Networking & Professional Responsibilities

After this evening, I think I'll be spending the rest of my week at home. Just not feeling human interaction right now. Here's why:

Some people have totally gotten confused on the definition and basics of networking. If you're in the entertainment business, particularly if you work with actors & think you're entitled to send me e-mail correspondence I never asked for to an address that's not publicly listed for me you'd better be paying extra special attention.

Networking IS:

* Reaching out to people you think are interesting or awesome for whatever reason; I'm not going to tell you HOW to do it, you just do it
* Showing an interest in that person's life, interests, passions, etc. as they relate to your purpose for talking to him/her
* Learning what you can from this person; don't assume only the pros have knowledge since the newbies to a field also have their finger on the pulse of new & awesome that you might not--those people may also have a unique life experience or story
* Thinking of that person for things if something comes up that might be of interest to them
* Giving someone newer to your field or experience your take over a coffee break or lunch; this is what we call in the business world an "informational interview" since you're getting information that could be practical to you or your experience in a given occupation

Networking is NOT:

* Charging people $ for the privilege of listening to you or giving career advice (especially if you solicited someone through a private e-mail & did not PERSONALLY get invited to send anything or start communicating with the person)
* Communicating with someone in a manner they didn't approve of; note that I'm not speaking of a LinkedIn connection invite or using a Craig's List ad where the person said they'd be interested in talking to people from your profession--I'm referring to using an e-mail you got through a third party with no prior communication to its owner & who has NOTHING to do with the owner; personal assistants are fine but a random business is NOT
* Being an asshole when someone doesn't want to pay $ to talk to you after you've made an unsolicited communication

This is called being a huckster, a douchebag, an asshole, whatever name you want to use. Point is, those acts are a serious violation of business etiquette. As I mentioned before, I get real pissed about business etiquette violations & Jenn Lederer made that mistake before so I'm far nastier about it now.

Encountered the second idiot to forget who she was talking to. This time it was Kerry Donelli of the Donelli Acting Studios. Here's their website.

Their studio recently started sending me unsolicited communications via newsletter. I have no clue how they got my information or who gave it out. Maybe I should thank whoever gave out my private e-mail to these people since now I don't have to worry about them working with my film company & irritating my colleagues. Plus, if they're that dense & clueless then they aren't first class caliber or worth any sane person's time.

When I get a spare moment, I write an e-mail explaining to the person who sent it that A) I happen to do other things in this business besides acting (like being a fucking ATTORNEY & having ownership in a FILM COMPANY), B) she's sending this to a private e-mail address (hello, I have enough shit to deal with without being bothered with all this), C) if there's an interest in networking, I'll consider it (since you should at least investigate if there could be mutual benefit for whoever contacts you in this industry regardless of how communication came about) & D) with their sending information about all these agents & managers, it may not even be relevant to me since I'm not so sure a person in my shoes would even derive benefit from representation (you know, already being a lawyer, having a film company & having contacts could very well make it undesirable for any potential representative not to mention I do have my own will & won't be changing who I am for anyone else).

I also suggested this person look me up online & make her assessments that way (since I grovel to no one & you accept me as I am; you can make your own judgments on my awesomeness or lack thereof since I'm not a used car salesman or someone who feels it's necessary to justify who I am or what I've done). As you can probably tell, I do write longer messages since when I write you I put in some fucking time, thought & effort. It's part of who I am & if you don't like it, I honestly conclude that you're uneducated as well as lazy.

Here's what she writes in response:

I can not read all this. Feel free to call me if you need. Thanks for your understanding.

She could have read it at her leisure & responded at a better time for her. That would have been fine. We all have busy schedules & I usually give folks about a week to respond to my correspondence before getting annoyed.

As a rule, I don't like calling people unless I've had some interaction with them or a lot of time has passed. I also don't like random folk I may not want to deal with at all having my personal phone numbers or bugging me on things. Plus, how do I know she wouldn't have just given that out to others since she somehow got my private e-mail?

I write this in response since it's the simplest statement of all & she obviously has an aversion to how educated people speak:

I'll sum it up as thus: this is UNSOLICITED contact. You can either A choose to network w/me & take a personal interest or B) take me off your list. Simple as that.


I feel it's rude of her to not have bothered reading what I actually wrote & that she's engaging in some serious disrespect. I've had civil discourse & polite conversations with people who are a trillion times busier than she could claim. If she thinks she's busier than the average attorney, especially one who goes to court regularly, she's seriously deluded. I've spoken to various people up & down the food chain of this business, some of whom are 24/7 busy and gotten polite, civil discourse from them via e-mail and/or phone.

So, I'm not about to tolerate this kind of bullshit from some total bitch whose company keeps posting ads for illegal internships on Craig's List.

I can call her a "bitch" because of this response. If you don't think it's bitchy, tell me how it isn't & wouldn't rub you the wrong way:

You want me to WORK WITH YOU after you viciously attack me? lol

you do realize you can unsubscribe at the bottom of the email, yes? welcome
to 2001.

I didn't read this until the next day, though she wrote it seconds after I wrote my response. AND she'd sent out another newsletter to that e-mail, having ignored what I already requested about taking my damn e-mail address off there (I've since removed mine from that list & got to comment on Kerry's bitchiness in their form asking why I wanted to be removed).

Before blocking the e-mail address & ceasing this BS, I wrote this in response:

And YOU choose to disrespect my time & effort in writing when I DO happen to be in fields that could help & benefit you (I'm ALSO an entertainment attorney as well as an exec in an entertainment company, thanks). Guess who handles actor submissions & paperwork for that company?

Guess who's got a LOT of contacts with lawyers in numerous areas & behind the scenes folk? Guess who will be warning these contacts not to deal with disrespectful types who will only cause them problems? I'll let you figure out the repercussions on your own.

The lesson here is to do a Google search or even an IMDB search before you shoot off your mouth to others who didn't ask you to contact them. I'd already heard of this company before & researched them. I didn't recall either of the principles doing anything great & exciting and they certainly never worked with me or mine. For being writers & filmmakers, this Kerry has some pretty pathetic business savvy to go pissing off an entertainment law attorney. Especially one who's got the contacts I have.

Renaissance people have uncommon, unusual careers; you can't afford to make assumptions about them or be nasty to them. They can fuck you up in serious ways. If you think all people doing acting work are peons, you're dead wrong & if you're nasty to me it's going to cost you big time. My rage and blackballing is as hard core as that of any insider or behind the scenes person. I'll also tell my contacts if your name comes up since why should they have to suffer your bullshit; I'd want them to do that for me.

Incidents like this show me your true colors & most definitely paint a picture of stupidity, laziness, lack of innovation, disrespect, just all sorts of bad things you don't want attorneys or your industry peers thinking about YOU. Particularly if you care about advancing anywhere or doing something great.

How someone uses my info is their business but as a business owner & as a lawyer, it's my responsibility not to endorse or stand for the bullshit from someone else in this business.

Yes, doing what I do means you've got responsibilities. One of them is warning others about scumbags & making sure your contacts (and in some cases, simply innocent parties) aren't being taken by some asshole. Another is alerting people to the bullshit if you personally experienced it or get it on good authority that someone's bad news. The responsibilities as a film executive & as a lawyer are not identical but both are significant and important, at least in my book.

One responsibility I take seriously as an attorney is speaking out against society's bullshit, which is why I felt compelled to write about my childfree experiences. I felt that problem deserved acknowledgment & non-attorneys should know that even an attorney (whom doctors tend to show some modicum of respect & professional courtesy towards, maybe as part of an unofficial code of assholes or something?) went through it. Attorneys are supposed to protect the little guy & make sure private enterprise, culture and any other outside force isn't stomping on their legal rights.

Sounds like superhero stuff, huh? Well, I have been called "the avenger."

Plus, despite all the stuff you hear about the law school scam, I've observed and seen that attorneys do have some duties and responsibilities to society at large. Why would we have an ethical code if we didn't? You do also get treated differently if you're a lawyer & I feel in some situations my mentioning it does affect the kind of regard or treatment I get from people. Usually, it comes up in casual conversation or if someone's screwing me over/gives me a sense that my voice means shit to them. Perhaps I also give off some sort of vibe.

Anyhow, one responsibility I feel I have as a volunteer lawyer for Monday Night Law is to give the client some sort of self-efficacy. Since I can't take on full time responsibility for anyone coming in & I can't give out names of attorneys I may know who work in a particular area, I feel anyone I deal with should leave feeling like I did give a shit about their issue and tried to help. To me, you should try to help & at least ask questions to get a sense of where the client has been, what the client wants and if you can make that session useful to the client.

I came in today to get paired up with someone I simply couldn't work with. Apparently, the person was newer than me & I came in during the middle of a client session.

Here's what happened:

1. No real friendliness or sense of trying to be nice w/this person toward me. That already puts you in the hole with me.

2. I get no idea of what's going on or what's been said since, again I'm in the middle of all this.

3. The person I'm working with makes ZERO effort to do anything other than say "You need a lawyer" and give out information the person already has. I probe further & ask about the things the client is saying like about paperwork the person has or proof of what we're hearing there.

I also attempt to give this client some attempt at self-efficacy by asking if she'd talked to anyone at the office for the self-represented since they're supposed to help you with procedural matters & making suggestions to get this evidence for an upcoming proceeding.

4. The person tries telling this client that all law school legal clinics are non-existent for help at this point since none operate in the summer. Having worked in one myself during the summer, I outright refute this in the client's presence.

The person argued with me & I said "That's that ONE clinic (listed on a piece of paper the client had already gotten & showed to us). You can't say that's true for ALL of them." I said to talk to the people at other clinics that handle such matters & see what they say. I also said they might have resources to suggest even if they can't help. The other counseling lawyer also made it sound like the clinics were second rate, which I didn't particularly like.

We never know about things in life if we don't make any effort.

5. I felt like this person was doing ZERO counseling, just handing out info & saying "you need a lawyer." I even said "There are a lot of people who need lawyers & sadly they don't always get them. That's the reality of our legal system." when I got shit over trying to suggest some practical self-help measures like getting evidence & having your witnesses in order. Any attorney working with you on a trial would ask you to do this already & if someone does that, it hurts nothing. You'll either make the attorney's job easier or you'll be able to help yourself if you get caught in a situation where you need a lawyer & can't get one.

I did tell the client she did the right thing in coming to us when she did & not when the proceeding was next week or something since that would help her in getting a lawyer.

6. After the client leaves, this person proceeds to get in my face over the statement on legal clinics. I pointed out that they do have work study students working there in the summer, at least in mine & that she couldn't make a general statement like that based on ONE school clinic's policies. After more words are exchanged, seeing we're at an impasse, I'm low on water & not wanting to be near this person at all, I get up trying to get more water after finishing my last little bit.

Then I decided to take that time to go to the bathroom & in case I want to leave, grab all my things (which I was able to do somewhat inconspicuously since that consisted of my purse, which I sure as hell wouldn't leave unattended, and a small bag I'd carried something I mailed at the post office in).

I wasn't sure how I wanted to handle the situation. Did I want to leave? If I left, how would I do it? Would I just slip away? Would I sign out & make up an excuse to go? Would I talk to the organizers & say I can't work with this person the whole evening?

Took me some time to contemplate this. Part of me leaving a conflict situation is so I don't resort to violence, yelling or whatever else I may feel like doing that wouldn't be appropriate for a particular setting. I did think "I'm not putting up with this bullshit." I was also annoyed I had no one I could talk to about the situation at the moment to advise me on what to do.

Ultimately, I decided to return since I felt it wouldn't be fair to the organizers if I bailed out without saying anything and that it wouldn't be fair to the clients coming in. Plus, I'm probably one of the few attorneys who's personally lived some things & personally knows folks who've gone through some of the issues I've seen. Why should I let some stereotypical attorney asshole chase me out & perpetuate negativity to the clients?

I though to myself about how I do have a distinct style & that someone might bother listening to me since I'm not bitchy to folk and try to make sure I offer something even if it's just an apology because I can't provide what they need. I know how I'd want my family, friends & acquaintances to be treated if they met with a lawyer so I try to give that treatment to others.

Thankfully, the problem sorted itself out. This dreadful person got another partner, I told the organizers what happened (after they told me they presumed it wasn't an issue that this person was working with someone else & I confirmed it) & I got someone else to work with (apparently, that person also had personality issues w/their original partner). That went slightly better though I didn't appreciate the attitude I got over not having precisely XYZ experience in THIS particular area of law in THIS particular state.

I think that's a determination for the program organizers to make, don't you? There's a little thing called "general knowledge of procedure" that's certainly better than knowing zero about something.

Plus, in a prior session when I mentioned what I did & that I felt incompetent in doing sessions, my partner said that "nobody knows everything" and not to worry about that.

Recently, I was asked if I want to do this program again. I said "maybe" but now I wonder. Perhaps I should start counseling on my own since maybe I have a better manner & might be able to sound semi-competent or at least direct someone to the right resources.

When I relayed this tale to my husband & my mother, they agreed with my actions. My husband in particular said if he'd been this client he would have lashed out at this attorney stereotype for not being any help. Some clients, though, don't have that wherewithal or the strength to speak up. Those people need self-efficacy & empowerment more than anyone. They sure as hell don't deserve to be patronized & given zero counseling by an attorney who's supposed to be COUNSELING them! You can give information but unless you're handing out something new to them, you're not being helpful & you are wasting the client's time. I personally feel you need both if you're going to counsel legal clients; that's just my feeling.

I'd hope there are some attorneys who agree with me on this.

Turning Lawyer Applicants Into Indentured Servants & A Serious Lesson in Business Etiquette

So, if you've done your homework before reading this blog you know that I have 2 different core audiences in the professional world: attorneys & entertainment professionals. This one's going to have something for both (though this is still ultimately the place where I can be myself; if you're fortunate enough to do this, you really should).

First off, NY state is soon to be the very first state in the US to require all new attorneys to undergo 50 hours of pro bono work before being admitted to the bar & provide certification of this to the bar examiners. This article is a good overview on the issue & addresses some things.

However, I feel the need to comment since I don't think it goes far enough & doesn't cover things I've said:

1. You may know I'm doing my first stint of Monday Night Law this year. If you read one of my earlier entries, you read about a conversation I overheard about someone being turned down for pro bono work she actually wanted to do & cared about b/c the organization only wanted BigLaw attorneys trying to meet their pro bono requirement.

Now what about these aspiring lawyers? They're not going to have malpractice insurance to cover them. If these organizations are so strapped for cash, they can't cover experienced attorneys volunteering then how are they going to cover these new folks?

2. Why should new attorneys get to be involved in programs to "get experience" when there are tons of unemployed attorneys who could use it? What about the attorneys who actually WANT to be there getting the experience & feeling good about doing it? Don't they count?

3. Let's expand on that that whole "reluctant volunteer" issue: many of these volunteer projects won't take new attorneys. Monday Night Law doesn't take attorneys admitted less than 2 years. Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts won't take you unless you've been a lawyer for 7 years (I'm heading into my 5th year, even though I've been doing far more in this business than their majority BigLaw volunteers probably have; reading Yelp reviews of them also makes me adamant about never recommending anyone I know there). Presumably, you want to take on pro bono work that might have relevance to what you want to do, right? Or maybe you'd like to do something you'd actually, oh I don't know, ENJOY?

What if there's no opportunity for that? Then what? Are we now subjecting people who can't afford legal counsel to bitter, miserable law students/graduates who are only there to get this pro bono requirement met & could care less about their problems or them as people? The requirement doesn't say "50 hours of pro bono work where you built rapport with clients" or "50 hours of pro bono work where you helped clients w/their matters." It just says "50 hours of pro bono work." Not a word about the quality of it.

I would hope that the students commenting on this article are right about people caring about using their schooling to help others but I can't help but wonder about the elitist types who don't want to be there, are miserable & will take it out on any organization they work with as well as any clients walking in the door. You know there are some.

I personally CHOSE what I did & don't regret it. Working at my school's legal clinic proved to me that I wasn't really cut out for the politics & craziness of a law firm. The helping people aspect was great (and that makes a lawyer feel better since if you're not in charge or a veteran lawyer, you're often made to feel useless, incompetent & like you've got a permanent case of two left feet or foot in mouth disease). The life lessons & war stories were great truths I use to this day. However, the stories I heard about law firms & the time I was yelled at by one of our professors in the second phase of my work there were enough for me to say "Nope, not happening for me."

There are some projects I would have no interest or desire in doing. Helping someone convicted of many sorts of crimes is one (rape, animal abuse, neglecting children, hate crimes, etc.). Anything dealing with illegal immigrants is another. I have some very personal beliefs on these subjects that would make representation by me not only ineffective but verboten under ethics rules (attorneys can't take cases where they will not be able to provide zealous advocacy or effective counsel due to personal biases, religious beliefs, etc.). If you have to subject someone to a more rigorous screening process than you would for something where you don't have personal biases, then you can't effectively counsel him/her.

These are some of the individuals lawyers come in contact with & the people society doesn't like or approve of do need legal counsel. However, I know there are certain cases I can't take & certain projects I wouldn't be a fit for. I'm sure there are attorneys who wouldn't be able to deal with some of the matters I have but that's why there's a little something for everyone. At least, when you're licensed.

4. Some schools apparently have some very competitive clinic & internship/externship programs. Fortunately, I didn't attend such a law school but I've read about places where if you aren't on law review or top of the class you won't get into any of the law school programs. If you're in that boat, then what do you do? Again, there's that problem of not getting the opportunity you want & being forced into something where you & everyone around you will be miserable.

I have to wonder if this is a "do good" way to project yet more elitism into NY bar admissions. No one's going to say "Oh, it's a bad idea to require lawyers to help the less fortunate," but if you're dealing with a lower ranked student at one of these schools with a competitive clinic/internship/externship program who then has no ability to meet the requirement (presuming the outside organizations also try instituting grade requirements, which isn't uncommon at some places & especially considering nearly all the decision makers in the legal field view GPA/class rank as the only way to determine one's value as a human being), you've just shut out the attorneys who are ranked lower in the class. You see where I might get that notion & why it could raise hackles?

5. Then, to get away from the issues I took with this requirement was the point brought up by many about the whole notion of indentured servitude of lawyers. In case you haven't heard, the legal job market sucks for new grads. Even BigLaw isn't taking all the top GPA/law review members & starting a business without money, contacts, etc. is extremely hard. Some of us are good hustlers. Some of us are great at networking. Some of us can get breaks by doing this stuff.

However, you can be a good networker & still have problems in this economy. You can't MAKE someone give you a job or an opportunity. You can't make someone do something they don't want to do. Plain & simple.

So I do think the people pointing out this being indentured servitude that the folk imposing this aren't going to have to do personally do make a good point. It does seem like you shouldn't outsource your own pro bono duties or even duties to help society/your fellow man in general to the attorney applicants, who really have no say in the matter & can't object.

In sum, I think it's a noble idea but misguided. You can't really force anyone to be a good citizen. It's either there or it isn't. Kind of like what my law school Ethics professor said in class. He said he couldn't instill Ethics into us as 20 somethings & either we had ethics or we didn't. Same goes for this. You've either got a sense of altruism & care about helping people or you don't. I don't think this requirement is going to make a selfish, elitist scumbag become Mother Teresa all of a sudden.

Plus, the people imposing this requirement ignore the issue of classism among the poor. Those people will know in a second if some aspiring NY bar applicant is being patronizing or just there to collect hours vs. really caring about their issue, empathetic to that client & "gets" it. It is a different world & if you don't brief people on it, they will give off a terrible impression to the client + may even discourage that client from ever seeking out a lawyer again. We know not everyone involved in pro bono projects cares about the work or the people coming for help.

So, that's a special lawyer issue that is definitely important to the community at large & I'd love to know what non-lawyers think about it, especially those who'd likely have to go to these organizations to get legal representation. I wonder if the Chief Justice is taking statements from those people directly; if not, he should consider them.

Now, we're going to look at business etiquette. Consider the following scenario:

You have an e-mail account that is not available to the general public. The only acceptable way someone would get the address is by A) getting your business card or headshot/resume (most likely from you), B) being a member of a bar association or networking group you belong to i.e. an attorney or entertainment professional, C) you initiating contact with the person.

I say "acceptable" to mean a method where it was okay for the person to reach out to you. Those who have this e-mail also know not to pass your information along without asking you first. The majority of your contacts are attorneys, entertainment professionals working behind the scenes or people you've told not to spread your info around without asking.

Attorneys & entertainment professionals generally don't share your info without asking since they get hassled enough by strangers & if they share your info without asking, they know you could (and probably would) do it right back to them. If they do it to lots of people, they will effectively get blackballed. Everyone knows this.

Another fact about this e-mail account: your full name is not associated with it. That means if you sent an e-mail to someone using it, they would not get your name unless you put it in there. You're extremely conscientious & paranoid about giving out your name to strangers since you come up first in a Google search. So, this account is one of those insider things.

Rule #1: Do NOT use a "secret" e-mail, phone number, fax number, screen name or social media account to contact a stranger. Assume a 98% chance that you will piss off that stranger. This is why getting lists of contacts for the entertainment industry doesn't really work if you don't have a personal friend/contact of that stranger that will vouch for you.

The same goes for lawyers who don't have law firms. Don't contact lawyer/film execs through a secret means. Secret means you wouldn't find it in an online search & have no one to vouch for you.

Rule #2: If you spam someone, be prepared to tell the person how you got that secret means of communication, apologize & take what's coming to you. You ARE in the wrong. Make no mistake about it.

Rule #3: If you're going to send your newsletters/updates/impersonal correspondence to a stranger, be prepared to accept any such correspondence that stranger may send. This includes information about fundraising campaigns for films, newsletters & any other business correspondence. If you want someone to care about YOUR company/updates/life, you'll have to do the same for your recipients. This is life.

Rule #4: If the stranger reaches out to you about networking & says you may be a useful contact (especially where that strangers is someone who could hire your clients), you seize that opportunity to be friendly. If that person was someone you chose to target with your materials, any rational person would conclude that you are open to networking with said person. After all, why waste your time with people you don't see an opportunity in dealing with?

Rule #5: Follow up with people who could hire your clients or otherwise help your business. To only look at the present time & not the long term future is stupid. For those in the entertainment field: not networking with entertainment lawyers is stupid, presumptuous & will screw you sooner or later.

Most entertainment folk know better than to snub lawyers; even your newest actors tend to be at least polite to entertainment law attorneys. As one person told me once, we serve a useful & important function. Don't you fucking forget it; if you're going to do anything professionally in entertainment, you will need us. It's just a matter of time. Find someone who makes a living in the entertainment field who doesn't have a lawyer or an agent/manager who is a licensed attorney. I dare you.

And as you don't piss off entertainment lawyers in general, you don't piss off someone who knows a lot of attorneys & has extensive contacts in entertainment law. Guess who most of my lawyer contacts are? Entertainment law attorneys. Common interests, people.

I also look out for my friends & if I hear they're going to be working with someone I know is a jerk, I'll be saying something.

Back to the scenario:

You get a newsletter from a total stranger in this "secret" e-mail account. It contains your full name in the Recipient line. You don't know the name in any context. This isn't a LinkedIn contact, a member of a LinkedIn group, a business contact, a lawyer or someone who'd have a legitimate reason to have your e-mail. Nor did this person acknowledge that they're sending you this thing & don't know you.

In doing your homework, you learn this person could be a good contact & might be able to answer a simple informational question. Sort of a cross between informational interview & "What's it like to do X?" inquiry. You get a response by phone then send your info so the person can do their research on you.

You hear nothing. Then, you take an opportunity to meet this spammer/potentially useful contact in person. Figuring maybe this person's busy, you're not too phased with a lack of response to your e-mail. After all, you know people in this stranger's line of work tend to be busy.

When you hear this person speak, you get an impression of competence & the person does have some sense of humor.

However, you ask this person directly about what you wrote in e-mail & guess what the stranger does? The stranger attempts to recruit you for one on one time & charge you money for it.

Remember, this person reached out to YOU & had no way of having your private e-mail account. You asked everyone who had that personal e-mail that may have dealt with this stranger & no one knew this person. Presuming professionals aren't going to send out your info for you to get spammed & that these individuals have no personal animus toward you to get your name added onto a spam list, you have to conclude that the stranger is not only a spammer but a total asshole. This was NOT you making first contact & then trying to get a freebie.

Who was this person, you may ask? Well, as I feel it's my duty to inform those I know in the business about professionalism & counter the BS where I can I'll tell you. That would be Jenn Lederer of The Dream Management. Her competence is not a concern for me (the typical reason I'd not work with someone in this business). It's her lack of business etiquette.

I also wonder how much respect she actually has for lawyers considering when I saw her speak, she told actors to see about getting a writing to get reel footage for student films but that the filmmakers could choose at their leisure whether to give it up or not. Not wanting to announce to the entire room my entire resume or background, I thought loudly "That's a contract! If these people don't act, the performer could sue & maybe even get an injunction against the film getting a distribution deal, going to festivals, etc. At the very least, they might be able to get some money. Depends on what this contract says & what you include or not."

I've also told people not to waste their time with anyone who won't sign contracts or freaks out when you mention discussing the work with your lawyer or manager since that shouts "unprofessional." Even on my company's no budget, no name films you'd better believe there were contracts. That "smile & a handshake" stuff doesn't cut it if you want to be a working professional in entertainment. No professional I've met has EVER said this to an actor & or devalued lawyers in this way.

This leads to Rule #6, which is especially for renaissance people: various careers or sides of a person don't exist in a vacuum. If you think I'm not going to use knowledge I get about you in the context of my film company work or legal work, then woe unto you. Treat me like shit in some other context & like every single other professional who works behind the scenes in entertainment, I will take notes & make sure you're not subjecting my team to your crap. We have no patience or time to be magnanimous, nor should that be expected of us. Demanding it from us definitely won't get you anywhere. That's why such complaints don't impress me.

My lawyer side doesn't vanish just because I'm doing an acting gig. That producer trainee/film exec side doesn't go away if I'm at a lawyer event. I watch how you conduct yourself, how you treat people, what you say, etc. Renaissance people are the people you'd better be impressing hardest since we ARE doing so much stuff & probably have more contacts among so many areas than the average person. We could help you or we could ruin you.

I'm hardly an unreasonable person, overly sensitive or insist on ego stroking but don't you find that screwed up? I don't even know of an attorney charging law grads, new lawyers or anyone else for informational interviews or networking meetings (and you'd expect that from the dreaded lawyers; hell, I could make a fortune from it if I were an asshole). I could guarantee most lawyers' busy schedules would put her own schedule to shame, no matter how busy she is. I also wrote her the next day to mention these truths to her (I also mentioned being from NC & having friends + family living there considering she'd claimed people in NC had no souls during her talk to see if she gets that maybe I'd find it offensive).

If she apologized, it would be all good but since she has not, I'm afraid her actors won't be working with my company. After all, if she's that disrespectful to me a.k.a. "the enforcer," how's she going to treat a producer or director? Is she just going to further actor/director conflicts vs. helping find a solution? That's what I feel like she'd end up doing.

I should however, thank the acting coach who had her speak since I likely wouldn't have been able to have that conversation in any other forum & it saved me a lot of time and headaches. John Pallotta, you're awesome (and he is, really).

So kids, you violate business etiquette at your own peril. If you think you don't need to learn it, think again. Remember, I'm one of those easygoing, non-asshole lawyers who acts like a real person. Imagine how I'd react to this if I were a stereotypical lawyer. Imagine if she were a law firm associate pulling this mess with a law firm partner.