based out of Charleston, South Carolina, but id not take your traditional route into the plaintiff’s personal injury side, you know usually you start out insurance defense and you go that way.

Well, he started Uber Big Law in D.C. doing big time stuff. So will dive into that. But uh, Colin, welcome. Why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you,

your practice.

Colin Ram: Thank you, Jonathan. Happy to be here. Yeah, I do. I’m a plaintiff’s side trial attorney, and I specialize in personal injury, civil rights, and also some fraud cases. So whether that’s a key tamp fraud or business fraud based here in Charleston, South Carolina, it’s a great place. We moved down here about six and a half years ago, and I opened up my firm.

I was just checking the calendar, and seven months and three days ago. So I’m really kind of at the beginning stages of running my own shop, but so far, so [00:02:00] good.

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s the cool thing about this podcast. I like to interview folks all along the timeline from, you know. Basically selling, selling their practice and doing whatever they can do to just starting. So you’re on the front end. So I want to really dig into sort of your experiences there. I know a little bit, but I want to hear more.

So before we do all that, man I want to go way back, get your story before you went to law school. My understanding, you, you were in the Navy.

Colin Ram: Yeah, I was in the, I was after 9/11, I signed up like a lot of folks did, you know, back then. And I was in the Navy reserve. I ended up doing, I was enlisted, ended up doing becoming an intelligence specialist and doing a lot of counterterrorism work there. So, and that was all based in Chicago.

I was living in Chicago at the time. It’s trading at the Chicago mercantile exchange. joined the Navy Reserve, ended up doing a, you know, had to go for training to Dam Neck, Virginia, and to the Intel School and and a number of other places. But it was a great experience.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right, well, [00:03:00] I, want to dive into that, but maybe I got it all wrong. So, I guess you graduated, then you went to undergrad, then you went to to be a floor trader, then the Navy, or was it vice versa?

Colin Ram: Yeah, my path to where I am today is definitely a windy road. I graduated college at American University in Washington, D.C. My first job out of college as a bartender. And which, again, it was a, fantastic job. It continues to pay benefits in terms of just sitting there and talking to clients today.

Right. But that was I did that for a year. I got, you know, I was trading. Don’t ask me how I got involved in trading commodity futures. My brother was in that business and so he was out in Chicago and he told me, Hey man, you got to come out here, work on the trading floor before they shut it down.

And I did, I moved out there to Chicago in 1999. I got a job on the floor of the Chicago mercantile exchange. I was a runner, which is the lowest level job you can get there on the floor. And I was running trading cards in the trading pit to, you know, different desks and trying to tick and tie and make [00:04:00] sure everything was correct.

And that was a uh, that was a trial by fire. I mean, if you’ve ever seen the movie trading places with Eddie Murphy, you know, that was the environment where everyone’s just yelling and screaming and just having a normal conversation, but yelling and screaming and moving their hands around. So it took several months just to get used to the work environment, but man, it was fantastic.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, you’re running around yelling or, or other people yelling and handing you the tickets. how did that work?

Colin Ram: So it started out. I was the one being yelled at. Right. And eventually I worked my way up and I became a trader on the floor there and I was doing some arbitrage work. We’re trading the commodity futures on the computer screen against what was going on the trading floor, there’s some arbitrage you could do there and it was fantastic and actually you know, it’s very intense work.

The great part about it is when the bell rings at the end of the trading day, you go home. And that’s it. There’s no very few times where you’re, doing anything else. You’re not taking work home with you. It all stays on the trading floor. So I miss those days for sure.

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:05:00] So, what were you trading? I mean, all sorts of commodities. What do you mean by that I mean.

Colin Ram: So it it was the S&P 500 futures and the NASDAQ 100 futures. And so these are future contracts. What’s the future value of the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ? I also traded you know, part of my time there I did government securities or trading government bonds or trading anything that you can trade, you know, overnight.

In, you know, the oil, coffee, sugar, cocoa, you’re trading currencies. For a couple of years, I worked overnight where I was doing sort of like a third shift coming in at 10 o’clock at night, work until seven, 8 o’clock in the morning. This is off the trading floor and you’re just trading worldwide markets.

And, you know, it’s a young person’s game. You know, it takes a lot of it’s a tough lifestyle, but it was a lot of fun. There’s a lot of great people out in Chicago who are doing that.

Jonathan Hawkins: So do you still keep up with markets? Do you trade now or?

Colin Ram: You know, not, there’s somewhat this new generation, right? You know, particularly with like, you know, Bitcoin and you know, people who are just trading some very [00:06:00] esoteric products right now. I am in touch with a number of people who I knew on the floor, and we sort of stay in contact and talk about the old days.

But I, you know, I don’t do it. I don’t actively trade right now. Like everyone else, just invest. You go get your Vanguard S&P 500 index fund and just, and just go. It’s the much more relaxing and less stressful way of doing. doing things.

Jonathan Hawkins: I imagine this sort of thing, you got to do it all the time or maybe not at all. I bet it’s something that’s probably hard to dabble in, I would think. But you tell me.

Colin Ram: It is hard to dabble in because there’s so many different factors. I mean, you’re trying to figure out what the fed’s going to do with interest rates. You’re trying to, you know, figure out what earning seasons looking like, you know, you’re trying to get a beat on the economy, but you’re also just looking at technical indicators.

And so you really have to follow a lot. when most of the products were trading on the trading floor and that’s where the volume and all the activity was, it was a much more controlled environment and we could, you didn’t have to worry about other things that were going on because everything filtered through the floor first.

Now something can [00:07:00] happen overseas and the market’s gonna move before you even realize it, and then you have to figure out why it moved and does that impact your position? And, it’s a much more intense setup I think that people have to do. You see these pictures of these traders who have six screens and everything, it’s like you kind of need to have that, you need to be watching everything at once.

So, those were fun days, but those are behind me now.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So you do the less stressful job of being a lawyer nowadays. So, uh,

Colin Ram: Yeah, a A good thing about being a lawyer. Well, I shouldn’t say this because I’m a contingency plaintiff’s attorney. So you can, you do take a lot of risk doing this job and you can put in a lot of money in cases. But I guess the only other job you can do that as a trader, you can walk into the morning and walk out in the afternoon with less money than you came in with, and that’s the danger of trading you can.

Any other job at least you can have the worst day in the world. At least you’ve got, you’ve made some money that day just from purely clocking in and clocking out. But as a trader, you can walk out a hundred grand poor at the end of the day if you’re not careful. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:08:00] Reminds me of a casino floor.

Colin Ram: Yeah, although we don’t call it gambling, it was much more, you know, we managed the risk, which you can’t do in a casino, but we managed the risk. So, but there’s actually, there’s a number of like buddies of mine who just became great poker players. It went to the world series of poker just because they knew money management and they knew risk management and poker I guess is the only game of skill out in Vegas.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you mentioned Bitcoin. There was a guy I heard on a podcast a while back, can’t remember but who grew up, I think, trading commodities, and now he does some sort of crypto type trading something, and he said that the concepts from the commodities trading really work well, or he’s figured out a way to make them work well for the crypto stuff, whatever, you know.

Beyond my field of knowledge, but I thought that was pretty interesting. So, you’re a floor trader, then 9/11 happens and you decide to go into the Navy, is that right?

Colin Ram: Yeah, that’s [00:09:00] right and I I joined the navy reserve. So I continued trading on the floor went to boot camp and became a reservist in the navy at the time so it was kind of pursuing both paths in parallel, but it was purely just like I said a lot of people. After 9/11, you’re trying to figure out what you can do, how you can help, how you can serve, and, you know, the military was like, come on over, so that’s what I did.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you might not be able to talk about it much, but when you say you did intelligence, did you pick that or did they steer you there? How did you get into that? And sort of what does that mean?

Colin Ram: Yeah, so that was part of the discussion with the recruiter and they had a need at the time. They were looking for, you know, when you join the military, they tell you what they need, and, you know, they don’t really give you an option, and it just so happened they had, you know, they said, hey, look, and, you know, we’re looking for people like you, who can do intelligence.

If you sign up, you know, that will be your sort of your career path in the Navy to do that. And so that was, that part was guaranteed subject to passing, you know, the background check and getting [00:10:00] the top secret clearance. But and that was great work. I mean half of it is utterly boring, you know to dispel the truth about it. You’re just sort of you’re looking at a lot of meaningless stuff and trying to make sense of stuff and some of it’s just you know there’s nothing there and then other times ships going into port in some country on the other side of the world. And you have to analyze all the threat traffic message traffic, so and so is a source for somebody else.

And they said X, Y, and Z. And you have to take that and integrate it into everything else you’re hearing. And you prepare a threat assessment for the ship and, you know, the ship has to decide how they’re going to protect their sailors when they go into a port. And that’s, that’s just one example of the type of work I was doing over there.

So it was pretty analytical. And I actually, you know, went to, started law school in 2005 when I was in the Navy. So that was a little bit of a juggling act. The great thing about it was they allowed me to do both at the same time. So I would instead of having to go in that one weekend a month for your drill weekend, I would come [00:11:00] back Thanksgiving and Christmas and just, you know, I would make the trip from Lexington, Virginia.

I went to W&L Law School. And as soon as we got out for Thanksgiving break, I’d get in the car, drive my 12 hours over to Chicago, crash at my brother’s sister’s house. And then the next morning I was out, you know, in uniform at a skiff working all throughout the holidays, you know, just to put in my time.

And so I did that for a while, for several years, juggling both law school and the Navy. And it was great. I mean, I certainly enjoyed it.

Jonathan Hawkins: Sounds like, some of this intelligence assessment, whatever it is, synthesis of information sounds like that’s a good training ground for. You know work in a case you got to pull in all the facts sort of create your story. What are you gonna do? I mean, is there any overlap there?

Colin Ram: Now I think there’s a lot of overlap there, you know, come to think about it. Just the type of thing you’re doing, you’re getting incomplete information. So you think about it in terms of litigating a case, you get discovery answers, you’ve get some deposition testimony, you get inconsistent witness [00:12:00] testimony, and you’re trying to make sense of it and figure out what the case is and where it’s going.

That’s very similar to at least what I was doing. My role. It was sort of my role in the Navy was just trying to take all this disparate information and put together something that you hope is correct. So, there is definitely that parallel between that work. I think litigating is much more interesting and exciting than the Naval intelligence stuff personally.

So maybe that’s why I’m doing, I’m a lawyer now and not an admiral, but,

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, if you were still in the Navy, you’d be in New Jersey Analyzing those orbs right or the drones.

Colin Ram: Yeah, well, I’m also a pilot and I’m pretty sure that those things are just airplanes flying through the sky with lights.

Yeah. Thanks.

Jonathan Hawkins: Oh, yeah, we’ll get to that too. so why law school? Well, you’re on the trading floor. You’re in the Navy. Why law school?

Colin Ram: So there’s two experiences that I can kind of go back to the trading floor, right? One of them, you know, there’s one day the markets like I said we were trading on the computer screen and you’re doing this arbitrage where you’re buying something on the computer screen. And you’re trying to sell it on the [00:13:00] floor because there’s a price differential and you’re trying to capture that and there was one day on the trading floor where the markets on the computer screen. When way off from where the trading floor was and I was executing trades for somebody a customer of mine he was another trade on the floor.

And he made, you know, 40 grand on a trade in a matter of like two minutes due to the price discrepancy. And, you know, all of a sudden everybody on the trading floor, you can be in this, what they call pit committee to figure out, Oh, you know, we’ve got a big problem here. The markets are way off. We need to correct this, figure out what’s going to do. Do we cancel trades in that type of thing.

And I got into it, you know, you’re having this pit committee. So you got a couple hundred people who are trying to figure out what the outcome is going to be, and there’s a small group of people and I’m out there just standing there in the trading pit yelling and screaming, you know, we should keep the trades for all, you know, all these reasons, here’s the rules, everything like that.

And the chairman of the exchange, this guy, Terry Duffy came down to the floor and he was just standing there watching. And it was one of those moments where I [00:14:00] realized I was arguing the loudest and the longest. Over this issue, this particular issue and people were agreeing with me like, yeah, you know what he said and in Terry Duffy’s just standing there. He’s just kind of looking and nodding and then he makes a decision. They’re going to cancel the trades, which was against my position, right?

And I ended up the next day. I went to his office and he was great. I mean, he’s the chairman of the exchange, brought on the president of the exchange, and the three of us are just sitting there. And he completely understood my position, but he said, listen, we have to protect the integrity of the markets and the retail traders at home. And so that’s why we did it. It was a business decision. It wasn’t a rules based decision, but he heard me out and I truly respect him for doing that.

But I just, I was just I’m excited from that accidental stepping into just standing up and arguing very, you know, in that type of environment, which I guess would be similar to arguing emotion or arguing in front of a jury. You have a bunch of people watching you trying to judge if what you’re saying is right or wrong and if you’re credible and if, you’re believable and that was just a fun experience. So that [00:15:00] kind of planted the seed a little bit and then I ended up, I was in a cab, I was running late to the exchange one morning and so I woke up, I couldn’t take the L.

I got into a cab and the cab drivers listened to the NPR and it was they were talking about the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which was, it was a case, I think it was two gay men who were having sex in their house, you know, and they’re inside their house, their private home. And somebody had called 911 and I think the police had busted down the door and arrested them because they were violating Texas State Law.

And I remember just thinking to myself like, wow, you know, like that’s what the Supreme Court does. It’s a case I didn’t know anything about. You know what courts do other than what you just see on tv and I thought it was a very just sort of unusual and interesting case and it ended up being like a pretty, you know major case in in supreme court jurisprudence, right?

And so there I think they were arguing or they’re talking about that particular case and then I ended up like going online and just reading some of these like supreme court decisions and at the same [00:16:00] time. You know, this is a time during the global war on terror and you have these enemy combatants, these folks who are captured on the battlefield outside the United States, and do we take them down to Guantanamo Bay, all these questions were like questions of first impression for everybody.

Is it legal? Do they have constitutional rights? Do they not have constitutional rights? And so, all that stuff I just started following and just getting interested in it. And I kind of realized there’s there’s sort of two events. One, trading on the floor was really kind of diminishing. The volume was moving more to the computer screens or electronic trading.

And you know, I was getting more and more interested in what was going on kind of in current events with, you know, the terrorist stuff with what we’re doing, you know, how do you handle all these tough legal questions that there’s really no clear answer to everything from like a torture memo to, you know, enemy combatants and that type of thing.

And so I ended up taking some, I had already graduated college, but I took a couple of upper level undergraduate law classes or pre law classes at DePaul University, which is [00:17:00] right down the street from me in Chicago and met a great professor there. He was fantastic. And I just ate it up. I mean, I was the student in class who was sitting there in the front row, you know, writing everything down.

And I said, you know what, I’m going to give it a shot. Like, I like this law thing. I’d never thought about it before. I didn’t grow up thinking I was going to be a lawyer, but so far so good. I was really interested in it and kind of rolled the dice. I wasn’t a great student in undergrad by any stretch.

So, I was a little bit nervous about going to a law school. Studied my ass off for the LSAT. I applied, got into Washington and Lee, and I just loved it. I mean, there’s no looking back. Just absolutely loved it from day one.

Jonathan Hawkins: Did the Navy pay for this? Were you able to?

Colin Ram: I was being paid. They didn’t pay the full tuition. I was getting a monthly stipend because I was still in the reserve. So I was getting some partial GI bill money, but it was basically paying for the you know, dinner outs, you know. and that

Jonathan Hawkins: go into the bar, go

ing into the bar?[00:18:00]

Colin Ram: Something like that.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So, so you graduate law school and did you move back to DC then and go big law? Is that sort of your first job out.

Colin Ram: Yeah. And so I graduated in 2008. So I was a, you know, did a summer associate at Skadden Arps in Washington, D.C. great experience. Probably the last true summer associate summer of sort of that traditional model because the markets crashed in 2008. But so I started October Arps in D.C. I was in the litigation department.

You know, knew I wanted to be a litigator. And so that was great and really you know, the best thing for me is I was just uh, basically go in there and litigate cases. And, you know, like I said, probably a month, a month prior to joining the firm, the markets had crashed big time. Lehman brothers went bankrupt September 15th, 2008.

And so there’s a lot of uncertainty in the legal market, you know, particularly for these wall street, New York, you know, white shoe [00:19:00] firms, what was going to happen. And it just so worked out that Skadden had brought in this lateral partner who’s a senior health care fraud, false claims act, KTAM defense lawyer.

And he brought a bunch of cases with him and he needed a lot of help. And so I got paired up with him and it was off to the races.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I remember that time. I mean, you’re lucky, you know, it seems like maybe 2010 was the worst, but you know, all those deferrals and you know, all that stuff. Did your classmates have the deferral issue or did you sort of just escape that?

Colin Ram: Now there was a few folks, you know, depending on the luck of the draw, really, which firm you went to. There was a number of folks who who had deferrals. I mean, there was a couple, I know there’s some big firms that went down, like that went under. So people who had offers to join a law firm came back the next year to join and the firm wasn’t there.

Or they let, you know, they’re there for three months. Yeah. There’s nothing worse than I think graduating from law school and having the rug pulled out from underneath you.

Jonathan Hawkins: Especially, I mean, the big [00:20:00] firms too. I mean, making the big money, you got the big tuition, you got to pay back, and then all of a sudden, boom, you got nothing. But so you get in there and you start doing big cases. What’s that like in a big D.C. firm as a young associate? I mean, what kind of stuff were you, what kind of experience were you getting?

Colin Ram: It was, you know, you end up in that environment at that time period, you’re just working nonstop. I mean, it’s nights, it’s weekends, get home 10, 11 o’clock on a Friday night. And then you go out of course, right? But It was just a lot of work and certainly the first few years. It’s great because you have all this pent up energy from being in law school and you finally want to litigate and you get out there and there’s these great cases, you know, you can read about on the wall street journal, the cases that you’re working on or these major sec fraud investigations.

There was actually a number of trading cases that developed over the few, you know, following a few years that I was brought in on because you had a bunch of traders who are alleged to have committed, you know, various forms of fraud and the, you know, commercial [00:21:00] mortgage backed securities markets and other trading things.

And I spoke their language. And so we’d end up having to, to go through and listen to audio of traders talking on the phone and talking to each other, going through their Bloomberg messages and. And I was the one person in the room who could speak that language. I knew exactly what they were doing and exactly what was going on.

So that was a lot of fun just sort of being in that environment. But, you know, Big Law is just, it’s a different place. And I think for some people it’s a great environment. It was certainly great for me for the first part of my career, because you learn from the best and you know, there’s, there’s great attorneys everywhere, but there’s just some really good attorneys at these big law firms.

And I just, I got lucky. I worked with some name brand attorneys, got to work, see how they do it. And it was just fantastic.

Jonathan Hawkins: And I imagine, you know, getting probably a pretty good salary, living in D.C., you know, that’s probably pretty damn fun too, I would imagine.

Colin Ram: It was, and you know, the salary thing is funny, right? And [00:22:00] uh, the first two or three years is great because you can pay off the law school, right? And so you’re happy about that. And then the, you start to realize, you start doing the math on what’s your effective hourly rate that your take home pay, right?

And it’s, you realize you’re working two jobs. You’re putting the hours for two and a half, maybe, you know, jobs, and it’s not as exciting as it is, but that’s why they give these salary bumps, you know, these lockstep every year you go from a fourth through a fifth year, you get a, whatever the bump is 25, 35, 50 grand.

And it just keeps you there for another year, you know, in the mindset as well. I’ll work one more year because they’re giving me, throwing a lot more money at me and I can do that. And then I’ll figure out what I’m going to do next. And, you know, slowly the golden handcuffs just start forming and it’s, tougher and tougher to leave.

And I think for a lot of people, it’s, it can be dangerous. You can get stuck there. There’s that’s why it has a reputation. There’s a lot of unhappy people who are just, who are locked into the compensation and can’t afford to live.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you escaped, so tell me about that. [00:23:00] So, I know you’re in Charleston now, so what was, there something in between or did you go from D.C. to Charleston and what was the, you know, what caused you to move?

Colin Ram: Yeah, so we moved directly from D.C. to Charleston and really, you know, the thought process of moving started in probably about 2015. So we moved here in 2018. So about three years before, started thinking about it. My wife and I started having kids. We’ve got two kids, seven and nine year old now. And you know, I was living in a, we’re all living in a nice, a tiny little townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia that I bought, you know, when I was single.

And then at that point, there was four of us in there, me and my wife, two young kids, you know, two babies essentially in a large golden retriever. And we’re kind of like, okay, we need to get something bigger. And in D.C., if you want something bigger, that means you move out about. Another two hours commute wise and it became a question.

Do we really want to do this? This is kind of where we want to raise our kids. And this is the [00:24:00] lifestyle we really want now that we’re parents and we both decided, no, you know, we want something different. She grew up in Florida. I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. So I think we wanted, we want our kids to have a little bit smaller town type environment when they’re growing up.

And you know, it’s funny, we came down here to Charleston. It was actually, yeah, this time. So today’s what? December 30th. So it was, we were here for new year’s eve in 2015. It’s about nine years ago. And it was great. It was beautiful. It’s like it is today. It was sunny, 70 degrees out. We’re there with my little girl, you know, she’s only about five months old at that time.

And we just had this great experience just, and we’re like, man, this would be a great place to live. And of course, New Year’s day, I made the mistake cause I’m still working at Skadden, right? I pick up my phone eight o’clock in the morning, we’re in the hotel. I look at it and there’s a message from the partner.

Hey, we need you to, you know, we need you and as me is message to me and a bunch of other [00:25:00] attorneys, right? We need everybody all hands on deck to do this. This project, this private equity firm wants to, was wanted to do a transaction by one of our clients. And because we’re handling litigation for this client, we had to jump in with help them go through all the due diligence.

And so I spent new year’s day of 2016 sitting in a hotel room in downtown Charleston from eight o’clock. In the morning till four o’clock in the afternoon. And we get another email saying pencils down the deals off. So I got to bill eight hours to this client on November or, you know, January 1st of 2016, you know, on vacation with my family.

And it was just miserable. And that was not an unusual occurrence, but it was sort of the confluence of being in Charleston while that happens. It’s like, nah, I think I just want the Charleston thing. I don’t want to be sort of tethered to that. You got to drop everything whenever we say to kind of do the work that’s just, you know, I got tired of that.

And so, you know, the seed was planted at that point and then it was working towards that goal. [00:26:00] How do I figure out this next move? And really the big issue for me of leaving big law is what do I want to do with that next step? You know, cause leaving a firm like Skadden or is great.

I mean, there’s plenty of doors that are wide open. They want that experience. They want the, you know, relationships and everything that you bring with it. But for me, it was, what do I really want to do with my career? What’s the next step? And I knew for a long time, I wanted to get into plaintiff’s work and partially I had met Mark Lanier.

The Texas plaintiff attorney during law school, just sort of this chance occurrence. I was at I was invited to go to the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association meeting. I went there, he gave his opening statement from one of the first Vioxx trial and it was fantastic. And I got to talk with him afterwards and I was just sort of enthralled by the whole world that I saw there at this trial lawyers meeting.

And so I’ve been kind of working my way back there and it took 10 years. And finally I said, you know what, I’m going to do it. So I had to take the bar exam in South Carolina [00:27:00] after practicing law for and nine years at that point, which was a miserable experience having to sit for the bar exam for a second time after like, I’m already licensed in two jurisdictions and I got to go sit and take this bar exam but I suffered through that and got licensed in South Carolina, got admitted and then told the folks at Skadden, Hey, it’s, you know, it’s time for me and my family to make a move. And they were so supportive. I mean, they could not have been better about it. They’re like, whatever you need, you want to, you know, we’ve got clients down over here, there we can make phone calls.

I know. You know, partners who are coming up to me saying, Hey, I know this person 30 years ago. They live down there. I’ll reach out to them and just connect you just so you have some people to talk to and that type of thing. So that was a great transition. And you know, the flip side for me was finding out where I wanted to go work. You know, I had my South Carolina bar card, but I didn’t know any lawyers. in South Carolina, personally.

and

Jonathan Hawkins: So, before we get to that, so I’m curious. So, why Charleston? Was it because you had a good trip there or did you make the trip because you were thinking about [00:28:00] Charleston? I mean, was there a connection?

Colin Ram: It was a little bit of both. There was no strong connection. You know, my wife has family in Greenville and a lot of them have moved to Charleston since we moved down here, but we didn’t have a close network of friends or family down in Charleston. But it was definitely the environment. I mean, if you, if you came, if you saw what we saw in on that trip that we went down and, you know, we’re right here on the coast where our house is 10 minutes to order the beach, we go there all the time.

It’s a great environment. We live in Mount Pleasant, which is where my office is. It’s just a great place. Everything about it. Just check the boxes without us really kind of thinking like these are the boxes we need checked. It’s just felt right. You kind of go with your gut instinct there. And fortunately for me, you know, I wanted to do plaintiff’s work and the plaintiff’s attorney community here, the trial lawyers community is fantastic.

I mean, there are some great attorneys all over the state of South Carolina who are just welcoming. They try cases. Like, I think in a [00:29:00] lot of jurisdictions, there’s, you know, not a lot of trials going on. There’s a lot of trials here, and there’s, so there’s some really fantastic trial attorneys. And when I started doing my due diligence of different firms, where do I want to apply to, who do I want to work with there was a number of great options.

I mean, you think about the whole tobacco litigation. And that was Motley Rice, the firm. I mean, they’re right down the street from me. They’re less than a mile away and they took down the tobacco industry. And so there’s a lot of just a lot of great talent here in this town. And so, you know, I started reaching out to people cold. And just FedExing resumes and letters and trying to get meetings and work in my network to see if they can introduce me to folks and, just pulled out all the stops just to meet as many people as I could. And I found this great small, you know, five person plain of shop that had a great reputation.

And I went there and, you know, started day one and they were great. I mean, they, you know, the attorneys over there really took me under the wing. You know, they were very much interested in learning [00:30:00] from me and as I was interested in learning from them. And they took me out, introduced me to a bunch of people everywhere would go be like, Hey, this is Colin.

He just moved down here from D.C. and grew my network, you know, very quickly because of them and the relationships that they had. So it was a lot of fun.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, Okay, so you, you know, you decide you want to move to Charleston, you’re, I think you, by this point, you’re like, okay, I want to completely switch practice areas and go to plaintiff’s side. You don’t know anybody in Charleston, you’ve got your bar card, you go down there, you start meeting with folks how long did it take before you sort of found a place?

Colin Ram: You know, I found a place. I came down here while we’re still in D.C. I flew down and did a number of interviews with people and just, you know, Charleston is a very welcoming and friendly place. So if I’d reach out to an attorney and say, Hey, listen, I’m from D.C. I’m looking to move down here. I’d love to just you know, meet you, grab lunch or let’s do this.

And, you know, most people down here were like, yeah, sure, come on [00:31:00] over. And so I would just tell people my story, who I am and have great conversations with people and they would say, Oh, you know what? You should go talk to so and so over here. You know, they might be looking for somebody. And so I did a little bit of that.

At the same time I had sent the firm that I eventually started you know, went to go work with, they had a job posting. I think it was an old job posting that they had never taken down. And so I had reached out to them and I think they were like, well, what are we going to do? With, you know, why does this guy from D.C. works at Big Law, why does he want to come down here? What are we going to do with this guy?

And you know, but I realized that they’re fantastic trial attorneys. I mean, just bringing down some huge verdicts, monster verdicts. And so I said, listen, I want to go work with these guys. So I went down there and just met with them and we just had a face to face conversation. And they were like, well, you know, let’s give it a go.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s a good lesson. I don’t know if there’s any, you know, younger attorneys or law school students, even though they’re listening, but you know, getting a job from, you know, just submitting a resume on some online [00:32:00] portal, that’s really not the best way to get a job. I mean, the way you did it go down there.

I mean, you were flying down from D.C. and you just meet with people and then you meet with one and then they tell you to meet to this other person. Eventually, you sort of get to a place where you want to be. And this perfect example, they probably didn’t really even have a position, but they made one for you.

Right? Sounds like it.

Colin Ram: Yeah. Yeah, they did I mean there was not I don’t think they had an immediate need to hire an attorney but I think it was a situation where they’re like, well, you know. There’s not many people coming from out of state to work down and in South Carolina at least at the time now there is but I think it was just sort of we just hit it off. We had a good connection and it was like let’s see where this can go.

​

Jonathan Hawkins: all right. So you, you land the job, you move down to Charleston. What’s [00:33:00] it like, you know, going from, I can’t even imagine how many hours you’re billing at D.C. You know 2,500, 3,000, who knows, to going down to Charleston number one, you, switch practice series. You’re, You’re probably not Bill and Errol anymore. What was all that like, what was that transition like?

Colin Ram: It was definitely a transition but in a very good way, you know, not having to build time is it’s It’s amazing not having to keep track of your time like that. You know, for some cases we do where you can recover attorney’s fees, you still keep track of your time, but not having to do that and not having to hit, you know, there’s plenty of days when I was working in D.C. where it’d be two, three o’clock in the afternoon.

And I really haven’t built time. I’ve done stuff, but I haven’t really done billable work. And it’s like, it’s still in the back of your mind. Well, I need to, you know, I want to hit 200 hours this month. And, you know, so I guess I’m going to be here till 11. You know, working and that’s just the mindset you just think in terms of building time because that’s what’s expected of you.

And so when you get out of that environment and you’re working in a contingency [00:34:00] fee practice, it’s just such a relief not to have to do that. The other thing which I thought was, it was sort of startling to me, we’ll put it that way. So my first day at the firm down in Charleston, five o’clock. Everyone’s gone like right at five o’clock. Not only is everyone gone. I’m the only person in the office at that time and so that was. uh

Jonathan Hawkins: You’re like, where is everybody? We’re just getting started.

Colin Ram: Yeah like so and because people you know, they work to live I guess it’s people have other things they want to do. I mean, when you’re in an environment like this, you want to go out on the water, you want to go fishing and you want to go, you know, go out on your boat, take the kids out, go to soccer practice, you know, which is what I do now.

And you just can’t do that or you really have to twist yourself and knots if you’re working at a large law firm in order to do that. Whereas, you know, down here, it’s expected that you’re going to live a life outside of work.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I, I bet you that, I mean, it sounds incredible. [00:35:00] A lot of people would love to have that switch, but I imagine at least early on, it probably felt really weird. Like you’re not working hard or something. All of a sudden you’re getting home by 5:30 or so maybe it didn’t take too long to adjust.

Colin Ram: Well, you know, it’s funny cause I think some of those habits just end up following you anyways. One of the first cases I got when I moved down here, we represented Brian Bowen, who’s a, he was a college basketball player. And I don’t know if you remember back in 2017, there was this bribery scheme that folks from Adidas were bribing the parents of top high school recruit basketball players.

And so, and Brian Bowen, he was the top, you know, one of the top recruits in the country coming out of high school. He went to go play for Rick Pitino at the University of Louisville. And before the basketball season had even started you know, Adidas had it’s folks had paid his dad some bribe money to get him there, violated the NCAA rules. It turns out there was a undercover FBI investigation going [00:36:00] on.

So there was this massive criminal case that was brought against a number of folks in the Southern District of New York, you know, by federal prosecutors. And we represented Brian, who is the you know, the young man who was caught up in this whole bribery scheme.

And so the question is, well, man, this young kid, his basketball career has been ruined. He was expected to be a one and done or two and two and done player and go to in the NBA draft. And he couldn’t do that. And so, you know, that really caused, you know, millions of dollars in damages to him. And so what do you do? Is that a breach of contract case? Well, he didn’t really have a contract with, you know, the athletic apparel sponsor. So we’re kind of just trying to figure out what to do, you know, what kind of case you have, you know, somebody who’s been hurt badly in, but it’s just sort of a non traditional thing.

And I remember waking up, I’d fallen asleep one night I was watching, I was like binge watching the show billions back when it was on and I woke up at like one 30 in the morning on the couch and I was like, and it just popped in my mind. This is Rico. This is a [00:37:00] racketeering case that we have. And I like, I texted the other attorney at that time, 1:30 in the morning.

I was like, that’s what this case is. And so we ended up, I went up to New York, watched the criminal trial was, you know, taking notes, trying to figure out what the theory of liability was. And I put together this 200, you know, paragraph complaint, you know, 200 page complaint really. And we filed it in federal court here in South Carolina against Adidas and a number of, you know, Adidas folks, you know, whether they’re employees and representatives and that type of thing.

And we litigated that case for years, man. I mean, that was, you want to talk about going up against switching sides, going from being the big law attorney where you’re one of 20 people on a case to being the one attorney on the other side, going up against two dozen attorneys, that was the case.

And so I was perfectly fine in that role because I knew I’d been on the other side for so long and knew sort of all the moves that were going to be made in a, in a case like that. And we [00:38:00] litigated it. I mean, that was a fun case.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, hopefully that was a good result.

Colin Ram: Well, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a good result. Ultimately, we took it up to the U.S Supreme court and ultimately the issue became under the big issue that the court. and ultimately disagreed with us on is whether a college student athlete has a business or property interest in their NCAA eligibility.

And I don’t think you can look at college sports today and say that the answer is no to that. Courts disagreed. We took it up to the fourth circuit, you know, us court of appeals. And we had a two to one panel decision against us on that. And we moved to for rear hearing on bunk. And we had a split decision, half the fourth circuit.

Wanted to rehear the case because they didn’t like the panel decision that ran against us and the other half wanted to keep it in place. It was a pure split decision on that. And, you know, we had to pack up and go home. But, you know, one of the core values that, you know, my old firm instilled in me is like, just as long as you don’t get outlawyered on a case.

You know, you work your ass off, you [00:39:00] know, in that case, I would do over and over again 10 out of 10 times knowing the result because we’re on the right side of history and we did not get outlawyered. We didn’t lose because we got outlawyered. We lost because, you know, the courts were not ready to recognize a student athlete’s right in their talents.

So,

Jonathan Hawkins: Well that sounds like, you know, incredible case you know, and it’s perfect example of, you know, the risks of a plaintiff’s practice and maybe that’s a good segue into where you are now. So about seven months ago, you decided to go out and start your own firm. So tell me about that.

What, you know, push you to do that? And you know, what’s happened over the last seven months, but I can start with what gave you the push to say, you know what, I want to do it on my own.

Colin Ram: You know, that was it’s a great question because it wasn’t an immediate thing for me, you know, I never sort of walked in thinking one day I want to own my own law firm and I want to run my own. I think I just got to the point. And, part of it too, I wanted to grow my [00:40:00] practice and really bring in cases, you know, bigger cases on my own and really kind of develop that marketing side of what I was doing at the other firm.

And so I joined, you know, Ben Glass and Brian Glass’s group, Great Legal Marketing. And I started going to those meetings and I joined the mastermind program, which is fantastic. You’re in a room. As you know, Jonathan, your room with, you know, 20 other lawyers from around the country, different practice groups, everyone’s sharing ideas, pushing each other on how to really kind of develop things.

And so I started getting all this great knowledge, but I was also the only person in the room who didn’t own my own law firm. And so it was a little bit of an outsider where I was kind of academically learning all this stuff, but I didn’t really have the platform to implement it all. So part of it was wanting to just sort of take a chance on myself, like take all this stuff.

You know, I knew I was a good lawyer. I knew I was confident enough in myself to do this. It was just more of the mechanics of getting it done. And then being a part of great legal marketing, sort of, I learned a lot of the mechanics of it. And then it became a question of, [00:41:00] well, do I really want to do this or not?

Do I want to kind of pull the safety net and be responsible? for myself. And you know, it’s interesting because I think there’s this perception among lawyers that if you work for a, if you’re a W-2 employee and you work for another firm that you’ve got the safety net, right? Someone’s always going to bring you work or you got to bring it in, but you’re going to get paid.

You’re going to get your paycheck at the end of the day and you know, pay your mortgage and all that stuff. And that’s important. But I think there’s an unrecognized risk in there. And you know, I think just my career progression starting from the trading floor to where I am now, it’s just been about recognizing and understanding risk and really sort of appropriately applying risk.

And so the idea of starting out on my own at that point, I mean, six years of being a plaintiff’s side attorney, 16 years of practice total, I had just a fantastic background, I thought to sort of launch this thing, you know, obviously the big issue is where you’re going to get your [00:42:00] cases and how that’s going to go.

So far, you know, like I said, we’re seven months and three days into the law firm and it worked out in terms of I had a number of cases that came with me. You know, by sort of mutual agreement with my old firm and they were great and gracious to allow me to continue working on some cases and on a fee split and, you know, some of the cases I’d been working on for years.

And so that helped start things out. And I’ve had other cases come in from referrals, just the relationships built up over time. And that is really sort of, so far it’s sort of kept the hopper full maybe not full, but it’s kept the hopper going, so I’m always looking at cases.

Jonathan Hawkins: A couple of things. I agree with you about the question of risk, you know, a lot of lawyers I’ve talked to a bunch. I hear a lot of them and they say it’s too risky to leave. It’s too risky to leave. Well, sometimes it’s too risky to stay because you know, the client or the partner or the, whatever the, you rely on all of a sudden goes away and you have no control over what happens and then you may be on the street.

[00:43:00] Anyway, so, sometimes it’s not that it’s not risky at all to go out on your own, but atleast you sort control your destiny. And that’s sort of my second observation is I look back on the thread of your background, your career, we’ll call it, you know, you weren’t scared to take the risk. I mean, you moved to Chicago working on the floor.

That’s sort of a risky career, I would say, and then 9/11 happened, he said, all right, I’m going to the Navy. Then you’re like, all right, I’m gonna go to law school. And then you move to D.C. and you’re like, okay, I’m going to go to Charleston where I don’t know anybody and I’m going to switch practice areas.

So it doesn’t seem that far off that eventually you were going to start your own firm, right?

Colin Ram: I guess if you look at it that way probably not, you know, not that far off, I guess I’m a little bit more comfortable with taking risk than maybe other people, but you know, it’s same time, right? I mean, if you’ve got a great base of clients, you’re generating your own business, then you know, the decision whether to start your own firm or not is really based on economics more than anything. [00:44:00] If you don’t have that if you’re reliant more on other people to bring in business which you are at a big law firm, I mean, they’re institutional clients.

And then I think there’s a lot of risk, you know, to being a W-2 employee there because eventually the music stops. In a practice area, like you said, somebody laterals to another firm, takes all the cases with them. Then you’re stuck thinking, well, do I go with them because that’s my, that’s who’s feeding me or not. And so I really wanted to get out from underneath all that. And I want to be, you know, I want to be responsible for myself or bringing in my own cases and not have to, you know, to depend on others for that.

I think, you know, I’ve turned 50 years old over the summer and, and part of it, life is short. You know, we can get, I think we get too focused a lot on just the day to day. And the month to month of the practice of law, and you know how quickly time flies at this age and this stage of your career, just, you know, years go by in a blink of an eye.

And so if you don’t stop and say, Hey, [00:45:00] wait a minute, you know, is this a direction I truly want to go and where I want to wind up in 10 years, 20 years, then, you know, it’s, you got to stop and ask yourself those questions, you know, and for me, it’s kind of, you know, it’s that old saying that if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.

And that was a big part of it for me too. It’s like, okay, I’m not the lead dog working at somebody else’s firm and that’s not a criticism of another firm. That’s just the way it is. I mean, I’m the lead dog here in my firm. I’m the only dog here at my firm, so for whatever that’s worth.

But you know, it’s sort of, I get to decide what direction I’m going to go in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Let’s talk about that for a minute. You’re, you’re seven months in. Nowadays, it may be the easiest time in the world ever to start your own law firm with everything in the cloud. You know, you can be virtual with all this stuff. You just really need a bar license. In an internet connection and you know, that’s it.

You can start a law firm. But as you’ve, I’m sure discovered in the [00:46:00] last seven months is it’s after you sort of flip the switch and you’ve started the firm, it’s not all easy after that. So, you know, what’s it been like? Getting it off the ground, you know, from, you know, getting your website up to going out and getting cases, all that kind of stuff.

How’s it been over the last seven months and maybe how. Has anything changed in terms of your mindset of what you’re going about sort of doing to build the firm.

Colin Ram: Yeah, it’s definitely been incredibly busy. It’s not the benefit of working for yourself and starting your own firm is that you control your schedule, but you don’t control what needs to get done. I mean, it’s just. You know, this morning, I met with the CPA to, you know, wrap up end of year stuff. On Saturday, I was in the office talking to a I use FileVine for case management.

I was talking to a paralegal out in California about implementing some different things and just learning about it. And so, it’s sort of constant work. And what I probably, which [00:47:00] I, what I knew and what I expected was that I’m going to be spending more time sort of working on the business rather than in the business, but the amount of time it takes to do that.

So like getting the website, okay, the web vendor is there to design your website, but they need content from you. So you have to sit there and write all the web pages and what you’re going to do. You need to, you know, go continue to go out. You know, you mentioned it before. Other people have told me, you know, you got to go out and just have lunches with other attorneys.

And sort of go out, put yourself out there, continue to make connections. And so I spent a lot of time, I mean, just website trying to get, you know, backlinks to the website because that’s going to help with, you know, the position when somebody here at Google’s, you know, personal injury attorney near me that I’m going to show up closer to the top of the pack.

You know, all those types of things is you just have to do. And so certainly the barrier to entry, the bar is low to start your own law firm because technology has wiped away, I think, most of the barriers for people, [00:48:00] but you still have to do the work and that’s, that’s the real challenge.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, and I’ve, you’re going through it. I, Still go through it but, you know, before I started my firm, I was always at, you know, I was at three firms before. I started my own, you know, they were established firms, established platforms. You just sort of plug in, all the policies are written. You got all this staff, you’ve got everything you need is sort of there. And it’s, you know, the thing that’s maybe the downside is it’s hard to implement change cause all these things are set but they’re all there.

So then you start your own firm and then, you know, you, you have to do all that, like setting up a website. I mean, once you set it up, I mean, you’ll have to maintain it, but it’s that first. Brick you got to lay and then you know, it’s you know I’ve brought on a number of employees and every time I learned something new about onboarding the employees, you know like okay next time I learn from this mistake. We’ll do it better next time. But it’s you know, I think intellectually I knew all this but until you actually sort of it go through it.

You don’t really realize all the little [00:49:00] things that you have to do when you start your firm. And you know, I like it. It’s fun. I mean, it can be stressful, but it’s fun. You know, it’s a constant challenge. And I’m sure every day there’s something new for you at this stage, right?

Colin Ram: Oh, absolutely. And you know, the benefit for me or the one thing that I would recommend to anybody who’s thinking about doing this is you’ve got to start putting yourselves in rooms, going to conferences to understand the marketing aspect of it. Because Jonathan, you and I know, being part of, you know, groups like great legal marketing.

I’m also in Charlie man’s catalyst program. There are so many resources and there’s so many folks there who are just willing to help you. And when I’m talking about folks, I’m talking about attorneys and all around the country. And so when you sit in a room full of people and you’re trying to figure out, well how do I increase my, you know, how do I sell myself to people in my market?

How do I brand myself and do those types of things. You start hearing the same responses from people from personal injury attorneys and family law attorneys and business attorneys and estate planning attorneys all over the country and they all start telling you [00:50:00] the same thing that works for them.

And then you kind of realize like, okay, this has been tried and tested. This is how you do it. Here’s the sort of the shortcut to doing it. Don’t try to figure it out on your own. You know, go talk to this vendor. over here. So like the website person. So Rick Martin, who’s an IP attorney down in Evansville, Indiana. I reached out to him and well, he knew I was trying to get the website going. He was like, why don’t you just talk to my guy and I did.

And it got a fantastic website. You know, without having to sort of figure out, you know, how to do that from square one. Right. And so I got somebody for that and you just start building these relationships and you just start putting word out there, Hey, I’m looking to do this, or here’s my next challenge, you know, will you help? Or do you have any suggestions? And then people just start telling you, Hey, this is what I did. This is who you should talk to.

And so it short circuits the process a lot. And the other thing too, is it’s hard. I mean, I think human nature takes over whenever we have a. You know, this is true for me. A challenging task where I don’t know where to [00:51:00] start. I don’t start, I do everything else but that one thing that I need to get done because I just don’t know where to start. And the more you can recognize the weaknesses in your process that way. And then you can shore those up. So like you and I, you know, we’re in an accountability group. We talk every week.

We say, okay, this is what I’m going to do in the next seven days in my business. This is, you know, the very, the two or three discrete tasks that I need to get done to move my law firm forward. And you tell a handful of people those things and they tell you what they’re going to do. And then you hold each other accountable for it at the end of that week.

And then you go to these mastermind programs, same thing, sitting in a room full of people. I mean, I was at the great little marketing mastermind and it was July of last year and it was the thought of, okay, are you going to do this thing or not? Like, what are you doing? Are you going to start your own firm or not?

And I said, well, yeah, I’m going to do it. You know, I finally like put it out there that yes, I’m going to do it. And then the next question is, well, when, like you’re not, you know, I’m sitting there in the hot seat in this room full of 20 other, 25 other attorneys, they’re all [00:52:00] looking at me and they’re not letting me go till I tell them when.

I had to give them a date that I’m going to do this, you know, no later than that. And I said, okay, well this time next year, I gave myself a year, which is probably way too generous, you know, deadline. Right. But I gave myself a year and it ended up being like nine months or so when I, you know, pulled the trigger and had that conversation with my old firm.

But having people that will kind of push you forward, I think is making sure you’re surrounded by other attorneys who will do that. He’ll push you forward, hold you accountable. That I think accelerates growth more than anything.

Jonathan Hawkins: The tough love and the accountability. I really like that. The other thing I like about groups like this is you see people sort of all along the spectrum, you see people that are where you are. You see people that are maybe a little behind you. You see people that are way ahead of you and you can see how they’ve evolved and grown and then you’re like, okay. I can do that too. And, and everybody’s there to help where you’re, you know, I think the element of people [00:53:00] not being Competitors in your backyard, I think is always helpful cause they’re more likely to share. But even people in your own town will help you if you ask. And they’ve been there and they’ve made mistakes and, you know, you’re going to make your own, but it is nice to try to.

Like you said, shorten the, uh, the uh, learning curve a little bit. So, yeah, well, okay. So you’ve been in it seven months or so. Maybe it’s too soon, but you know, any, maybe lessons you’ve learned in the last seven months maybe something that you would not have done, or maybe something you would have done sooner?

Colin Ram: You know, I think I’m not one to look back and regret something I’ve done because I think there’s always something to learn from it. And, you know, seven months is probably not long enough to recognize that I did make a mistake. I’m sure I did. I wish I got my website up before I, you know, on day one of the law firm and it ended up taking months to get it done and that was all on me.

So I, you know, that pre planning [00:54:00] stuff I should have done better. I think you know, really it’s just going out and I mean, there’s some weeks where I’m like, man, I really should have met this attorney or I should have sent that email or set up this coffee or set up this lunch and I didn’t do it.

And, you know, another week goes by and I haven’t done it. And so I think some of those things where just life just gets in the way of, of your plans, you just have to just push through. I think that’s the only way to do it. I mean, whatever has brought us here to today has gotten us this far and just kind of keep pushing.

I mean, that’s what really life is. And so I think, you know, understanding a lot of the marketing aspect is important to understanding the Google, you know, how SEO versus you know, local service ads and understanding, you know, the difference between pay per click and just under understanding what backlinks are and what good backlinks are versus bad ones and understanding how the algorithm works because I think, you know, even when you have a referral based business, people are going to be [00:55:00] looking you up online. And so I think recognizing that is important.

Jonathan Hawkins: So as you’re as you’re sitting here today and you’re looking forward over the next, you know, 10, 15 years, where do you want your firm to go? I know you’re a trial law. You try cases. You know what? Where do you see it going? Where you want it to go?

Colin Ram: I would love to you know, one of the first things I did and it was a buddy of mine, Sean. He knew I wanted to try a case and he reached out to me in June. So my firm had been open for maybe a month and he said, Hey, I got a trial coming up next week. Do you want to help out? And I was like, man, I’m there.

Just tell me when and where. And so we tried a little, you know, short two day trial in Lexington, South Carolina, and you know, we won. It was a great experience, you know, just to, just to get a rep in my firm, you know, just, just doing a trial. And so it would be great to be able to do, you know, two, three small trials a year, if that’s possible.

It’s really difficult to kind of get those things scheduled, but even just helping out with other attorneys doing that. But in terms of my [00:56:00] firm, I was thinking about it. I’m not trying to be the biggest law firm there is, right? I mean, there’s already people, I’m not an advertising law firm. I’m not going to be on TV radio billboards. There’s other folks who are doing that and are doing it very well and bringing a lot of cases and I’m happy to sort of take, you know, their big cases, you know, they refer out to me to do that kind of work.

I think for me, the ideal set up is maybe having like two younger to mid career attorneys who want to get a lot of experience and having two attorneys work with me who are just anxious to get in the courtroom as much as possible and get that experience. And then, you know, just having the appropriate number of, you know, paralegals who are supporting and doing all that work, you know, so maybe about a four or five person shop.

At least where I’m sitting right now today by myself and I’m looking for a paralegal right now. So I’m trying to increase the staffing from one to two as soon as I can but that’s where I see myself because I don’t want a massive headache, right? I want a [00:57:00] good firm where we can all work have trials. Enjoy the life and if we need to go home at five o’clock, man, just go home go see your family.

Jonathan Hawkins: I like it. Well, it’s been fun over the last and a half watching this watching you go out and watching your firm grow. So it’s been fun and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes, but last thing you mentioned earlier, I want to make sure we talk about it. Cause I’m curious.

You’re a pilot. So tell me about that. How did you get into flying airplanes and how often do you fly?

Colin Ram: So I think I joke I watch top gun The original Top Gun at a very impressionable age. I’ve always just loved aviation. I can’t explain it. It’s just something I’ve always, since I was a kid. And when I graduated law school, I took the Virginia bar in 2008. And a lot of people at the time were, you know, you go take a bar trip.

That was the thing you go take two months off before you start your first legal job and you go travel the world or, you know, whatever it is. And for me, I was like, no, [00:58:00] I’m going to, I’m going to stay here and I’m going to learn how to fly because I’ll never have this amount of time ever again in my life to just focus purely on flying.

So I did that for two months. I was out in Virginia, just flying, you know, three, four days a week, got my pilot’s license. You know, it was running planes for a while, then joined a flying club out in College Park, Maryland and was flying a, you know, Cessna 172 for a couple of years. And then I got. I was able to get a, what’s called a Piper Cherokee six.

It’s a six seater, single engine airplane, which I still have today. And I’ve got a hanger down here in Mount Pleasant and I love it. I mean, I use it for work. I use it for family trips. I use it just for flying it for fun and grab a buddy of mine. We’ll go fly, shoot a bunch of instrument approaches at night.

And I just love it. I mean, it’s the one thing. That if you truly want to separate yourself and get a mental separation and break from the practice of law or whatever it is that you’re doing, just go fly. It is simultaneously the most relaxing and most intense thing that you can do.

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s awesome, man. So how often do you get out?

Colin Ram: I try to go at least [00:59:00] several times a month, right? And you know, it’s like everything else. It’s weather dependent. It’s scheduled dependent. It’s based on what my family’s got going on. If we have a busy weekend with a bunch of events, maybe I can’t go flying that weekend. And then it’s also if I’m just wiped out.

And just too tired. I’m not going to go fly. But you know, I try to go. We’ve, I’ve done a bunch of trips. I mean, we’ve got clients on the other side of the state, you know, so instead of doing a three and a half, four hour drive, I’ve got an hour flight. I’ll go fly out, go meet a client, come back. I’ll go fly out for depositions. I signed up cases, you know, client calls. They’re three hours away. Okay. You know, I’ll meet you in a couple hours, drive up to the airport, hop in the airplane, go out and meet them, sit down with them face to face, and I think they, they very much appreciate that. When you can do that, when you can show up when they need you to physically show up.

And so it’s been an advantage from that. But I just love flying. I mean, if I can, as much as I can, Jonathan is, is I guess the best way [01:00:00] to answer that.

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. Well, you’re going to have to take me up. I’m going to have to come out there. You gotta take me up one time.

Colin Ram: Yeah, man. Let’s do

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, That’s awesome. Well, cool. Colin it’s been fun, man. Really enjoyed this. Thanks for uh, coming on. So for people out there that uh, want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to find you?

Colin Ram: I think, you know, go to my website, it’s sctrial.com. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. Instagram civil trial is where you can find me there. Those are probably the best places, so just reach out. I’d love to talk to anybody who’s got questions. You know, maybe a year behind where I am today and they’re about to start a firm and they’re trying to figure out just the logistics of where you get your phone set up or, you know, who do you use for this or that?

Just give me a call. Shoot me an email. I will hop on a call with you anytime.

Jonathan Hawkins: Sweet. Colin enjoyed it, man. I’ll see you uh, in a week or so.

Colin Ram: Yeah, we’ll see you out in Virginia. Thanks, Jonathan. It’s been great.

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