Attorney Gary Green

9-8-2017

We all know attorney Gary Green from his ads. Yes, he is the lawyer on TV with a successful law practice, but did you know he is an author of children’s books, a farmer, a developer, a husband and father of four?

“I’ve known Gary a long time,” Flag and Banner and Up In Your Business host Kerry McCoy said. “I had no idea he had so many interests. I can’t wait to dig into his story and find out how he went from the law student living above me, to the Gary Green of ‘Gary Green and Associates.’”

Green is a 1975 graduate of Hendrix College in Conway and a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law in 1978. He is admitted to practice law for the Arkansas State and Federal Courts, Texas State Courts, Missouri State Courts, Oklahoma State Courts, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Federal Claims and the United States Supreme Court.

Green’s areas of practice include personal injury, medical negligence, medical malpractice, nursing home negligence, traumatic brain injury, truck wrecks, product liability, wrongful death and fire (cause and origin). His professional memberships include the American Association for Justice, Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, Pulaski County Bar Association, Arkansas Bar Association and Past-President of Southern Trial Lawyers Association.

“I am proud to have on my staff some of the best lawyers in the states of Arkansas and Tennessee; some of the best support personnel one could hope for; proud of the work we do suing drunk drivers and proud that we represent people, not insurance companies, who, without our taking percentage fees, probably would not be able to hire a lawyer. I am proud of our people’s practice,” Green says on his website.

Green spends his spare time tending to his pecan grove and vineyard. He likes to bird hunt and fish for trout. He walks for exercise and lately has been developing the Woodglen park subdivision down the street from his home in Little Rock.

Gary and his wife Patricia have four children, Kayce, Alexia, Meggie and Brice. In 2015 Green became a published author with stories he wrote for the Grand-Pére Bear and An American Bear in Paris, partly in honor of the grandchildren, partly as love stories, and partly to profess that every trial lawyer should be able to tell a story.

“A typical day for me begins at sun up and winds down with dinner at 7:00 p.m.’” he said. “I enjoy work and would work too much, but for Patricia’s insistence from day one that I be at the dinner table by 7. That is a tradition which she instilled in me and our children, one that I very much appreciate and to which I attribute much of our success as a couple and a family.”

Why did Green become a lawyer?  “ I was lucky to have family, friends an teachers who encouraged and guided me,” he said. “Why do I continue to practice law? Because it’s what I do best. In my mind being a lawyer is no different and no more important than being a brick layer or carpenter or mechanic. I go to them when I need their help and hope they will call on me when they need mine.”

Green has learned, over his 37-year career that taking care of his clients needs is rewarding in itself. Also, from his mentor John Ward, success is subject to arriving first and leaving last at the workplace. And from another mentor, Miles Hale, Green learned that people’s practice is an honorable calling. Gary Eubanks is another mentor of Green’s and taught him about successful advertising.

“I was taught by my parents and grandparents to follow the golden rule,” Green said.

Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com

 

 

EPISODE 52

 

[INTRODUCTION]

 

[0:00:03.4] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Be sure to stay tuned till the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.

 

Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

[0:00:17.7] KM: I’m Kerry McCoy and it’s time for me to get up in your business. For the next hour, my guest, Attorney Gary Green and I will be getting up in the business of being a success attorney and entrepreneur. Gary practiced law for 13 years before deciding in 1991 to open his own law firm, the Law Offices of Gary Green.

 

We hope through our storytelling of how we maneuvered the path of entrepreneurship in pursuit of our dreams that you will learn something, want to get involved or be inspired to take action in your life, and we’ll be answering questions via phone and email, a little bit of free lawyer advice.

 

For me it began over 40 years ago when I founded Arkansas Flag & Banner. During the last four decades Arkansas Flag & Banner has grown and morphed from door-to-door sales, to telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales and now relies heavily on the internet. Each change in sale strategy required a change in company thinking and procedures, my confidence, leadership knowledge and my company grew. My initial $400 investment now produces nearly four million in annual sales.

 

Each week on the show you’ll hear candid conversations between me and my guest about real world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that I hope you’ll find interesting. Starting and running a business or organization is like so many things. It takes persistence, perseverance and patience.

 

I worked part times jobs for nine years before Arkansas Flag & Banner grew enough to support just me. It’s now grown so much to operate efficiently we require 10 department and 25 people to maintain them. Thus, reminding us all again that small businesses are not only the fuel of our economic engine, but also impact and empower people’s lives.

 

Before we start I want to introduce you to the people at the table, we have my technician, Tim, who’ll be running the board and taking your calls. Say hello, Tim.

 

[0:02:08.1] TB: Hello, Tim.

 

[0:02:09.1] KM: My guest today is Attorney Gary Green, founder of the Law Offices of Gary Green. I love that title. Green is admitted to practice law for the Arkansas State and Federal Courts, the Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma State Courts, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States Supreme Court.

 

Green is a graduate of Hendrix College in Conway Arkansas and in 1978 he received his law degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law. It wasn’t until 1991 that he established the Law Offices of Gary Green.

 

Green’s area of practice include personal injury, medical negligence, medical malpractice, nursing home negligence, traumatic brain injury, truck wrecks, product liability, wrongful death and fire. His professional memberships include the American Association of Justice, Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, Pulaski County Bar Association, Arkansas Bar Association and past president of Southern Trial Lawyers Association.

Gary is a husband, father, farmer, fisherman, land developer and an author of children’s book. It is an honor to welcome to the table the smart, successful, competent and forthright, Attorney Councilor Gary Green.

 

[0:03:27.4] GG: Thank you, Kerry. Glad to be here.

 

[0:03:29.3] KM: Thank you. When we need to tell everybody that I’ve known you for a long time, because they don’t realize this, but when I started Arkansas Flag & Banner in 1975, I was living in Little Rock and I moved into an apartment in 1976 and I lived in the basement apartment and you lived right above me.

 

[0:03:47.4] GG: It was a grand place. 

 

[0:03:49.7] KM: It was. For people that are in Little Rock that are our age, Island X was across the street on Cavanaugh.

 

[0:03:56.8] GG: Island X and Gumbo Ya Ya! Which came first?

 

[0:03:59.0] KM: See. I forgot about that — Island X, by far.

 

[0:04:01.0] GG: Okay. Alright.

 

[0:04:02.7] KM: I remember this about you. I would come up there and say, “Gary, we’re going out,” because we were 20, 21. We’re 21, 22 and y’all would say, “Kerry, we’re going out. Come go out with us.” You’d be sitting — I can still see you sitting at your desk, holding your head in your hands and saying, “No, I’ve got to stay and study.” I thought, “Oh, Lord! I don’t ever want to be a lawyer. That sounds awful.” 

 

[0:04:21.8] GG: That must have been first year.

 

[0:04:23.4] KM: Did it get better?

 

[0:04:24.0] GG: Oh, yeah. You stop studying after the first year.

 

[0:04:26.5] KM: Oh! Hear that lawyers? If you could make it through the first year students, you’ll be good to go. I haven’t seen you in 10 years though.

 

[0:04:33.2] GG: It’s been a long time.

 

[0:04:33.5] KM: A long time. When I got to do this research on you I found out that you’re a farmer and an author of children’s books. I was just kind of shocked. We’re going to talk about all of that. First, you graduated from law school in 1978, but you didn’t start the Law Offices of Gary Green until 1991. That’s like 13 years, 12 or 13 years. What were you doing?

 

[0:04:55.7] GG: I was working with others lawyers. I have been privileged to have practiced with many lawyers in the county; Milas Hale, one of my mentors. John Ward, mentioned as one of my mentors. The Morley’s. I worked in North Little Rock and my first years in practice were pretty much the opposite of what I do now. I was doing more real estate work, more business work, more deference work. Since 1991 and, really, a little bit before, I’ve done nothing but plaintiff work and personal injury and contingency fee cases.

 

[0:05:35.7] KM: What’s the difference between those two? One goes to court — One goes to trial and one doesn’t?

 

[0:05:40.7] GG: Representing the plaintiff is generally representing a consumer. You’re representing people. When you’re representing the defendant, you’re normally representing an insurance company. It’s just a totally different world and a totally different practice and I very much prefer representing people in their individual cases.

 

[0:06:03.1] KM: When I was on your website, you coined the phrase people’s —

 

[0:06:09.3] GG: A people’s practice.

 

[0:06:09.7] KM: A people’s practice.

 

[0:06:10.7] GG: Yes. That, I really stole it from Milas Hale. That’s what he referred to our practice when we were together in North Little Rock. I was very fortunate back in the Clinton years, when Clinton was governor, he appointed one of my partners to a judgeship. He appointed John Ward to become a circuit judge. Up until that time, John had done all of the personal injury in our firm and I had done, like I said, real estate business work, and John came to me and said, “I want you to be the one to handle these cases.” To this day, I don’t know if he was doing it because he was doing me a favor or if he was doing it because he wanted me to finish what he had started.

 

[0:06:59.6] KM: You mean you were in the back office reading all that legal jargon that drives everybody crazy that we have to hire you to do for us. He came in and changed your job description?

 

[0:07:14.7] GG: He came in and put 50 cases in my lap.

 

[0:07:17.7] KM: Was he retiring?

 

[0:07:18.2] GG: No. He was going to the bench. He was going to become a circuit judge. When you practice, when you’re a circuit judge, you can’t continue your practice.

 

[0:07:27.6] KM: You’re sitting in this office thinking that you’re going to do this forever, just be pushing papers around and writing for other lawyers to take to court.

 

[0:07:36.3] GG: Yes, or real estate transactions, or business transactions or boring stuff like that.

 

[0:07:42.2] KM: You didn’t go to court.

 

[0:07:43.7] GG: Back then, not so much.

 

[0:07:45.7] KM: Then he comes in and dumps 50 cases on your desk and says, “Here you go.”

 

[0:07:52.1] GG: These are yours.

 

[0:07:54.0] KM: What did you think?

 

[0:07:56.0] GG: I was very pleased and proud that he’d thought of me to do it. There were other lawyers there he could have called up on. I was happy to do it. I really quite frankly thought I was too good to a personal injury lawyers. I was kind of uppity and I was a business lawyer and I took them on as a duty and by the time I finished I was in love with it.

 

[0:08:20.2] KM: Wow! When did you decide to leave that law firm and start your own, the Law Offices of Gary Green?

 

[0:08:27.0] GG: Oh! That, with John, was in the — I can’t remember the exact year. It was in the 80s, and ’91 is when I left the lawyers who were still there. One time we had probably 21, 22 partners and it was one of those moments when we all decided, and it was together, and we knew that we’d build something that was bigger than we wanted to mess with. We let attrition take its toll, and we went from 21 to 20, in 19 to 18, and it finally dwindled down 4, 5 lawyers left. That’s when I took my leave. We were down to a very, very small firm.

 

[0:09:06.6] KM: Why did you want it to get smaller?

 

[0:09:09.5] GG: I don’t like meetings, and with the larger firms, there were lots of meetings. We had to —

 

[0:09:16.8] KM: When it got small, you didn’t like it again.

 

[0:09:18.1] GG: When it got small — No, I do like it small. I do like it small.

 

[0:09:21.9] KM: You decided to leave when it gown to — I’m confused. 

 

[0:09:24.3] GG: There were three or four partners when I left.

 

[0:09:28.5] KM: Why did you leave? Was there something that happened that you said, “This is —”

 

[0:09:31.5] GG: No. At the time that I left it was Milas Hale who’s still there, Butch Hale who’s still there, and Virgil Young, and myself. We still are very dear friends. I’ve referred tax business to Virgil within the last week. He refers personal injury cases to me, but we had such different practices that it just made sense. 

 

[0:09:57.8] KM: Oh, I see.

 

[0:09:59.0] GG: Then there’s the geography of the river. I hate to admit that I’ve been one who’s bugged into the North Little Rock in the river, but I moved to Little Rock and the time my practice was in North Little Rock and I just didn’t want to make that drive back and forth.

 

[0:10:14.7] KM: At least you were going in the right direction.

 

[0:10:16.1] GG: Yeah, maybe so.

 

[0:10:17.1] KM: You’re going against the traffic instead of with the traffic. You’re going from Little Rock to North Little Rock, which is the opposite of the way most people are going. Anyway, I understand what you’re saying. I did the same thing.

 

[0:10:25.7] GG: Yeah, made for long enough. You grew up in North Little Rock and you know that they’re both beautiful cities, but you don’t want to necessarily do that, traverse the river twice a day.

 

[0:10:35.6] KM: Yes. Now you’re back working for a big firm again though.

 

[0:10:37.6] GG: No.

 

[0:10:38.6] KM: How many lawyers do you have?

 

[0:10:39.3] GG: Once again, we’ve downsized. The attorneys are just myself and my daughter, Kasey. Then we have about 10 support staff. There’s usually around a dozen of us in the office.

 

[0:10:50.0] KM: That’s all the attorneys you have in that big Gary Green building over there on Cantrell Road?

 

[0:10:55.4] GG: Which is for sale and for lease, and let me rent you some space.

 

[0:10:59.6] KM: I saw that on your website. It says space for rent. I thought, “What is he doing? Now, he’s getting into the rental business.”

 

[0:11:06.3] GG: We’re downsizing. That building, looking back when you’re looking for the perfect spot, at the time I needed a building that probably a little less than half that size. As you might recall from buying an old building, I found one that was priced right that was more than twice what I needed.

 

[0:11:30.1] KM: And in a great location.

 

[0:11:30.1] GG: And it’s a great location, and I made it work.

 

[0:11:33.1] KM: It’s like a billboard for your business right there.

 

[0:11:34.8] GG: It is. Indeed.

 

[0:11:36.2] KM: Your daughter came to work for you in 2012. How is that?

 

[0:11:40.4] GG: It’s great. I love it. I hope that she does. I think that she does, but I absolutely love it.

 

[0:11:46.8] KM: Is she a personal injury lawyer?

 

[0:11:48.3] GG: Indeed. That’s 99% of what we do.

 

[0:11:51.4] KM: You have four kids. Did you talk her into being an attorney with you or did she just have the calling?

 

[0:11:56.5] GG: It took some talking and it was eventually her decision, of course. But I probably, if I made a mistake anywhere, I leaned on her too hard. She went to seminary first and decided that was not her cup of tea, and then came back and decided to go to law school.

 

[0:12:17.2] KM: She is smart.

 

[0:12:18.0] GG: Yes, she’s very smart.

 

[0:12:18.8] KM: Seminary school is tough, and law school everybody knows is tough. 

 

[0:12:22.9] GG: I went out to visit with her one time and she invited me to go to one of her classes and I was sitting in the back of the room and they’re arguing over how many angels could fit on the tip of a pinhead, and I knew then she wasn’t going to finish that program. I saw her eyes roll.

 

[0:12:39.9] KM: I guess this is a great place to take a break. When we come back we’ll get advice from Gary on what makes a good case and what doesn’t. We will also have him educate us on what I believe is an upcoming ballot issues. Do we have upcoming ballot issues?

 

[0:12:55.2] GG: We do have upcoming ballot issues.

 

[0:12:56.5] KM: That are important, that we all need to know about before we go into the ballot box, I think. Is one of them Tort reform?

 

[0:13:01.3] GG: One is a Tort reform.

 

[0:13:02.4] KM: Okay. We’re going to talk about that, and don’t embarrass me, because I don’t know legal jargon. Dumb it down for me. Can you do that?

 

[0:13:09.7] GG: Yeah. I don’t need to, but I’ll make it simple for you.

 

[0:13:12.2] KM: Thanks. If you’ve missed any part of this show, a podcast will be available next week on flagandbanner.com’s website, YouTube, BlogTalk and iTunes.

 

[0:13:23.9] TB: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy.

 

[0:13:41.1] KM: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. My guest today is Little Rock, Arkansas Attorney Gary Green, founder of the Law Offices of Gary Green. Alright Gary, you have the best website. I’ve been on it all morning, and this is what I found that you say, “I am proud to have on my staff some of the best lawyers in the State of Arkansas and Tennessee. Some of the best support personal one could hope for. Proud of the work we do suing drunk drivers and proud that we represent people, not insurance companies, who, without our taking percentage fees probably would not be able to hire a lawyer. I am proud of our people’s practice.”

 

[0:14:20.5] GG: I am.

 

[0:14:21.3] KM: Talk about how your fee — Before the break you talked about the people’s practice and how you coined that phrase. I think you said being a lawyer that you even got it trademarked or copyrighted.

 

[0:14:31.5] GG: Copyrighted, trademark. I’ve forgotten what it’s called. It’s been so long since I did it, but I have the plaque behind my desk and I can keep other people from using the same words.

 

[0:14:41.8] KM: I can’t believe that. Those are just words.

 

[0:14:43.7] GG: Yeah, I know. I slipped in.

 

[0:14:45.8] KM: You know, we had a patent lawyer, a copyright lawyer on here, Joe Calhoun, and he educated all of us on the difference between a copyright and a trademark and I can’t even remember all the different stuff.

 

[0:14:57.0] GG: I’ll go back and listen to his podcast. I know Joe. He’s a great guy and I’m sure I can learn something.

 

[0:15:01.7] KM: You can. In fact, I ended up hiring him to trademark my name, flagandbanner.com.

 

Okay, let’s talk about your fee, because this is really what is the epitome of your people’s practice is the way your fees are. 

 

[0:15:20.8] GG: The percentage fee for many, many eons has been called the poor man’s key to the courthouse, the contingent fee. When you think about it, it’s very true. The litigation that we do for people is extremely expensive. It’s extremely time consuming. If you’re paying someone by the hour to do it, even if it’s a low hourly rate, the number of hours that go in and the fees to expert witnesses and the filing fees for the courthouse and the deposition fees for the stenographers, etc., gets into the score of thousands of dollars. A person who wasn’t a rich person before they got knocked down to their knees can’t come in and hire a lawyer, unless they’re able to do it with a percentage fee.

 

A friend of mine just recently I was talking to him about doing some business litigation and he said, “What I’m looking for is a partner.” He says, “I’m looking for a partner to take on a case,” that he and I are going to work together as a desk bud. Do every day with all of my clients over the last 37 years.

 

You do become partners. People who want to talk about the business and the profession of law say, first of all, they shouldn’t be partners with your clients. You’re an advisory. You’re someone who’s trying to be independent. But when you are representing somebody on a percentage fee, the client is in control, client’s case is the only thing that matters, but really you’re partners. You’re both working toward the same goal.

 

[0:17:20.4] KM: I think the process would be somebody calls you and explains to your staff their case. If it sounds like they have a case, you probably have them come in and you discuss it in detail. If you feel like it’s able to go to trial and you’re able to win based on the information that they gave you, that’s when you take it on, because you don’t just take on anybody that comes in.

 

[0:17:48.9] GG: You can’t. You’re in business. You’re in a profession. You’re also in a business. I think that case selection is key.

 

[0:17:57.4] KM: Case selection.

 

[0:17:57.9] GG: Yes. You got to take on the cases that you know you’re the best lawyer for that job. When you hear about a case that somebody else is the best lawyer for the job, then you got to tell your client that.

 

[0:18:11.7] KM: Right, because each lawyer specializes in what they did.

 

[0:18:16.1] GG: For example, we just mentioned Joe Calhoun. If someone came to me and they wanted to copyright or trademark something, I would say you need to call Joe.

 

[0:18:24.7] KM: Of the cases you hear, what percentage of them you think are viable and winnable?

 

[0:18:34.2] GG: Oh, a tough question. Let me turn it around on you thought. I think that a good way to understand that we’re not ambulance chasers and we’re not looking for frivolous lawsuits, is to look at the number of cases we do turn down. I think that if you look at medical malpractice cases, that’s probably a better indication.

 

Truly, I will visit with a hundred people about their case before I take one case. I truly weed out 99% of the people who contact me because of medical malpractice or because of alleged medical malpractice.

 

[0:19:18.4] KM: People love to have a problem with a doctor or poor outcome with a dentist or a doctor and your friends will say, “You need to sue them,” but it’s not that easy.

 

[0:19:29.6] GG: It’s very difficult.

 

[0:19:30.7] KM: It’s very difficult.

 

[0:19:32.0] GG: It’s usually not malpractice. We got to start with our hats off to the doctors. Most of them are very smart. They’re very well educated. They’re very resourceful and they probably didn’t make the mistake that the client feels what they might have made. There’s a lot of trying to find out what happened.

 

[0:19:59.4] KM: It can’t just be a mistake. Doesn’t it have to show negligence or malicious intent or something like that? It can’t just be, “Oh, I accidentally did this.” That’s not really a lawsuit, is it?

 

[0:20:09.2] GG: It will. Negligence and accident can be toward the same thing. In a negligence case, you got to have somebody who’s negligent, that they didn’t do something they should have done or they did something they shouldn’t have done. That negligence caused injury that wouldn’t have happened, but for the negligence. You got to tie it together.

 

[0:20:33.4] KM: You have to be able to say, “This is negligent, because this is standard practice and you didn’t follow standard practice.”

 

[0:20:42.1] GG: Yes, and it caused permanent injury. It caused serious permanent injury.

 

[0:20:46.9] KM: If you go look at most doctors’ records and if you think that something is wrong with you and you ask them to send you your records and you look at them, they never put blame on anybody or any other doctor. Let’s say you have something bad happened with one doctor and you go to another doctor to get treatment for it, and that doctor says, “Well, the other doctor shouldn’t have done this,” but they never put that in the notes. They just are very — They’re just very literal about whatever it was and what the problem was, but they never express any kind of — You know what I’m trying to say?

 

[0:21:23.5] GG: You’re talking about the conspiracy of silence.

 

[0:21:26.6] KM: Is that a real thing?

 

[0:21:27.2] GG: I think it’s course 101 in med school.

 

[0:21:29.6] KM: Oh, really?

 

[0:21:30.7] GG: Yeah. No, they don’t. Here’s the trick to that. It’s kind of like the constitution. In our constitution we’ve got checks and balances and we’ve got legislative branch and we’ve got the judicial branch and we’ve got the press. We’ve got ways to keep up with what’s going on, and you do the same in a medical malpractice case, because if you get a one set of records from one doctor, you’re right. It’s not going to lay blame somewhere else, but then you get the other doctor’s records. Then you get the nurses’ notes, and then you’ll get the discharge summary, and then you get every piece of information that everybody generated about that patient and you’ll start to find from the testing that was done and from the comments that were made and from the other entries that were made, you’ll be able to find out what happened.

 

[0:22:27.7] KM: If your problem doesn’t come up for, let’s say, a year, and then you go, “Oh! Now I’ve got a problem,” like that mesh stuff that everybody’s having problems with. What’s that called?

 

[0:22:38.8] GG: Surgical measure, hernia mesh.

 

[0:22:40.7] KM: Yeah, that you see on TV all the time.

 

[0:22:41.9] GG: Yeah.

 

[0:22:42.8] KM: Most of that comes up in a year with something, a surgery or something you had done. You only have two years.

 

[0:22:50.4] GG: That’s right.

 

[0:22:51.3] KM: Go to court, no matter what.

 

[0:22:53.7] GG: We can find exceptions sometimes, but to be safe you got to think two years for a medical malpractice case.

 

[0:23:00.6] KM: If you’re sitting around thinking about listeners out there and you’re thinking, “Should I or shouldn’t I? Should I or shouldn’t I?” You’ve only got two years to make a decision, and the lawyers needs how long to prepare a case.

 

[0:23:10.3] GG: We won’t accept a case that’s within 120 days at the statute limitations.

 

[0:23:15.3] KM: What is that? Thank you. Gosh!

 

[0:23:16.3] GG: Four months. Yeah. Think about it, we’ve got to go and get the records. It takes a long time to get records. Then we’re not doctors, we don’t know the medicine. We’ve got to then hire experts to read those records. To get that done within four months is pushing it very much.

 

[0:23:38.4] KM: Your other specialty is drunk drivers.

 

[0:23:41.3] GG: Yeah. That’s like shooting a fish in a barrel, but yes, it’s a specialty.

 

[0:23:44.7] KM: What do you mean? It’s just so easy, because they test — Because when they are drunk, they give them a breath test and it’s right there that the driver was drunk.

 

[0:23:58.8] GG: No. When you’re a plaintiff’s lawyer like I am, you want to make the jury mad or you want to make them cry, and you go in with a drunk driver defendant and they’re mad and you better get out of the way because the verdict is going to be a bigger verdict.

 

[0:24:16.8] KM: Really?

 

[0:24:17.5] GG: Yes. Even though, we’re not supposed to, when we’re in court, talk about the golden rule. We’re not to tell the jury that put themselves in the shoes of the plaintiff. They can’t help it in a drunk driver case.

 

[0:24:36.2] KM: You can’t say that in court?

 

[0:24:37.0] GG: You can’t say anything that suggest to the jury that they should put themselves in the shoes of the plaintiff.

 

[0:24:44.0] KM: I didn’t know that.

 

[0:24:44.5] GG: It’s considered such a strong argument, that it’s not fair.

 

[0:24:49.4] KM: Wow!

 

[0:24:50.1] GG: Yes.

 

[0:24:52.1] KM: Medical negligence, medical malpractice. What’s the difference?

 

[0:24:55.1] GG: Nothing. Medical negligence probably sounds easier. Medical malpractice to me has a feeling of intent or a bad feeling about it. When you’re trying a medical negligence case, really, all you’re trying to do is show that the doctor, we’re in a stop sign. Didn’t intent to run the stop sign, but ran a stop sign and caused damages.

 

[0:25:31.7] KM: I bet this one’s easy, nursing home negligence.

 

[0:25:36.2] GG: They are easy. It’s a different type of case, and the cases are usually made not so much based on the negligence that was done at the time, like upon the staffing.

 

[0:25:50.9] KM: It’s always the staffing.

 

[0:25:51.7] GG: Yes. They don’t hire enough people .

 

[0:25:54.7] KM: Why do they not do that?

 

[0:25:56.4] GG: It’s money. They don’t want to spend the money.

 

[0:25:59.7] KM: That’s the problem at my mother’s place, and her place, when we went there six years ago was wonderful. The teachers retirement fund owned them and it’s sold twice to corporations, and now they’re just cutback, cutback, cutback.

 

[0:26:14.2] GG: Tough cases, and the way that you win those is you go find a next employee and who’s no longer there and no longer bound to the employment agreements, no longer bound to the pressures of that. Then you talk to that X-employee and find out they’re MO, and find out what they didn’t do and should have done.

 

[0:26:36.9] KM: It seems like from a business point of view it would be smarter for the corporations to do a good job of training and staffing than to be paying high insurance and lawyers to fight these claims all the times.

 

[0:26:48.5] GG: You’d think.

 

[0:26:49.3] KM: You would think that. From a business point of view, I would think that. Traumatic brain injury, truck wrecks, same things?

 

[0:26:58.7] GG: Same thing. Traumatic brain injury to me is a very, very interesting area of the practice, and I’ve kind of made it as specialty. The reason I find it so interesting is because there are things like denial that go with a traumatic brain injury like in alcoholism. A traumatically injured person usually is in denial that he or she is injured.

 

[0:27:26.7] KM: Really?

 

[0:27:27.3] GG: Yes. Therefore, you got to go to the next layer. You got to go to the spouse or to the parent or to someone who knows and lives with the traumatically brain injured person to find out what the deal is, because if you ask a traumatic brain injured person, “Are you okay today?” The answer is, “Yes.”

 

[0:27:47.1] KM: They’re not the ones that ever call you. It’s their spouse that calls you and says, “Something’s wrong with my wife or husband or son. Would you help me?” Then how do you ever get — That does seem very hard, because if they’re in denial, how do you ever get them to tell you their story or be involved?

 

[0:28:07.8] GG: I get their trust by asking them to do a couple of things. For example, I might ask them to look behind themselves and check the rearview mirror. To pretend they’re driving and look behind themselves, and then they turn back around I might say, “Did you get a little dizzy?” and they’ll have fed that and it’d start to dawn up on them that something might have happened.

 

Another good technique is to say, “Tell me the last thing that you remember before the wreck?” They’ll tell you, “I remember the truck coming at me,” and then your next question is, “Okay. Tell me what your first memory was after the wreck?” They’ll say, “Well, I was at the hospital.” Then it starts to dawn on them that they did have a loss of consciousness, which is for many neuropsychologist, the definition of brain injury. If there is a significant loss of consciousness, there probably has been a brain injury. You get the client to realize that by recreating with them their memories. 

 

[0:29:19.5] KM: Which one is your favorite thing to talk about? Which one of these are not to talk about? Which one of these is your favorite case to trial? Except drunk driver you said is like shooting a fish in a barrel.

 

[0:29:28.1] GG: There’s one type that’s even easier, and that’s legal malpractice.

 

[0:29:34.6] KM: Legal malpractice.

 

[0:29:35.3] GG: Yes.

 

[0:29:36.1] KM: Your job?

 

[0:29:36.8] GG: Yes. To sue another lawyer for dropping the ball on case. I tried one in July of this year. The offer that was made to us prior to the trail was $350 and the jury came back with a $2 million verdict.

 

[0:29:58.8] KM: Really? Do you ask for a certain amount of money and then they can up it?

 

[0:30:03.0] GG: Well, there’s discretion there. My argument to the jury in closing was that this lady I represented has lost a kidney, and therefore we had the issue of permanence and we had the issue of the anxiety that it caused her. My suggestion to them was that each of those elements was worth a million dollars. Then the other things, the medical bills, or whatever, they could consider on top. They came back very quickly with a $2 million verdict.

 

[0:30:35.2] KM: That was because her first lawyer did not do a good job of representing her.

 

[0:30:39.5] GG: Well, he did not finish the filing. It was a two year deadline, medical malpractice case. He filed it on the next to the last day, and then in Arkansas you got 120 days to serve the papers on the defendant, and he never served the papers.

 

[0:30:59.7] KM: What?

 

[0:31:01.0] GG: By the time they figured out that they didn’t have served us a process, the statute of invitation had run and it was impossible to do anything else except to file a legal malpractice case.

 

[0:31:10.8] KM: Against him, because you couldn’t do it for the medical malpractice, because it had gone over the two years.

 

[0:31:15.7] GG: Correct.

 

[0:31:16.7] KM: That seems like such an easy mistake to have not made.

 

[0:31:25.0] GG: Indeed, but we all make mistakes.

 

[0:31:27.4] KM: That’s true. How do you know if you’ve got a good case? Then we’re going to go to break.

 

[0:31:34.0] GG: You’ve got to have good people. You’ve got to represent people that you like and you got to represent people who want to get up and go to work every morning.

 

[0:31:41.4] KM: If you’re the person who’s fixing to call you, before they call you and waste everybody’s time, is there some list of punch list that they could go down and say, “I have a good case,” or “I don’t have a good case.”

 

[0:31:53.2] GG: It so much depends upon the type of case, that really I couldn’t —

 

[0:31:59.4] KM: There’s no punch list. Just call you. 

 

[0:32:01.3] GG: Yeah.

 

[0:32:01.4] KM: Let’s take a quick break. When we come back we’ll continue to get advice from Gary. We’ll be taking phone calls and we’ll have him educate us on the upcoming ballot issue that you need to know about before you go into the voting booth. If you miss any part of this show, a podcast will be made available next week on flagandbanner.com’s website, YouTube. BlogTalk and iTunes.

 

[0:32:20.8] TB: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. We’ll be right back.

 

[0:32:38.6] KM: You’re listening to up in your business with me, Kerry McCoy. My guest today in Little Rock, Arkansas, Attorney Gary Green, founder of the Law Offices of Gary Green.

 

Another one of your quotes from your website Gary, was you said, “I was lucky to have family friends, teachers who encouraged and guided me.” When asked why do I continue to practice law, you said, “Because it’s what I do best. In my mind, being a lawyer, is no different and no more important than being a brick player or a carpenter or a mechanic. I go to them when I need their help and hope they will come to me when they need mine.” That’s good.

 

[0:33:10.1] GG: Definitely what I do best. Definitely don’t working on your car. 

 

[0:33:14.6] KM: You would work all the time if your wife didn’t make you come home.

 

[0:33:17.3] GG: I would love. I love to work.

 

[0:33:19.1] KM: A lot of people think of work, I just recently realized this. A lot of people think of work as work, but a lot of us think of work as being creative.

 

[0:33:27.4] GG: That’s right.

 

[0:33:28.6] KM: It’s a creative outlet. When you’re doing the type of job that you feel like you’re being creatively satisfied, it’s not work anymore.

 

[0:33:36.2] GG: That’s correct.

 

[0:33:37.4] KM: Tell me about your mentors, John Ward.

 

[0:33:40.0] GG: Retired attorney, retired circuit judge. He’s the one who put those 50 cases in my lap.

 

[0:33:46.2] KM: Yeah. He was a game changer.

 

[0:33:47.0] GG: Yes, he was. 

 

[0:33:49.4] KM: Milas Hale.

 

[0:33:51.5] GG: The one who gave to me the inspiration of people’s practice. Milas and I when we practiced together, there was no case too small. We had a lot of them and there was no case too small.

 

[0:34:04.1] KM: That’s nice. Gary Eubanks?

 

[0:34:06.7] GG: I think probably the maverick, the pioneer for lawyer advertising in this state, definitely, and probably regionally, if not throughout the nation.

 

[0:34:19.7] KM: Did you know that you and I are both the sponsors for the AETN Vietnam War Documentary by Ken Burns?

 

[0:34:26.1] GG: They told me. I was s sole sponsor.

 

[0:34:27.9] KM: They did not. I think you and I are the only two though.

 

[0:34:33.1] GG: I’m very, very happy to be doing it. I’m glad you brought it up too. I know it starts this month and I hope that we can give them a plug as far as what nights to watch it. I think it’s going to be great.

 

[0:34:42.8] KM: Yes, we’ve got it on the Arkansas — You need to put it on your website. We’ve it on Flag & Banner’s website. We got a slide with all the dates and the times and they’re going to play it — They were going to play it just — I think they were going to run the series three times, but now I think they’re going to run the series the four times and play it like every Saturday for 10 Saturdays in a row, but that won’t be till November or December. If you want to watch the whole thing, it starts in September.

 

[0:35:05.7] GG: It’s a 10-part series. Is that right?

 

[0:35:07.6] KM: Yeah, that’s right.

 

[0:35:09.4] GG: I’ll catch them all eventually.

 

[0:35:10.9] KM: Record it, and when you’re up at night, you can turn it on and watch it. It’s got a — I’m an AETN PBS lover. I watch it all the time and I see you on there and I know you are too, because I see you on there all the time.

 

[0:35:24.2] GG: Sure.

 

[0:35:25.8] KM: You’re always advertising with them. This documentary has been in the works for 10 years. It’s got footage that’s never been seen before.

 

[0:35:35.4] GG: To me, it is the opportunity for this country to acknowledge the Vietnam vets in a way they were never acknowledged at the time of the Vietnam War.

 

[0:35:47.4] KM: That is exactly what I said to Martin the other day when he asked me for a quote, and I said, “It’s time we gave them their due.” You also give credit to your parents and your grandparents to follow the golden rule. What’s the golden rule?

 

[0:35:59.2] GG: I was trying to teach that to Reese yesterday, and I’ve found that —

 

[0:36:02.2] KM: Who’s Reece?

 

[0:36:03.4] GG: Older grandson.

 

[0:36:04.4] KM: Okay.

 

[0:36:05.4] GG: Four years ole in November. I think I got through to him, that you do to others as you would have them do unto you. I kind of make fun of that on my webpage as far as my parents and grandparents taught me the golden rule and then my law professors told me to ignore it. Of course, we talked earlier about when you’re trying a case to a jury, it’s importer argument to mention or imply the golden rule.

 

[0:36:31.3] KM: Although you can’t say put yourself in their shoes, in the plaintiff’s shoes.

 

[0:36:37.1] GG: You can say imagine.

 

[0:36:38.8] KM: Imagine. Oh! There’s always a lawyer trick to everything. The other thing I love about you when I went on your website is you have a whole page dedicated to lawyer jokes.

 

[0:36:49.7] GG: Sometimes scary, you’ve just got to embrace it.

 

[0:36:52.6] KM: I thought that was real. I wanted to tell a lawyer joke and I thought, “That is so techy.” I did that to the poor police chief. I told that police joke and he was like, “Yeah, that’s not funny.” Then I went on your website and I was like, “He’s got a whole list of it.” You started in 1995. Your jokes go back to 1995. 

 

[0:37:09.8] GG: Yes.

 

[0:37:10.0] KM: You launched your website in 1995?

 

[0:37:12.1] GG: ’95 or ’96. WE get a lot of people sending us jokes. Apparently, when you look up layer jokes on Google, our webpage pops up.

 

[0:37:25.7] KM: That’s one way to get SEO, search engine optimization for you people out there that don’t know what SEO means. I hear there are changes coming to our court. You need to educate us. What’s coming down the pike?

 

[0:37:36.8] GG: Senate joint resolution 8 is on the ballot for November. It is a Tort reform measure and it’s been done very craftily on a couple of fronts, and they’re going to fool people. They’ve already fooled people, and if you’ve been approached at the grocery store to please sign this petition, they will say, “All it does is limit or cap lawyer fees.”

 

That’s true. It does limit in cap lawyer fees, but more importantly it places a value on life and it caps a value on life of $500,000, which sound like a lot of money maybe, until we follow the golden rule and put our self in the shoes of the person who’s lost their life or lost a limb or lost their ability to have quality of life.

 

They painted the target on the backs of the attorneys to get people to — Like I told you, the easiest case to try is a legal malpractice case. Nobody likes lawyers. I guess they all like their lawyer, but in general the group is not well respected and they think that if they can gig the lawyers on reducing the fee, then the populous who’s voting this in won’t notice that they’ve just capped the value of their life in case they need their day in court. 

 

[0:39:11.1] KM: What’s the name of this?

 

[0:39:13.4] GG: I think it’s known as senate joint resolution 8.

 

[0:39:17.0] KM: Senate joint resolution 8 is going to be in the ballet in what month?

 

[0:39:21.2] GG: November.

 

[0:39:21.7] KM: Of this year?

 

[0:39:22.5] GG: Yes.

 

[0:39:23.7] KM: It’s being kilted as putting a cap on a lawyer fees. 

 

[0:39:30.7] GG: Yes. Only. That’s the only thing they mentioned most times.

 

[0:39:34.5] KM: But it also puts a cap on what the plaintiff can receive.

 

[0:39:38.3] GG: Yes. Very much so.

 

[0:39:40.2] KM: You’re saying it can only be $500,000, so that $2 million case for that lady who lost a kidney, she could only have gotten $500,000?

 

[0:39:48.3] GG: Correct.

 

[0:39:50.3] KM: For all? Is it malpractice only?

 

[0:39:51.7] GG: It’s all cases.

 

[0:39:53.5] KM: For all cases.

 

[0:39:54.8] GG: Yes.

 

[0:39:55.7] KM: For truck drivers, when you lose your life or every one of those personal injury topics that we talked about.

 

[0:40:02.7] GG: Yes.

 

[0:40:03.0] KM: The maximum you could ever get is $500,000.

 

[0:40:06.5] GG: Yes. There are — I assume that there are ways to prove damages and excess of the $500,000 if, for example, there’s lost wage claim. The $500,000 does limit itself to the what I’ll call for the purposes of this conversation, pain and suffering in the general damages that are proven at trial. Specific damages are the damages for lost income or the amount of your medical bills or whatever. I think that you’re verdicts can be $500,000 plus whatever your specials are.

 

[0:40:49.7] KM: You can piggyback on that.

 

[0:40:51.2] GG: You can piggyback to some extent, but on the lady that we just talked about, they probably wouldn’t have exceeded a $500,000 verdict.

 

[0:41:01.0] KM: Is she able to work?

 

[0:41:03.1] GG: She is working, and that’s one reason that the jury liked her. We put on testimony that when she goes to work, it is a chore and that when she climbs to the top of the stairs she sometimes doesn’t have her breath when she gets there, but she goes to work because she loves it.

 

[0:41:23.6] KM: That’s coming out in November. We all need to go and vote — Did they trick us in the way they didn’t like vote for or vote against? You know how sometimes they do the wording and you think you’re voting against it, but you’re really voting for it? 

 

[0:41:36.1] GG: You’re voting to change our constitution. It’d be a vote against amending the constitution.

 

[0:41:43.2] KM: It’s going to be called senate —

 

[0:41:44.9] GG: Joint resolution 8.

 

[0:41:46.8] KM: That’s really good. Is that the Tort reform?

 

[0:41:50.4] GG: That is the Tort reform?

 

[0:41:51.8] KM: Is there anything else we need to know about?

 

[0:41:53.3] GG: Those are the main things. The limit on the value of life and general damages and the attorney’s fee cap.

 

[0:42:03.0] KM: Alright. This is our last break, and when we come back Gary is going to tell us about his other passions besides working. Can you believe that? If you missed any part of this show, a podcast will be made available next week on flagandbanner.com’s website, YouTube, BlogTalk and iTunes.

 

[0:42:18.3] TB: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. We’ll be right back.

 

[0:42:35.8] KM: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. My guest today is the 4^th right Gary Green, founder of the Law offices of Gary Green in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m going to tell you how to get in touch with him and his daughter and they can help you if you think you’ve got a case. We’ll do that in 5 minutes at the end of the show.

 

In addition to practicing law, you have a subdivision, I pecan grove, a vineyard, and this is my favorite you’ve written, two books for your grandchildren. Say the name of that one.

 

[0:43:05.2] GG: Grand-Pere Bear. That’s the first one I wrote.

 

[0:43:08.8] KM: That’s for what age?

 

[0:43:10.1] GG: It’s really for a second grader through a fifth grader.

 

[0:43:13.8] KM: Grand-pere means grandfather?

 

[0:43:15.5] GG: Grandfather in French.

 

[0:43:17.3] KM: I’m taking these books I’m having in front. Then what’s this one? 

 

[0:43:20.8] GG: An American Bear in Paris.

 

[0:43:22.2] KM: This is for?

 

[0:43:23.9] GG: Probably junior high, high school, maybe young-adult. This is a hundred pages long and I think that almost any age could appreciate it.

 

[0:43:34.4] KM: I might have you sign them. I’m going to have you do this one to my granddaughter Evelyn, and then I’m going to have you do this one to my grandson, Marsha.

 

[0:43:40.4] GG: I’ll be happy to.

 

[0:43:41.7] KM: Because that’s exactly their age groups. Then you handed me another one that you signed for me that’s still printed out in paper.

 

[0:43:48.7] GG: It publishes next month.

 

[0:43:50.1] KM: It’s called?

 

[0:43:51.3] GG: A Day with Grand-Pere.

 

[0:43:53.1] KM: You are so cute. I cannot believe that you do that. You find time to do all of that. Now, you’ve got a vineyard.

 

[0:44:00.8] GG: I do.

 

[0:44:01.4] KM: It’s muscadine.

 

[0:44:02.2] GG: Yes.

 

[0:44:02.6] KM: Where?

 

[0:44:03.7] GG: Petit Jean Mountain. Started off with grapes and muscadines and indeed this week I’m pulling out the last of the grape vines.

 

[0:44:13.2] KM: Do you make any money at that?

 

[0:44:14.2] GG: Absolutely not. You ever talked to a duck hunter who says, “What duck cost me a thousand dollars?”

 

[0:44:23.1] KM: Yeah.

 

[0:44:24.7] GG: My wine, if I were selling, would be at least a thousand dollars a bottle.

 

[0:44:30.1] KM: You don’t even look like you drink wine.

 

[0:44:31.8] GG: I love wine.

 

[0:44:32.1] KM: You do?

 

[0:44:33.1] GG: If you want a pecan pie, those are probably a thousand dollar pecan pies.

 

[0:44:37.4] KM: Yeah, you have a pecan grove. Is it on the same vineyard?

 

[0:44:39.0] GG: No. Different property. It’s on the Little Red River. A property that I acquired to go trout fishing, and then I’m a workaholic, so I had to have some pecan trees too.

 

[0:44:49.8] KM: When you go up there you can’t just relax. You got to do work on pecan trees.

 

[0:44:52.4] GG: Yeah.

 

[0:44:53.1] KM: Who takes care of that property? That’s what I always wonder about people that have these —

 

[0:44:56.1] GG: I have neighbors who help me as far as moving grass, that kind of stuff.

 

[0:45:00.4] KM: Pecan trees don’t need a lot of taking care up, I guess.

 

[0:45:02.9] GG: No. They do, more than I thought.

 

[0:45:07.2] KM: Aren’t they kind of delicate?

 

[0:45:09.0] GG: High maintenance.

 

[0:45:09.8] KM: Yeah. They’re kind of delicate, aren’t they? They won’t produce pecans if you don’t — Is it true that if you don’t pick up your pecans the year before, that they won’t produce in the next year?

 

[0:45:17.7] GG: No. I don’t think that that’s true. They do tell you to rake up everything to cut down on the disease for the tree, etc. I guess it could be true to the extent that if you allowed the disease to develop, it would affect. But no, I think that we just have some good years and some bad years as a general rule.

 

[0:45:36.0] KM: How many acres is it?

 

[0:45:37.5] GG: 50 acres on the pecans.

 

[0:45:39.9] KM: Then how about the vineyard?

 

[0:45:42.0] GG: It’s probably on a two acre spot.

 

[0:45:45.4] KM: It’s not too big.

 

[0:45:46.1] GG: No.

 

[0:45:46.9] KM: Then you’re trout fishing. It’s really just for trout fishing. That’s really why you bought it, like you said. You’re not trying to make any money at that at all.

 

[0:45:54.8] GG: Oh, no. Absolutely not.

 

[0:45:56.9] KM: How do people get in touch with you?

 

[0:46:00.1] GG: I think it’d be hard not to be able to find me if the amount of money I spent for advertising is any indication, but we’re on the web, ggreen.com.

 

[0:46:10.4] KM: It’s amazing, because I’ve known you, and you are a soft spoken. I would probably categorize you as an introvert, but you go to trial.

 

[0:46:21.0] GG: Yes.

 

[0:46:21.9] KM: You trial yourself.

 

[0:46:22.7] GG: Yes. I am an introvert. I very much appreciate my time alone. I appreciate the time that I spend working on the pecan trees or working on the grapes or whatever, but to me, being a lawyer is my job. It’s my profession, and even though I’m nervous when I start talking to the jury —

 

[0:46:42.7] KM: Every time?

 

[0:46:43.9] GG: Every time. I power through it.

 

[0:46:45.8] KM: Really?

 

[0:46:46.4] GG: yeah.

 

[0:46:47.2] KM: That is so encouraging for our listeners. Everybody is nervous. Sometimes people think, “Oh, you just got all the answers,” and everything is just so natural and easy for all of us to put our pants on one leg on at a time, and we all have to fight our demons to be successful.

 

[0:47:00.5] GG: Absolutely. You got to take the first step.

 

[0:47:03.3] KM: How do you take that first step? How did you ever decide, “I’m going to do this.”

 

[0:47:07.3] GG: You got to read the book.

 

[0:47:08.9] KM: Oh! The Grand-Pere Bear?

 

[0:47:10.2] GG: Yes.

 

[0:47:10.6] KM: Oh! Ain’t that good?

 

[0:47:12.4] GG: You imagine it, you tell people you’re going to do it, then you do it.

 

[0:47:15.7] KM: Where do you get these books? Amazon?

 

[0:47:19.5] GG: Yes. You can get them on Amazon, and that’s the best place to get them, really.

 

[0:47:24.3] KM: Did you have to publish a bunch of them, print a bunch of them up?

 

[0:47:26.8] GG: No, you don’t have to this day and time. You can literally print a book, a book.

 

[0:47:31.5] KM: A book.

 

[0:47:33.4] GG: When I did this, I got a hundred copies.

 

[0:47:35.8] KM: These are hard bag.

 

[0:47:37.1] GG: Aha.

 

[0:47:38.6] KM: You can literally print a hard bag.

 

[0:47:40.8] GG: Yes.

 

[0:47:41.8] KM: That’s really good to know. Any last words of advice? Go to vote this November. 

 

[0:47:47.2] GG: Go to vote this November. Follow the rule of three. That’s probably the best advice I’ve got to give to anybody.

 

[0:47:54.7] KM: What’s that mean?

 

[0:47:56.4] GG: A persuasion technique that makes it easier to remember things and to say things and to have things recalled in the future to simplify your life.

 

[0:48:07.1] KM: Say that again. The persuasion of three. What does that mean?

 

[0:48:10.7] GG: The rule of three. It’s in the book too.

 

[0:48:13.4] KM: Oh! I got to go home. I got to read this before I give it to the grandkids. Alright, what’s the rule three?

 

[0:48:17.0] GG: The rule of three is that it’s easier to remember sequences of three rather than one or two or four or five. Churchill is probably one of the best examples. When you think of Churchill and you think of his great speeches, you think of, “Well fight them on the streets. We’ll fight them in the skies. We’ll fight them on the beaches.” It’s going to take our toil, our sweat and our tears.

 

When he said that, it’s going to take our toil, blood, sweat, toil and tears, and history has shortened it to three. We can remember things in terms of three more easily than anything else.

 

Beginning middle-end, if you think about ways to remember things, group them into three. You can have a three nine-point trial or speech memorized if you take in terms of three and then each of those points has three points that you’re going to make. Each of those points has three points you’re going to make. It’s just the best thing that I’ve run across as far as being success and getting things down to simple terms.

 

[0:49:32.1] KM: The rule of three.

 

[0:49:32.6] GG: The rule of three.

 

[0:49:34.0] KM: That is some of the best advice I’ve ever been given. Wow! Gary, I’d love visiting with you. I haven’t seen you in so long. It’s been a real joy. Congratulations on your success.

 

[0:49:43.9] GG: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

 

[0:49:46.3] KM: You’re welcome. I have a gift for you. Where all do you practice law?

 

[0:49:49.2] GG: Really, right now, I would call myself all over the country, but most of my cases are in Arkansas.

 

[0:49:55.0] KM: Well, I gave you Arkansas. According to your website, I gave you Arkansas. For our listeners, I’m giving Gary a desk set for him to take to his office. It’s got the U.S. flag, the Arkansas flag, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee, because your website says you do all of those.

 

[0:50:09.6] GG: Yes, we do. Thank you.

 

[0:50:11.3] KM: I gave you some extra holes in those bases in case you branch on to other states.

 

[0:50:15.8] GG: I sure will. Thank you.

 

[0:50:16.8] KM: You’re welcome. Who’s our guest next week?

 

[0:50:18.5] TB: Next week is going to be Susie Cowen of the Local First Arkansas Business Alliance.

 

[0:50:23.4] KM: I’ve never met her. She’s a young woman who has started like three businesses. She’s a young entrepreneur and I’m going to be really interested to learn about her and to see what she’s up to now. I think she has a magazine. Her goal, I think, is to align all these Arkansas businesses to buy locally.

 

[0:50:41.9] TB: Yeah. Apparently, from what I understand in the notes, we didn’t reach out to her. She reached out wanting to be on the show. 

 

[0:50:47.6] KM: That’s a real entrepreneur. 

 

[0:50:48.7] TB: I think that’s one of the first guests we’ve had that they came to us instead of us reaching out to them. 

 

[0:50:54.6] KM: That may be true.

 

[0:50:55.3] TB: And it’s on our year anniversary. 

 

[0:50:57.2] KM: That’s right, everybody. Next week will be our one year anniversary. Who knew would be here a year later? Me, I knew.

 

To my listeners, if you have a great entrepreneurial story you would like to share, I would love to hear from you. Send a brief bio, like Susie did, and your contact info to questions@upyourbusiness.org and someone will be in touch. Finally, to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program has been about you, you’re right, but it’s also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you’ve heard or learned something that’s been inspiring or enlightening, and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence or your life.

 

I’m Kerry McCoy and I’ll see you next time on Up in Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.

 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

 

[0:51:43.5] TB: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Want to hear today’s program again or want someone else to benefit from it? Jot this down. Next week a podcast will be available flagandbanner.com. Click the tab labeled “Radio Show”, there you’ll find today’s segments with links to resources you heard discussed on this program. Kerry’s goal: to help you live the American Dream.

 

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