Standing Up for Yourself with Brian Beckcom

Hey this is George G and the time is right welcome today’s guest strong, powerful Brian Beck and Brian. Are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:22
I am ready, George.

george grombacher 0:24
All right. Let’s go. Brian is a Texas Super Lawyer 14 times running. He’s the host of the lessons from leaders podcast to computer scientist, philosopher and athlete author, dad. I believe you’re Are you jujitsu

Unknown Speaker 0:38
guy to Brian. I’m a huge jujitsu guy. I’m completely and totally addicted to jujitsu

george grombacher 0:45
and a fisherman as well. So you’ve you’ve you’ve got a full plate. Well tell us a little about your personal life. It’s more about your work and why you do what you do.

Unknown Speaker 0:54
Sure, I’m the proud father of three teenagers just got my oldest went off to Texas a&m University, which is also the same school I went to my dad went to my granddad went to so I have a bit of a family tradition there. So father, husband, lawyer, podcaster, golfer, Jujitsu addict. On and on down line, fly fisherman, you name it, but my day job is a lawyer. I’ve been a lawyer for gosh, almost 25 years now started a big firm. Like a lot of people, I went to University of Texas law school, make good grades, got good job opportunities, and was at a very, very good firm, best firms in the country about 300 lawyers and realized after about two years, this was not for me that I wanted to do my own thing. So I started my own law firm 20 years ago with a partner voot the Senate which is his name, and that’s why we call VB attorneys because it’s sometimes hard for people to pronounce his his first name, or last name. And then I started a podcast on leadership during quarantine. So started podcast about two years ago, I’ve had Hall of Fame sports coaches and players and military generals and officers and New York Times bestselling author, a lot of cool people on the podcast. So that’s kind of the brief biography of Brian back. I

george grombacher 2:26
love it. And for the law practice, you you’ve you’ve you’ve been pulled drawn to representing people who have had personal injury, just to have have had been wronged and you fight for the little guy against the big guy. How did that all come about?

Unknown Speaker 2:47
Yeah, so when I was five years old, my brother was three, my dad was an Air Force captain, and my mother got diagnosed with breast cancer and ended up dying. When I was 10, my brother was eight, my dad raised us as a single father. The reason that she died is because the Air Force doctor misdiagnosed breast cancer four times my mom was an Air Force nurse, and she knew something was a mess, but the doctor really, really messed up. And so my dad hired a lawyer to help my family out and lawyer help my family out. And that’s the reason I was able to go to law school, my brother was able to go to college without incurring too much debt, on an Air Force, Officer salary, which is not a lot of money. So I think subconsciously, that experience drove me to do what I ultimately do today. You know, the other thing is, George, I think there are people that are Institutionalists. And there are people a little bit more free spirits, a little more pirate type mentality. And I’m not really an institutionalist at heart. I mean, I had a great time at this big firm representing insurance companies. But I but I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to have human beings as clients and not insurance companies. And I remember my first case, when I was a lawyer, I was defending this big insurance company, and I lost and I was riding, I was giving this check to this young guy. And I was thinking, Man, I’m so happy, I’m getting sick, too. Like, I felt like he deserved it. And I felt like the insurance company was trying to stiffen and that happens all the time. Right? That’s the That’s the model of insurance companies, the insurance companies, their job is not to pay claims their job is to collect premiums, and then reinvest those premiums, basically in the stock market and other places and make money and so their job is not to pay people who by their policies or jobs not to pay so I really do enjoy helping families and kids and Firefox Hydrogen police off sort of represent a lot of police officers against these entities insurance companies whose entire business model is not doing what they promised to do. So it’s, it’s fun, and it’s very, very, very rewarding.

george grombacher 5:17
I can only imagine and certainly the awful experience losing your mother, when you were a little kid that makes all the sense in the world, why it is you would have have pursued the career that you have and and have the passion that you have for it. You know, I don’t think that there’s too many worse feelings out there than feeling like you’re you’re powerless, helpless, you’re getting screwed over whatever emotion that that is, and then not knowing what to do about it and trying to handle it on your own.

Unknown Speaker 5:46
Yeah, well, and really, that’s, I think people have this notion that oftentimes people involved in a legal system or just enter for money. And that’s certainly true some of the time, but most of the time, what people are will really looking for is some sort of closure, some sort of psychological closure, because, like, you just said that the worst feeling, I think, for people is this feeling of helplessness or this, this feeling of injustice, that’s gonna go on remedied. I mean, you just look at it with children, like I used to look at it with my kids. And, man, if I, if I wrongfully accused my four year old boy doing some to his two year old brother, I mean, he would go crazy, like, we have this we have this very deep seated, subconscious desire for, for justice for the scales to be even for, like, we have this feeling that things are out of balance, if somebody does somebody wrong, and doesn’t have to pay for it. And so just, you know, some of the time, I’ll tell you, some of the time I don’t get, I’ll tell a client, look, you don’t really have a case. And and here’s why. And they’ll thank me more for that than some of the clients that I settle cases for. Because now they know they have closure. And you know, I tell people, I say, it’s a good idea to look into your legal rights, if you if you feel like you haven’t, because you don’t want to regret 10 years later, it’s the thinking man, I wish I would have looked into that, like, regret is another one of those psychological feelings. It’s, it’s really negative. And so the point is, is people oftentimes in the legal system are not looking, you know, to win the lottery or something like that. They’re, they’re moreso, looking for closure.

george grombacher 7:36
That makes a ton of sense. Certainly, the huge percentage of all of our movies and entertainment are all about getting revenge, or righting a wrong overcoming overcoming injustice. So when you think about it like that, that that makes all sense of the world. And it’s interesting that even when you talk to somebody and you say, You know what, thank you for sharing that, based on what you’ve just shared. It doesn’t sound like you, you have a case, but it gives them that that that closure, so at least they know.

Unknown Speaker 8:07
Yeah, it’s it’s, I mean, they can look back and five years and say, I looked into this, and I did what I was supposed to do. It turned out there wasn’t anything there. But I did my job. And that’s a good feeling for people that, like I said, the feeling that really gnaws at people is this feeling of regret this feeling? That boy, I wish I would have, I wish I would have looked into this a little closer at the time. And, you know, that, frankly, is one of the reasons you know, when I was deciding to start my own law firm, that was one of the big emotions that I was looking at was, okay, if I start my own law firm, what, what are some of the potential downsides? Well, I could go bankrupt in front of everybody publicly. And that would be very, very embarrassing. Like, I thought that thought like, that was kind of the worst case scenario. But the worst case scenario, if I didn’t start my own business, was that I would look back in 10 or 15 years and say, Man, I really regret that I didn’t do that. And so to me, that was once I framed it that way, George, it was an easy choice. Like I would much rather go bankrupt in front of all my friends and, and fail in a business. And then you know, go try something else, then look back at myself and say, Boy, you really should have tried that. And so no regrets as far as that’s concerned.

george grombacher 9:32
Yeah, I think that that’s really interesting and being able to to have that sort of internal dialogue with with yourself and to weigh that out. Yeah. Powerful and it makes sense.

Is it when when people feel like they have that sense that that that they’ve been the victim of have been treated unfairly?

Unknown Speaker 10:04
Why?

george grombacher 10:06
Why would they not reach out? Is it that they feel like who am I to to tell an insurance company that they owe me money? Or who am I to say this? Maybe I should just go about my business? And

Unknown Speaker 10:19
that’s, that’s actually a great question. And I would say, most of the time, people are people are nervous around lawyers, people are nervous around the legal system. And people have a notion that, boy, I can’t take on this fortune 500 company, there’s insurance companies worth a billion dollars, how am I going to possibly take on this company, they’re going to dig into my background, it’s going to be very intrusive, etc, etc. And guess what? They’re right about a lot of that. I mean, people are right, it is, the lawsuit process is an intrusive process. And it’s frankly designed to favor the insurance companies, I mean, the insurance companies, they appear in front of the court again, and again and again. And it’s same thing, there’s a there’s a, something called arbitration, which is basically private litigation. And that’s completely skewed in favor of businesses and, and large insurance company. And that’s because these insurance companies business, they have a repeat business in front of the arbitration panel or the court, they’re there again, and again. And again, whereas most people have one experience with the legal system, and then they’re done. And so because these big corporations and insurance companies are in front of these arbitrators and judges and part of the legal system, and they’ve been through this before, and they have literally hundreds and hundreds of lawyers to choose from, they don’t hesitate to use the legal system. Because they’re not afraid of it, I mean, an insurance company will sue at the absolute drop of a hat, a big, big corporation that gets screwed over by one of his competitors will screw it will will sue at the drop of a hat. Because they know that’s part of business as part of the part of the way it works. One individual who’s had some tragedy befall them, first of all, is not going to be familiar with the legal system. So they’re not really going to know how it works, there may be some apprehension there, number one, and number two, they have to go through this entire tragedy a second time. So it’s, it’s really tough for people. For individuals to go through this, I think we have this notion, you know, thanks to the McDonald’s coffee case and others, that the system is totally biased against corporations and insurance companies. But I’m here to tell you, it’s a it’s actually the exact opposite. And I just told you some of the reasons why. So it takes a lot of courage. For somebody that’s gone through something like this, to basically go through it again. And part of my job, frankly, and one of the things I really tried to do, at the beginning of the case is tell people what to expect, like here, here’s generally how this is going to happen. Here’s what to expect. One of the reasons I’m here, you know, I’m going to turn to the attorney and counselor at law and part of it, you know, I think the counselor part is just as part of it just as important as the attorney part. And so I try to make people as comfortable as they possibly can, when they’re going through the process. I try to tell them everything, in general, that that’s going to happen, every single case is different and things happen that you can’t predict. But in general, my clients know what’s going to happen when it’s going to happen. And I think that gives people a little bit of comfort, at least when they go into this really imposing intimidating system.

george grombacher 13:53
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I wrote down managing expectations. And, you know, the more we can do that in the front end, you say, and just be honest with people, which which, which is what you said, you know, yeah, this is going to be really could be a really hard process and all the things you’re worried about, a lot of them are probably going to happen. But I’m going to be with you and to help you navigate through that process. And you will hopefully get some kind of closure or at least knowing that you stood up for yourself. And hopefully, now you’ll get the result that you really want.

Unknown Speaker 14:26
Yeah, exactly. 100%. So

george grombacher 14:32
when when when somebody is thinking, Well, okay, this has been this happened to me. How is there a statute of limitations on on on on these things, which is standard, or does it all depend?

Unknown Speaker 14:46
Yeah, there’s a statute limitations for every legal case, without without exception. I mean, if there’s a legal cause of action that doesn’t have a statute of limitations, I’d love to hear about it because I’ve never heard of that ever. Which is good, because the idea there is you can’t sit on your rights forever. And so what I tell people is, when something happens, there’s this notion, there’s this idea called ambulance chasing, and that the idea behind it is, oh, somebody gets hurt, and a bunch of lawyers go out there and try to sign him up. Well, that’s against the law, that’s a felony. And if you get caught doing that you get thrown in jail, as you should. And so does it happen? Yeah, it does happen. But it’s pretty infrequent. The real ambulance chasing is when there’s a big tragedy, same event happens, the insurance company sends adjusters, they send lawyers out there, they start investigating the scene, they start talking to people, I mean, insurance companies literally can go up to you if you’re hurt, and hand you a $500 check. And you can sign all your rights away. So again, the system is completely tilted in favor of these big insurance companies and corporations, because they can go out there and start their investigation within five minutes of something happening. And they don’t have the same rules that lawyers do lawyers or lawyers can’t do that. Like I said, it’s against the law, it’s a felony. And so what I tell people is, it is guaranteed if something bad happens, where somebody is hurt or killed, that companies have all this guarantee that they have insurance companies and lawyers from the very beginning. And so why wouldn’t you want somebody on your side. And the problem is, is people will wait for months and months and months. And by the time they hire me. Sometimes it’s too late. Because the insurance companies have done so much work, they’ve located, quote, evidence and documents or been unable to locate evidence or documents, if you know what I mean. I mean, I’ve had phones destroy, I’ve had so many so much evidence to show it would make your head spin. And so that’s a long way of saying, if you’re thinking about it, you should consult with a lawyer, most lawyers like me, don’t charge you for an initial consultation. And so there’s there’s no reason not to consult a lawyer. And then the other thing I tell people, George, which I think is kind of important as a some lawyers to do what I do, don’t want to file a case, why because it cost 150 bucks and filing fees, they’re lazy. And they do want a cheap settlement. And that’s just it is what it is, or they’re afraid to go to court. The problem with that is if you don’t file a case, you’re kind of at the mercy of the goodwill, the insurance company, because they have no reason to pay you. Like they can pay you whatever they want. There’s no pressure, there’s no impending trial date, nothing like that. And so I tell people, if I’m going to take your case, we’re not gonna sit around and twiddle our thumbs for a year, and then get some stupid settlement that nobody wants and then have to start the process and have already lost a year. What I say is, let’s get the process started, let’s put some pressure on him. And that way, in a year, you can decide whether you want that settlement or not, you got a court date. So you go to trial, and you’ll a jury decide. And so I think that’s a far better way to do it. The reason we do it that way is because the insurance companies make us do it that way. That’s that’s really the only way to get a good settlement. And so bottom line is if you have any questions at all about whether you should do something, what your rights are taught to the lawyer, because like I said, most of the time, they’re not going to charge you anything for initial consultation, so it doesn’t make any sense not to talk to him.

george grombacher 18:30
That makes no sense. Brad, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you and how can they engage with you?

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Yeah. firm website is VB attorneys.com as V and V as in Victor v as and Brian attorneys.com My personal websites got my podcast on there and some of my writings is Brian beckham.org Kind of a strange Spelling Bee e CK c o m b EC Casey O’Brien with an eye and then I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, all those other just under About nine

george grombacher 19:06
excellent if you enjoyed as much as I did, so Brian, your appreciation and share today share with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to V be attorneys.com and check out the great resources certainly get in touch with Brian if you feel like you have a question or you’re just not sure. Or certainly if you do have something that has happened to you go to Brian beckham.org It’s B R I A n BECKCO m and check out Brian’s musings as well as the lessons from leaders podcast and everything else he is working on. And then Facebook and Twitter and all the all the social medias. Thanks again, Brian.

Unknown Speaker 19:47
Joy to George. Thanks for having me on.

george grombacher 19:49
And until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai