Touchstone Talks: Ep. 10 - Navigating Employment Law: Protecting Your Business

They had

said that.

It actually

is not every. Day.

That I.

Meet. Him.

Maybe it.

Means we.

May be.

Okay.

And he is.

Back.

And we.

May be.

In the.

Me me me me me me me me me

me me me me me me me me me me me me me me.

We me

me me me me me

me me me me me me me me me

me me.

is really the union piece.

And these days
the union piece is different.

A lot of people don't realize that.

They think I don't have
a unionized company.

So unions aren't relevant to me.

Well there's two issues.

One it could get unionized

and we do a lot of work
helping people stay union free.

Okay.

But the other piece is not as much
in this administration.

But in the Democratic administrations
there have been a big,

big focus
on looking at union free companies

and seeing if the National Labor Relations
Act applies to them.

And people don't

realize the answer is absolutely.

Here's the big, the simple way of saying
you could have a union

and not know you have a union.

No, it's not that you have a union.

If you look at the National Labor
Relations Act, it

first of all,
it doesn't use the word union anywhere.

Oh, interesting little trivia point,
but two, you have,

issues dealing with the union.

Okay, forget about that for a minute.

The the law actually says
if you are involved

in protected, concerted activity,
this law will protect you.

What's protected under the law?

It's incredibly broad.

It's pretty much anything that has to do

with your terms
or conditions of employment.

Well, what does that mean?

Pretty much everything at work.

That's really what it is.

So then the only other question is
so that's protected.

So then what's concerted.

Concerted is what you think more than one.

So if I say Bob Ross is the best guy
in the world Bob Ross deserves a raise.

You guys stink. Could you give me one?

Is that protected? Yes.

Is it concerted?

No, because I'm only talking about me.

But if I just changed a little bit

and I say you don't give us a raise,
you don't treat us fairly.

Not just Bob Brody, but us.

Now, all of a sudden is protected.

So what does that mean?

If I say to you, touchstone stinks.

You guys are terrible people.

You don't treat me right,
and you don't treat any of us right.

And I'm the administrative staff.

And you turn around and fire me.

You broke the National Labor
Relations Act.

That's illegal by accident.

Exactly.

Now, I know you guys wouldn't
do that, right, but.

But that's the thing.

People don't realize
they've all of a sudden

all like, for example,
there have been a lot of protests lately.

If in the
middle of the day, my administrative staff

stands up and says, Bob,
we're walking out to support

fight for 15 or some other movement.

We love Trump,
we hate Trump, whatever it is.

But it's
but it's somehow affects our business.

They have a right to walk out
without even giving me notice.

Just boom.

They walk out and I'm sitting here
going, well, I'm going to run my business.

Right.

But they have a right.

Now in my world it's not as likely.

But what happens
if you run a fast food restaurant

and all the workers
go out to support this movement,

that fast food workers should get paid
better, or they go out and they're

protesting something with immigration
that's related to the employer.

That's all protected.

So so the first piece of our business
is this labor piece.

But remember, it's not just unions.

It could be your employees
just acting together

and you saying,
I'm not going to put up with that.

You can't do that. Well,

they can generally.

Yeah. So that's the first piece.

That's a little scary.

If I'm an owner, how do I protect
against my company for that?

You know what.

We'll probably talk about more later.

But the key issue is,
do you even know that it's an issue?

It's not hard to protect your company
if you know there are guidelines.

The problem is, you ask any normal person.

Me not being normal, right?

They would have no idea.

They wouldn't. They would look at this
and say, you're kidding me.

And I've had lots of
people say that to me.

They're like, I don't understand, Bob.

I don't have a union. Right?
What did I do?

Well, 40 years ago,
no one even paid attention to that,

even though the law hasn't changed
in that respect.

It just wasn't what people thought of.

Now they think it's a focus now.

So that's the labor piece. Okay.

The employment piece is basically
all the state and federal laws.

There's about a zillion.

Yes. And all.

I'm sure all of your clients know it is
extremely difficult to keep track of them.

That's the employment piece.

Sometimes when you run afoul of it,
you get into court.

So employment lawyers
do a lot of litigation going to court,

but the employment office
also just has to do with compliance.

And as you know, in your business

is cute.

Exactly. Exactly.

Pardon me.

So that's a big piece of what we do.

We do the compliance.

We help people compliance. We go to court,

we deal with the administrative agencies,
we deal with the courts.

As I said.
And then we do a lot of counsel.

So, you know, your clients come to
us and say they want to sell.

First thing we got to do is

try to figure out, well, where are you
in terms of compliance?

Yeah, absolutely.

And that becomes really important.

You've done diligence on a buy
side, right? So,

the last case we had was a buy side.

Yeah.

I think it's too bad that we don't do
more due diligence on the sell side.

I agree, I agree.

I think a lot of times deals
and you know this better than me.

I think a lot of times deals get hurt
in terms of the valuation

because somebody comes up and says,
oh my goodness, there's this bad thing,

whatever it is, and it scares the buyer.

So the seller is going to end up
getting less.

If we had had an opportunity
in advance to say, look,

we can fix this,
we can at least minimize this.

Yeah.

You know, and I mean, you know, again,
you know better than me.

There's a lot of psychology
in these deals.

Absolutely.

You scare off the buyers
once they get scared.

You can't undo that. It's right.

You can't undo that.

Once they feel there's a deficit,
they're just looking for more deficits.

Yeah. What?

What else is broken?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that's a that's a huge issue.

I mean, the compliance piece to me
when it comes to, any kind of acquisition,

sale, purchase is huge in
the psychology is tremendous as well.

Great. Definitely great.

So if I am sitting here with a company
and I don't know

whether I'm in compliance or not,
I don't know.

I probably, you know,
set up the company for the past 30 years.

And I make sure that we have health
insurance

and I try to go on my website
and, and follow

whatever I'm told I have to offer
for trainings or this, that and the other.

How do I, how do I check that.

Do I come to you set.

I mean I think the

first thing is, is frankly is, is you
because I think you guys,

you have a pretty good feel
for what we do.

Granted, I think we have a little more
depth and you surprise, surprise.

But as you should. Yeah.
I mean, make sense?

Like, don't come to me to buy
or sell your business, right?

Well I do. Absolutely. So.

But I think the first thing is
you got to go to some of your advisors,

and you got to ask them, I mean, you know,

some of the basics
that you could just tell your buyers.

Hey, have you thought of this?
Have you thought of this?

Have you heard of this?

And when they have kind
of taken care of those issues,

then you actually should go to someone
who really focuses on this area.

Well, what if I'm not thinking
about selling my business?

So I'm not going to come see me.

When am I going to call you?

See, I think

it's all a continuum.

I don't really care

whether you're selling your business
in terms of when you come to me, okay?

To me, you have an opportunity.

You could probably make a lot more money

if you were focusing on some of the things
we think you need to focus on.

Or you could also lose less money.

That's.

I know it's not true,
but I think HR should be a profit center.

Nobody looks at that.

But if you think about it,
HR is the one that says

look we got all this human capital.

How do we get the most out of them.

You make more money
if you get the most out of them.

Now there's also the opposite right.

How can that human capital cost us.

Yes. All this compliance
stuff can cost you.

And it not only

cost you money, you got,
you got to pay us, right?

But more importantly, frankly, you owner,
you can't pay attention

to your business, right?

You got to focus on all these

doggone lawyers are asking me for this
and asking me for that.

I got an audit for this.

You got to. Yeah, a problem for that.

And it's it.

It's now under the microscope,

usually because someone has gone
to a government agency.

And so you're really getting scrutinized.

One of the things that I think is best
is if you are a business owner.

Forgive me.

I'm going to I'm going to I'm
going to opine.

Yes, yes. Well, but here's the thing.

You should do an audit.

Exactly what you're saying.

You should do an audit.

Maybe you can go online
and find some stuff.

Maybe you find someone like us.

Maybe you find someone
who's a human resource specialist.

But you need to have somebody
who can look at your business and say,

you're a restaurant business, okay?

One of the big things for you is staffing.

Yeah.

That's a huge demand.

Well, if you're a staffing,

if your company involves
big staffing issues, what does that mean?

Well, we probably got to
look at immigration and the I-9 forms.

Are you doing that piece right.

We got to figure out how to pay
these people.

Restaurants
regularly mess that up terribly.

I know a lot of restaurants
will say my employee came to me and said

look I need to make six, $800,000 a week.

I'll do whatever you want
as long as you give me that.

The employer says, okay,
I'll give you the thousand dollars a week.

And then they treat them
like they're salaried people.

Except legally they're not.

Oh, just because you and I agree
that I'm going to pay

your salary doesn't
mean you're exempt from overtime.

And that's kind of how we're treating you.

Like you're exempt from overtime,
but you're not.

If you work over 40 hours a week,
I got to pay you time and a half.

And if you and I

never talk about that, well,
then you're going to be in trouble.

If the government ever comes in
and the government isn't coming in

until usually somebody
until there's a problem.

Yeah. Well, what happens is I'm a thief.

You catch me and you fire me.

And out the door
I say I'm going to get even.

Well, how do I get even?

I go to the Department of Labor.

And I tell them about all the stuff
you do, much of which is really nice.

I mean like the thousand dollars a week.

I understand
it isn't legal, it's not proper

but it's what you wanted.

You know, you can't afford as the worker

to have an $800 a week
because you can't pay bills.

I can guarantee $1,000.

That's great, but it's not legal.

And when that guy gets

mad out the door
because he got fired properly.

Right.

He goes to Department of Labor.

And then all this stuff

that you never knew about,
you never thought about comes up.

So I think it depends on your business.

If you're,

if you're touched on

huge amounts of labor is not your issue.

No. Right.

But you've got some really talented
people.

They're really smart.

They've got great business contacts.

There's a whole opportunity
for them to make business for your firm.

And if they leave well that's a problem.

Right. Well how do you deal with that.

Well there's things called
restrictive covenants that say in

my people say you can't enforce
a restrictive covenant a non-compete.

That's not true in most states. You can't.

So what does your.

There's been some controversy about that
as in the past year or so.

Right. Yes.

At the end of the, the,
the Biden administration,

the FTC

passed a rule that said basically

non-compete are going to be illegal.

You can't stop someone
from going to a competitor.

And there were a few exceptions,

but the vast majority of non-compete
were going to be struck down.

There was litigation.

There were a number of litigations.

Just meaning someone went to court.

Someone said it was not proper
for the FTC to do that.

And the FTC was enjoined meaning a court
said you can't enforce this rule.

Then we changed administrations.

Well, this is not the kind of thing that

a typical Republican administration
was going to want.

And so it died. Okay.

But at that point,
we were talking about September of

24, I think maybe before elections.

Yeah, I think it was right before that.
I think it was September 24th.

This rule was supposed to go into effect
and then ultimately it didn't

because of the litigation. Yeah.

Because I know for us, non-compete

is typically center
around a business transaction.

And those were never in question
because that is you're right, enforceable.

So yeah.

And that's and that's a great point.

By the way,
I will mention people forget that

there's they often think of a non-compete
as the end of the story.

It's really not.

There's usually three basic issues.

Can you compete.

If you tell them

match well, or can you steal my employees
to steal my customers?

Yeah.

Those are three different things.

The non-compete is the one
that gets all the attention.

But if you really think about it, the non
solicit is actually more important.

Exactly. I mean it's huge.

And if you're going to a state
like a California,

there's about three states in the union
that don't allow non-compete basically.

But if you go to those states
they all recognize one.

If you sell your business,
you can put a non-compete.

It's got to be reasonable. Right.

And then the non solicitation of employees

and the non solicitation of customers
is almost always enforceable.

Yeah.

I got to tell you a funny story.

Oh good. Yeah.

Non-compete.

And I apologize
if anybody's a Jimmy John's supporter here

I'm going to say something bad about them
I know I shouldn't, but I am.

Jimmy John's had a rule.

Bleep was Jimmy John's that said the
sandwich makers cannot go to a competitor

like subway or Jersey Mike's.

Exactly. That seems unreasonable.

Exactly. Okay.

And there's an adage in the law
bad facts make bad law.

This is one of those bad facts.

Because because of that,
I mean, every I'm sorry,

but it was just such a such an overreach.

I don't know, there's probably a story
and maybe someone will tell me one day.

But, but it just seemed like
such an overreach

that when the courts got into it
they were like aghast.

And so they
of course said, you can't do that.

And that really made Noncompete look bad.

And if you think about your company
using a non-compete versus Jimmy John's,

it's just different.

Of course it is.

So so I mean, technically,
how far do you go with that?

So can you go to McDonald's?

They make sandwiches too.

It's just a different kind of sandwich.

But I would assume the process
is pretty similar.

There's there's there's bread
and there's stuff in between.

You know,

and I mean, it's a good question,
but it to me, I think the

the point is
we should never be looking at that.

It should be a much the question should be

is there something really unique.

And by the way, if you've ever seen people
work at McDonald's, that's a hard job.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, you know, no disrespect.

I didn't mean that as a disrespect.
No, you didn't.

And I just think people ought to remember
that's not an easy job in Jimmy John's.

All of them. They got a million customers.
They're moving quickly.

It's hard job,
but it's different than what you do.

It's just different.

There's a skill set that, frankly,
I look over the counter.

I can see exactly what you're doing,
right?

If I look at you, I can't see what you do.

Most of what you do in your head.

That's very true.

So it's different.

It's like there's not really a secret

at at a Jimmy John's
at a McDonald's and Burger King.

There's no secret there.

The secret sauce at McDonald's
is a secret.

Yeah. The rest of it really isn't.

Yeah. Different than you.

Well, and it's unlikely
that the person making the secret sauce

is the same one
making the sandwich. Exactly.

And, I
mean, you know, that's a great point.

Jimmy John's and and, you know,

I really don't mean to merge them.

They have to be the unlucky ones
who got called on it.

Right?

You know,
it could have been somebody else.

Absolutely.

But I'm sure they're senior people
at Jimmy John's who absolutely covenant

people would make perfect sense. Exactly.

It's just not the sandwich maker.
That's the one.

That's what made it look so bad
because it was hard to really justify.

Well, and we had, I had one buyer that,

was like all of my employees sign

a non-compete.

And I was like, do they?

And when we actually dug into it,
they they didn't.

Oh, he was just the, the
the private equity guy that said that.

And his leadership team did,

but the tech didn't see.

But you're lucky
because I've had clients where they did.

And the problem is
you go in front of a judge,

and if the lawyer on
the other side is smart,

the first thing they're going
to say to you is you have a receptionist.

Yeah.

Does he sign a non-compete?

Yeah.

Going to look at the judge and say,
Your Honor.

Why in the world
would the receptionist sign a non-compete?

And the truth is, there's no reason.

I mean, a receptionist doesn't have
that kind of confidential information.

Doesn't have that relationship building,
etc., etc..

There's no reason.

So then all of a sudden, the opposing
lawyers are going to start saying

the company just doesn't really pay any
attention to who they're talking about.

They make everybody sign the same thing.

You can't tell me there's one business
interest here because there's not.

How can you compare the CEO
and the receptionist?

Yeah, they're going to be different.

Yeah. So it's a bad idea.

And I mean, we've we've often
talked to companies about don't do it.

There may be confidential things,
so maybe some people will sign

a confidentiality agreement
but don't have the same broad,

you know, overbearing agreement
on the CEO that you have on the wall.

And I think that's a good point.

Confidentiality agreement
is very different than a non-compete.

It's certainly advisable
to do a confidentiality agreement.

You know, I, I agree with you.

The the reason I like confidentiality
agreements.

There's there's two different things.

The secret sauce, by the way.

You can put that
in the confidentiality agreement.

But you also should keep in mind

if you steal the secret sauce
that I've always tried to protect.

It's no different than you're stealing
my money.

My, my computer, my whatever.

That's just intellectual property.
That's right.

That's right.

On the other hand,

the phone number for all of our vendors,
that's not really all that confidential,

all that secret, but it is confidential
because we put them all together.

So I want to make sure that the mailroom
people know they shouldn't be taking

that kind of information
or your home phone number, right.

Or how many kids you have or whatever

personal information
we may all have at the business.

We want to keep that confidential.

The super secret stuff.

I would put
that in the confidentiality agreement too,

but honestly, it's a different it's
really a different animal

makes don't realize that
because that's your intellectual property.

Yeah. Makes sense.

An enforceable. Yes.

Yes. Very enforceable.

And I like putting confidentiality
agreements in place because it shows

the outside world that what,
even if it's not technically unique,

the gathering of all the information

that I use to run
my business is confidential.

And I told you, my worker that
and then you went and against my rules,

you you somehow
gave it out to other people.

So it becomes very clear
to the employees too, because sometimes

someone might say, you want
you want Deborah's phone number?

Sure. I'll give it to you.

I'm going know.

Should I have to? Yes.

And we want to make sure
that they understand.

Because it's not.
I mean, how do they know? Right.

Right.

Well, and we,
You know, I adds a wrinkle to all of this.

But we are very careful
with how we use AI within the firm,

specifically for confidential information.

That's a great thing.

One of the things that we've,
we've learned from the AI people is,

if you put a document on AI,

most of the AI systems,
they're actually accessible by the public.

Correct.

So you put your buy sell agreement on AI.

That means somebody else could go
and get your buy sell agreement.

Correct.

That's why you don't do it. That's right.

Not everyone realizes that. Yep.

Now we we have some private.

There are some private AI systems.

We have a practice management service.

We use mobile.

Yeah. They have Archie.

Archie is AI,

but it's only enclosed within my software.

It's encapsulated. Exactly. Yep.

And that's a great idea.

Yeah.

That to me, is something you ordered
because I like AI.

And I also like AI for proofing things

and finding a better way of saying things,
but I don't want to put it out there

for the pop. Right.

So those kind of encapsulate.

That's a great term.

Yeah. Great term. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's going to put

us all out of business, but

interesting.

There have been a lot of predictions
that, in the law firm world,

a lot of the biggest law firms

literally would hire
30, 40, 50 associates.

And a lot of people do believe
that the need of the 50 associates

is going to go out the window,

because AI is going to take care of these
very smart,

but not really very skilled yet
because they're brand new lawyers.

Right?
I was just going to take their jobs.

Now the middle mid-level lawyers. Yeah.

They're going to have to oversee
the AI. Right.

Because they used
to oversee the associates.

But those I think a lot of very,

very introductory
people into complex businesses.

They may lose the jobs.

Yeah.

I, I'm concerned about that in terms of

then how do you get the associates
trained?

Like where do you get your next

middle level of whatever industry

if you no longer hire people to learn?

You raise a great point.

I mean, that that is it's very insightful.

And it and I don't have an answer.

I don't have an answer, I think.

I think maybe
just the natural slowness of change.

We're going to keep hiring some. Right.

But not as many as we used to.

So they'll they'll be a pipeline.

It just won't be as big. Yeah.

You know, not encouraging for the people
that are in college right now though.

No no, no.

No, I got I got to agree with you now.

Interesting remote work.

Different issue.

But the same issue because remote work
everybody stays home.

And a big question people have asked is

how are we going to train
those people who are sitting at home.

When they never see me.

And I've got you know like you,
you know 20,

30 years, 40 years of experience.

They don't sit next to us.

They don't, they're not with us.

They miss a lot.

So that's more of a training issue.

But I see there's a number of, of issues
that are going to be focused on

what's the next generation.

How are they going to succeed.

Because we're not giving them
the training that they used

to get because of AI
and because of, remote work and

I mean, I guess it's

it's like everything else, though,
every generation evolves.

Right.

Like, we we heard our parents complain
about our music.

We complained about our kids music
like that.

It's all cyclical.

So, you know, people
smarter than us are going to figure out

what the how the next generation
functions.

I don't I never verified this,
but I had heard that,

there had been studies that showed
every time there was like a major

improvement in technology

electricity, electric, light bulb,
you know, some of the telephones,

some of these things.

And a lot of the Industrial Revolution,
the machinery, the feeling was

all these low skilled
people are going to be out of work.

And exactly what you said happens
every time they just ship

to shift to a different set of skills.

But we still need the bodies.

The bodies are still there. Yeah.

I don't know what it.

I don't know if there's going to

I don't know if that can keep happening,
but historically it has.

I'd say historically it has.

So I'm going to lean on.

We'll figure it out.

I think you're right.

I think you're right.

Because somehow they do. Yeah.

It's interesting.

A bit divergent from our.

Yes. Sorry, but still.

But but all kind of intertwined, right.

Like we all have to think about
how we're employing people and how we're.

We're regulating that
and tracking the law.

And I want to go

one more step.

Slightly controversial.

What can our employers do to make sure

that they are prepared for this?

Administration's efforts.

Right.

Getting the I-9, getting documentation.

How do we how do we support our employees?

The the I-9 issue?

It's a very important one.

It has actually turned out
a little different than I think

the administration planned.

But in terms of an employer, first of all,

do you know what a nine, nine nine is?

It's a very simple form actually.

It is.

But you got to make sure you know,
you know you guys know

you would know to tell your clients.

You got to make sure you know what it is.

And it's a form
that really just says two things.

I am who I am and who I am
is entitled to work in the United States.

That's all the UN informed us.

And it tells you you have to produce
this kind of documentation to prove

who you are. And that can work here.

That's basically it.

They're very picky about how you fill it
out, so you got to be careful of that.

But but that's basically it.

So employers
my first question is do you have an I-9.

My second question is have you ever looked
at whether you fill it out?

I mean, we have had employers
who literally filled out

what we've had, employers who don't know
what it is so they don't fill out.

We've had employers who know what it is
and have only filled out half of it.

We've had

employers who do things like,
I don't really understand

the documentation,
just give me everything.

Well,
you're actually not allowed to do that.

So now that's a problem.

But if you actually read the form
and you talk to

someone like us,
you read up on the internet.

I mean, there's a ton written on it.

There are some questions
that are not easy to answer,

but most of the questions about
the islands are very basic.

If you are largely in compliance,

yes, there are problems
you can have, but they're very minor.

The the employers are really going
to get in trouble is the ones who know

they're not using I-9, who know
they're having undocumented workers,

and the ones
who really get the most trouble is

when they then take advantage of them.

Oh, right.

Because then they have recourse
or an end, the end.

And when the ice comes in, ice is not kind

if they know you're intentionally
taking advantage of these people.

I mean, Ice wants to get the undocumented
people out, and that's true.

But when Ice finds out, for example,
you don't pay overtime.

You have all your workers
living in your basement.

You've divided your basement into six
by six cubes, separated by sheets,

and you charge people
an inordinate amount of money

to rent that space
because he can't live anywhere else.

And then on top of that,
you don't even pay them the overtime.

And there are cases like that.

Those people can go to jail.

But but the good news is, fortunately,
I don't have any of those clients.

And you know what?
That's a very intentional thing.

That's something
I think people ought to remember.

Intention is important in this.

Just for example, you think I'm legal?

I'm not.

Okay.

You asked me for all the right
documentation, and I gave it to you.

It's all a forgery.

And I got to stop for a minute.

My son, who I love.

And I respect.

And this wonderful kid,
he had his friends over to the house,

from college, 20 year old.

And after they leave,
I find a driver's license.

One of the kids left their driver's
license.

Well, the kids left two driver's licenses.

Same kid, different birthdays. Oh.

And so I say to my son,
what's going on here?

And he's like,
dad, 75 bucks on the internet.

You can buy that. Yep.
I didn't realize it.

So the bottom line is,
and the reason I mention that is

I'm not I'm not authorized
to work in this country.

But I gave you what looked like
a legitimate driver's license.

I gave you what looked like
a legitimate social security number.

You're not in trouble.

I may get deported.

I'm in trouble, not you.

As long as you collect the document.

Tried to do it right.

Even though it's actually wrong.

It's not your fault.

You're not a forgery expert. Okay.

So the thing about I-9 is the main thing
I would say is.

Do you know what it is?

Are you trying to comply?

Yes. You can get fines
for not putting the date in the right

if you write in May instead of oh five.

May is wrong.

Okay, so there's all kinds of crazy stuff
like that,

but that's not going to get you in jail.

That's not going to cost you
millions in dollars of fines.

Yes, you can be fined.

It's minor.

What you really here?

If you think about the things
that's scary on TV.

Those are like massive cases
where the government probably rightfully

so, doesn't believe it's an accident
that all these undocumented

people are working here.

They believe the company knew exactly
what was going on.

And and they allowed those people in.

And so both because of that complicity
between the worker

and the company, they're both going
to get in serious trouble.

Like you, I would say most of our clients,
they just they wouldn't do that.

Right.

And so yes, let's get on top of it.

Let's figure out a way to help
give the people

who are legal but scared,
because that's another problem.

A lot of people won't come to work

if they hear ISIS coming,

even though the truth is
they're perfectly well documented.

I can't touch them.

But with all the publicity
about all these people getting dragged in,

it scares a lot of people.

So there's a heavy, heavy
amount of freight, and I don't blame them.

But at the end of the day, as an employer,

are you trying to do the right thing?

Have you done the basic right
things on this I-9 issue?

Documentation? If you have.

You still should get somebody
can do an audit for you and we do it.

Other people do it. Audit
to make sure you're right.

But are you going to jail?

No, you're not going to jail.

That's just not who goes to jail on this.

Even though technically, yes, those are
there are some criminal things,

but that's not who's getting into trouble.

Well, that's good to know.

Yes it is.

You know,
and I tell people this all the time,

and a lot of the work we do,
the government is looking for compliance,

but the government is not going to say,

you know, there's a clause
that says I can send you to jail.

They're not sending you to jail
because, yes, you may have it.

You would never do a stupid thing, but,
you know, it may.

Well, I could, I'm sure not.

But even if we all agree. Okay,
that was a really dumb thing you did.

That's not who goes to jail.

A most all of these laws, the people go to

jail are the people who knew
exactly what they were doing,

and they were doing it anyway.

And then they got caught.

Gotcha.

Those guys you got problems with?

I find that, yes,
you may be out of compliance.

You may get penalized.

You know, so I wouldn't
say don't pay attention to these laws.

Right.

But don't lose sleep thinking
I'm going to go to jail

because you look in your heart, you know
very well where you're going to jail

if you've been doing the bad stuff.

Okay, you better worry.

I sleep pretty well at night.

I make a lot of mistakes.

I refer a client,
I make my share of mistakes.

But I'm not intentionally doing it.

I'm on that break, breaking the law.

So with intention.

And I think that's important. Excellent.

Well, I hope that helps somebody
sleep better tonight.

Hopefully, hopefully.

Well, Bob, thank you for coming.

I have one last question for you.

If you were not doing this for a career,
what's career

option number two look like for you
or your retirement plan?

If it's still,

If if

I thought I could take care of my family,
I would have been a track coach.

Oh, okay.

I ran track
since I was in junior high school.

I coached my team
when I was in, college. We.

I had a terrible program or I went, great
college, but a horrible track program.

And then when I went to law school,
I went and I talked to the track

team coach at Vanderbilt,
and he said to me,

yeah, you might be able to work with us,
but there's this little,

Catholic girl school,
that, is looking for a coach.

And I spent the next three years
coaching them, which I gotta tell

you is very funny because I'm a nice
Jewish boy from New York.

I am in

a Nashville, Tennessee
Catholic girls school.

Oh. That's entertaining.

Oh, I could tell you stories.

It was very entertaining,
but I had more fun.

I love coaching track and I love teaching.

Coaching is kind of the same thing.

So it's not really surprising,
I've thought.

I live in Westport.

Westport has a fabulous school system
with fabulous extracurriculars,

and I thought about talking to coach about
could I get involved?

So we'll see.

Well that's fun.
That is that's that's good.

Excellent.

It's interesting to see the professionals
that we work with seem to either

They had

said that.

It actually

is not every. Day.

That I.

Meet. Him.

Maybe it.

Means we.