In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Tom Conner discuss:
- Treating note-taking as professional insurance
- Using discomfort to set daily priorities
- Choosing relationships as the foundation of business development
- Letting character determine long-term success
Key Takeaways:
- Relying on memory is a gamble, especially when ideas, tasks, and details arrive constantly. Writing everything down ensures nothing important slips through the cracks. The tool matters less than the habit of capturing thoughts before they disappear.
- Starting with the task you least want to do lowers anxiety for the rest of the day. Avoidance only prolongs stress, whether with paperwork or difficult phone calls. Momentum is built by confronting discomfort early, not managing it away.
- Referrals grow out of trust earned through service, generosity, and long-term presence. Bar involvement and community leadership create credibility that no marketing tactic can replace. Strong reputations are built quietly and often pay dividends years later.
- Integrity functions as a filter for clients, colleagues, and career decisions. Fairness and honesty build trust even with opponents and judges. The same clarity guides how to retire, whom to trust, and how to leave a legacy.
“Your reputation is everything, and it’s hard to build, and it’s easy to destroy.” — Tom Conner
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About Tom Conner: Tom Conner is a fourth-generation Texan and veteran trial lawyer whose life and career span more than four decades of courtroom practice. Raised in a small West Texas farming community, he brought grit and resilience from his early years into a distinguished legal career in Houston, where he handled high-stakes civil and family law cases and earned a reputation for integrity and advocacy. His memoir, From Cotton Fields to Courtrooms, blends personal history with reflections on major trials, life lessons, and the discipline that shaped his path from rural beginnings to respected attorney and storyteller.
Connect with Tom Conner:
Website: https://tomconnerbooks.com/ , https://www.lawcl.com/lawyers/thomas-r-conner/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:00]
Hey everybody. Before we get to the show, just wanted to share that if you want a repeatable way to grow your law practice in 2026 without pitching convincing or feeling awkward or salesy, I have you covered. Join me for my live sales, free selling webinar and learn the same approach my clients use to consistently grow their books year after year. Just go to fretzin.com/events and please join us for this action packed hour on February 19. Hope to see you there and be that lawyer
Narrator [00:34]
you’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin, hey everybody.
Steve Fretzin [00:57]
Steve Fretzin, here and you are with us on the be that lawyer podcast, once again, trying to help you figure out all those crazy things you never learned in law school, right at the law firm level. And, you know, marketing, business development, time management, leadership, all these great stuff that now lawyers have to learn and they have to become great at doing. Just like you’re a great lawyer, you have to be great at the business side if you want to get ahead. And this show is for you. We have done such a great job over the last six years of interviewing top rainmakers, top experts, people that could really help you get ahead. And guess what, everybody today is no different. I got Tom waiting in the wings. He’s going to crush it for us. Today. You guys are going to learn a ton.
Tom Conner [01:36]
How you doing? Tom Well, I’m doing good, and thank you for having me today. Absolutely I wouldn’t
Steve Fretzin [01:41]
miss it. And I know that, you know, this is, it’s a, you know, I get a lot of, you know, kind of feelings and emotions talking with attorneys that are a little bit my elder. Because, you know, I speak about my father, Larry, the lawyer, quite often, and quite just one of the most wonderful people in the world. And I miss him every day. And I have a T shirt up here on my framed on my thing that I got him years ago, something he used to say, and he’s an old man holding a cane. It says, Getting old is in four and then you can put in the expletive, but. But I look at all the time and I go, Why was my dad’s favorite shirt? He got a lot of play on Marco Island with that shirt. That’s great, but welcome, and I’m so happy. And you now you you submitted a quote that I’d never heard before, and I don’t know where it’s from, but I’m hoping that you can explain it to everybody. Once I say it, the dullest pencil is better than the sharpest mind an old lawyer to a young lawyer. So welcome to the show and tell us about the dull pencil.
Tom Conner [02:37]
Well, I think it’s self explanatory. You’re kind of interesting. My publisher when I made that comment to her, she lives in Massachusetts, and she had no idea what I was talking about. And but, you know, it is true, you know. And I’m a big note taker, yeah. And if I’m in my office and I think of something, I’ll write a note to myself. When I was writing my book, I’d be in the middle of one chapter, and I think, Oh, that reminds me of a different case I had, and I make a note, just because, you know, you can remind yourself. It’s kind of like the guy that goes to the grocery store and he got five things he wants to get, and one’s the most important, and he goes and he doesn’t get it. Yeah, right, the one thing you forget. So that and a couple other things that older lawyers told me that I live by and it helped me a lot. One, when you get to the office, what is the thing you most want to tackle that day that you really don’t want to work on? Well, do that first. It makes your day go a lot faster. Another Thomism is, if you’ve got a bunch of phone messages, pick the one person you really don’t want to talk to and call them first, and that’ll make your day go faster.
Steve Fretzin [03:44]
I was going to say that’ll ruin your day right at the start, right now.
Tom Conner [03:47]
Then you get it behind you, yeah? You knock it out, right? I’m just the other thing I would tell young lawyers is, don’t screen your phone calls. You’re not that important. If it’s something, if it’s somebody that you don’t want to talk to, you’re going to tell the receptionist, well, take a message. Well, you’re going to anger the person making the call. You’re going to waste a receptionist time, and eventually you’re going to have to talk to that person and another, another hint that I would give along, we rely too much on emails. Pick up the phone and talk to somebody. Don’t have a 10 exchange emails trying to figure something out. When you can pick up the phone and get it resolved?
Steve Fretzin [04:22]
Yeah, I feel like email is a good way to set up a call, right? Don’t give the two pages of text and then try to respond to it. And I know there are some people that do. Then there are also some people, maybe a GC or CEO, or someone out there that actually prefers that, but I would say the majority of us should be using email as a setup system, not as the conversation, right?
Tom Conner [04:43]
Well, I hope that’s true, but my last years of practice, I learned a lot that there’s a lot of lawyers they just wanted to do emails, and finally I’d pick up the phone and say, let’s get this resolved.
Steve Fretzin [04:54]
Yeah, right on, right on. Hey. I also want to just mention everybody I don’t haven’t talked about this in a while, but I’m. Huge note taker, and I had paper everywhere and pads everywhere. I’ve replaced it all a number of years ago with this tablet called remarkable two and every single note that I take is on here. I can put PDFs on here and write over them. I can save everything in folder. So every client I work with, every prospective client I talk to, every strategic partner I have, I’ve got pages and pages of notes in files here without using paper. It feels like paper. So I’m not getting paid by remarkable two, although I should if you’re listening remarkable to people. But ultimately, I’m just saying I think I agree. Dull pencil, I can’t remember things like without my calendar, without remarkable, my remarkable two, I’m I’m I’m half a man, so I get you on that. By the way, everybody you’re hearing Tom Conner, he is a retired lawyer and the author of the new book, from cotton fields to courtrooms. And I want to welcome you, and I’d love to have you share your background with everybody, as you already shared some time. Isms. Let’s go back and find out how Tom came to be.
Tom Conner [05:58]
Well, I grew up in a small farming community in West Texas, south of Lubbock, and then I went to the University of Texas undergraduate school and the University of Houston law school, and I spent my entire 45 year career practicing trial law in Houston. And I will tell folks who are listening, Houston is a fast track in the trial world. I even have Dallas lawyers tell me that and Dallas, Dallas and Houston are great rivals, and when I have Dallas lawyers telling me, you know, Houston is really the fast track in the trial world, I believe them, because I lived through it and I started practicing law, and as a fairly young lawyer, I was involved in a case that was made national headlines, and that was a case involving the richest man ever tried for murder. I represented a lady named Priscilla Davis, and she was married to a man named Cullen Davis. And Cullen they were separated, and she had use of their mansion, which was 19,000 square feet, and he came in one night when she had she was came home with her date. She had exclusive use of the house during the divorce, and he came out of the utility room and shot her and murdered her boyfriend. That before they got home, he had murdered her 12 year old daughter, and he eventually was tried for murder represented by Richard racehorse Haynes. It was a very famous was a very famous criminal defense lawyer here in Houston, and he and Haynes got him off, and it was quite a sensation. Priscilla was on the cover of People magazine, and the case gathered, gathered a lot of publicity, and it’s actually in my book, and that’s what put me on the map. As far as doing family law, though, I tried a lot of other cases and other types of cases. But with that kind of publicity, it was. It certainly gave me a step up as a family lawyer who was noted, yeah,
Steve Fretzin [07:50]
and I mean, just out of curiosity, the end of the story. I mean, what did they say? Who they say murdered those people if it wasn’t him?
Tom Conner [07:57]
Well, the thing was, Priscilla, when she got the mansion. She had a nine month party there, and she had druggies and bikers and all kinds of stuff and racehorse and he told me, he said, I’m going to try Priscilla. I’m not going to try any other thing on the case. And he had her on the stand for four days, taking her apart about that she gave keys to some of her biker friends that access to the house. He took the Fort Worth police department to task, and the jury, when they came back, they said they thought he was guilty, but the judge’s instruction was that they had to find it to a moral certainty, and they could not get past that burden of proof. Yeah, and in fact, one of the district attorneys from Fort Worth said, I never thought there were two systems of justice in this country, one for the rich and one for the poor, but I do
Steve Fretzin [08:46]
now, yeah, wow, that’s insane. Well, listen, so then you’ve got all this experience in in the practice of law. Obviously, I’d love to hear the other side of it. I mean, give us a little, a little background in shaping how you became, you know, a well branded and business developer and Rainmaker, because that’s that. That’s such an interesting piece of this as well.
Tom Conner [09:08]
Well, there are several things that I did, and I had a little expression when I was a baby lawyer, if I passed out 1000 cards, I’d give myself a bonus and but one of the things I did was, early on, I got involved in bar activities, both with the State Bar and the local bar, I’ll get on committees and make a lot of friends. Especially I was a small practice lawyer. We was only three of us lawyers, and so I made it a point to get to be good friends with lawyers in big firms, because they didn’t do what I did for a living, and all of us. And as a result of that, I got referrals from lawyers and major farmers, because then the other thing is, you cultivate other lawyers, because they all don’t do what you do. And just some simple things that I would do, I take a lawyer to lunch, and I would always pick up the tab, even if I didn’t have much money, because I’d want them to feel something. My obligation to me, another thing that my wife and I did, we’d love to entertain, and we would have dinner parties for lawyers and their significant others, and it gave a opportunity to really get to know each other. And then, as I progressed along, I’ve got involved in bar politics, and I would help if somebody was running for, say, president of the State Bar of Texas, I would make it a point, especially if I thought this was a person going to win, I’d make it a point to take them in Houston, to take them around to various law firms and introduce them to my friends and get their support. And as a result of that activity, I ended up serving as a director of the State Bar of Texas and the State Bar of Texas, we are an integrated bar. In other words, you have to belong to the State Bar of Texas to be a lawyer. And as a result of that, I made many additional contacts, plus, I’ll be very candid, there’s a certain satisfaction to giving back to the profession. I remember one time was asked to come make some phone calls to my classmates from law school to ask to raise money. And I thought that was a very easy ask, because the reason we were lawyers and the reason we were doing good was because of our legal education. And I had one fellow who turned me down, and I will always remember him, because I thought that was about the packiest thing he could have done.
Steve Fretzin [11:21]
Yeah, well, I know, like my dad would talk about, you know, getting business from the opposition, like they would go up against him. And he was so, not only good as a lawyer, but also so cordial, and he really loved, and this is, I’ll say, prior to the 90s, but you know, he told me he really loved the camaraderie and the in the collegial type of experience that he had, even with his opposing counsel. And I think he got a lot of business because whether it was big law or it was or as a local person in the courtroom, they recognized his, you know, his prowess. And they said, you know, if I’m gonna, if my cousin had a problem, I’d send him to Larry, like it was a no brainer.
Tom Conner [12:01]
Well, let me dovetail that. The thing is, when I had cases with other lawyers, I was always cordial with them. I never played this gotcha game like you know, they were late designating an expert. Well, I could have harmed them a lot because of that, but what I’d say is, that’s okay. I’ll give you a rule 11 agreement. You can designate them late because what goes around comes around, and I agree with your dad, I made a lot of friends in the opposition, and I did get business out of that, but also because I made friends and did not play the gotcha game. And if they needed extension of time to do something, if they needed a motion for continuance, unless there was something just earth shattering, I gave it to him, and it was just because you establish those good relationships. Same thing about honesty. You know, I had an older lawyer pay a great compliment to me. He said, If Tom Conner says, mouse can move a house, go put money on it. And you know, when you’re because your reputation is everything, and it’s hard to build and it’s easy to destroy. And so any lawyers out there, and there were very few lawyers I dealt with that, or mostly, let me put it this way, the vast majority of lawyers that I dealt with, I could get a handshake from them, and I could rely on it, and I didn’t worry about anything else. And the few that I put couldn’t do that with, believe me, I remember them, yeah,
Steve Fretzin [13:26]
well, I think that’s just good human you know, a good human decision is to take care of others and have integrity and be honest and sincere with things. And again, that’s not for everybody, but for the people I engage with and that I will engage with, that’s they have to have the same level that I have otherwise. You know, it’s a disqualifier for me. So if I find out someone’s dishonest or playing me, or anything like I’m out, and I think most people can read through that pretty quickly and easily at this stage. Sure, yeah, hey everybody. Steve Fretzin Here [email protected] They don’t just market law firms. They help them grow from connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers to smarter intake and industry leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s lawyer.com Check them out today with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases, other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] today, hey everybody. It’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to Fred. Dot com and grab a time that works for you, and let’s make this your breakout year. Hey, I want to go back to something you mentioned Tom, because I don’t think it’s hit enough on the show, and seems like you had a lot of good experience with this, so just maybe we’ll unpack it a little bit more. You mentioned that, you know, small and you know, even maybe mid market lawyers could be getting business from big law could be getting business from the lawyers who deal with very sizable matters. How did you do that? And I’m kind of telling many of my coaching clients, the lawyers I work with, that that’s, that’s kind of a, you know, kind of a blue ocean, you know, an area where they could find business. But there’s subtleties in doing that. What are some of the subtleties?
Tom Conner [15:38]
Well, I’ll try to get to the subtleties, but I’ll tell you how I did it initially, which is a throwback to what we were talking about earlier. As a young lawyer, I became a director of the Houston Young Lawyers Association. And all of the big firms in Houston, they have lawyers that they are promoting up through the Bar Association that they want to be president of the Houston bar. They want to be president of the State Bar of Texas, and early on, I became good friends with several young lawyers from the large law firms that were on the young lawyers board of directors, and I made it a point to be to take them to lunch. I made it a point to interact with them, meet them for a drink after work, and we became friends. And so it was a kind of an easy task for them, especially they might have another associate walk in their office and say, Hey, do you know who I can refer a divorce case to which, at that time was, was my primary area of practice. And so you know, when you spread these, when you throw a stone in a quiet pond, it’ll ripple, and those kind of things ripple. And I’ll give you another example. I befriended a young lawyer in a big firm, and he became General Counsel to St Luke’s Episcopal hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital, which are two of the flagship hospitals in the Texas Medical Center. And he called me one day and he said, Do you want to do some malpractice defense work? Well, I’d never done that before, but I was highly complimented. And the first case they gave me was very complimented. I mean, was complicated, and I did a good job. In fact, it’s in my book about the lady who said the hospital bed rolled out from under after back surgery, and she finally fell Oh my god. And you know, the facts were, were awful, but what happened? I hired a private detective when she gave her deposition, I went to had to go to her house because she hurt too bad to come downtown, and she laid on the floor during this video deposition, moaning and groaning. Well, I did something. Didn’t pass the smell test with me, so I had a private detective follow her the next day, where she got an SUV, went to the grocery store, got a full basket of groceries, put them in her SUV, went home. The next day, he followed her. They went to the community swimming pool, where she jumped in and out of the swimming pool. So, you know it’s, yeah, there’s an old expression every hog can find an acorn. Well, I found an acorn that day.
Steve Fretzin [17:57]
Well, it sounds like you know that the missing art today is the meal, I mean, the shaking hands, the eye contact, the sharing and breaking of bread, and it isn’t being done enough, I think. And I’m kind of guilty of this to some degree that I’m I’m now a player on the Zoom team, but any chance I get, I live near this really cute town in the Chicagoland area called Highwood, Illinois, got a ton of restaurants and bars and stuff, and bars and stuff, and there’s this little place called Maria’s. And any chance I get where, if I can get someone to come out near me, which I do, because I think maybe I’m lazier, I don’t want to drive or something, but it but I haven’t. I’m certainly not coming into the city unless there’s a gun in my gun in my back. But they come out, and we have this old Italian, really cool, small, little cafe type of place, and everybody’s like, Oh, the food’s really good. But I think there’s something about the breaking of bread that’s that’s sort of a lost art or something that people may want to consider bringing back into their different tactical ways of doing business and getting to know people. Just doesn’t always happen the same way over zoom, so,
Tom Conner [18:59]
no, absolutely not. And this and the personal touch, at least from my experience and how I built my practice, yeah, the personal touch meant so much to me and to the friends that I made. And I don’t know if you know if the jurisdictions that we’re speaking to, but in Texas, we elect judges. And candidly, I’m never, I’ve never figured out what’s a good way to get a judge, because you appoint him for life when you may get somebody that’s really awful. But in Texas, we still elect judges. And I would work on judicial campaigns, especially when I was a young lawyer, because judges appoint Amicus attorneys. They appoint ad litem attorney, and I got appointed on some very significant cases through my contact with the judiciary. So if there’s some way that you can help a judge, whether it’s in a campaign or something else, I urge people to do that.
Steve Fretzin [19:51]
Yeah, but it sounds like an angle that you really leaned into, is the judges and sort of the State Bar and the things we’re. You knew where other smart lawyers would be, and that maybe is it is part of that where you wanted to kind of step up and demonstrate competence and expertise and ability to make a difference, not just for the relationships, but also sort of how you were viewed within this community.
Tom Conner [20:16]
Well, it’s not, yes, that’s that’s a good point. But as I said earlier, there’s a reward to giving back to the profession. And I enjoyed that. I enjoyed it. I contributed to the profession. And because being a not to break my arm, but being a State Bar board director in Texas is a big deal, and you have to run for it. You have to campaign for it. And because of my contacts in larger law firms. I was got larger law firm support. You know, they sent a memo vote for Conor. He’s a good guy, and so, and that was a that was one of the high points of my career.
Steve Fretzin [20:51]
And my wife makes fun of me because she says, I like things that do other things. So like, if there’s, if there’s a sweatshirt, and then you can, like, take it apart, and then it ends up it’s a vest, or something like, or something like or something that does something else. And I think what we’re picking up on is that you can do something that you love and give back. It could be a charity. It could be the Bar Association, something. And I think that’s like the number one thing. And then maybe the side benefit, or perk of that is that you’re developing relationships and developing sort of a brand that develops business and reputation too, like you can, you can get both, if you do them, right?
Tom Conner [21:27]
Well, let’s expand on that. Okay, also, you can get involved in things that don’t involve lawyers. Sure. You know, I got involved with a very nice breakfast club here in Houston. I was one of two lawyers and the whole thing. And the other guy was an insurance defense lawyer, and I made a lot of friends in there, and I got a lot of business was, like a bunch of business owners, business owners, or I just, I’d get members of their family, I would represent them. Okay, another thing, and this is, this is purely Texas, but I was a director at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is the biggest event annually in Houston, Texas, it goes on for two and a half weeks, and I made him tremendous amount of contacts out there. First I came up as a committee man, as a chairman of committees, and then as a director, and candidly, I got a ton of business from the rodeo. Yeah. Well, these are all,
Steve Fretzin [22:17]
these are all the things that lawyers should be thinking about that it’s, it’s, you could sit at your desk and Bill hours, or you could get out there and meet people. And I think part of what you’re saying too, is meet the right people you know. Go where you know if you’re going, if you’re hungry, go where the buffet is right, like is, there’s, there’s, there’s people that you know, where you can add value, but also that there’s you know, business owners, and there’s general councils, and there’s lawyers who could refer you and you’re spending an investing time there versus just random acts of attending things without really putting much thought into it.
Tom Conner [22:49]
No, it’s yeah, all of that. All of the above is true. Okay? Another thing, another thing that I would take advantage of if I was asked to speak to a group. Fact, I’m speaking to a to to a men’s book club at the River Oaks Country Club in about a month, and it’s 100 very influential people in Houston that are in that particular club and and breakfast group. And I’m not hustling business anymore, but I certainly take advantage of that, because my phone still rings and I still can refer people to good lawyers. You know that have a problem, and I don’t know about all jurisdictions, but in Texas, lawyers can pay referral fees as long as you participate in the case or the client knows that you’re going to get a referral fee. And I got a call about two years ago from an old client that I represented, probably 35 years ago had been a terrible car accident, and I referred him to a young personal injury lawyer who I have a lot of confidence in, and I forgot all about it. And last January, I got a check in the mail for a significant amount of money. Yeah, so and the client, and actually, when the client signed the contract, my name was on it, he called me up and he said, Hey, I’m glad you’re going to get a piece of this. So you know, it’s you never know where you’re going to find some low hanging fruit.
Steve Fretzin [24:11]
Yeah, so you’re not, you have your law license, but you’re not really practicing. How do you, how did you determine when to slow down or when to stop. Or, how does that? How did you, how did you process that? Because many lawyers, you know, we have, like, you know, like, the first question that we ask in America, what do you do? Right? That’s not how all countries look at it, right? They, you know, it could be, yeah, I’m a dad, or I’m a this, or I’m that, but lawyers, I think, are very proud of the profession as they should be, and so, so how did you circle that square and figure out, like when, when was the right time? And how did you how did you play that out? When I
Tom Conner [24:47]
was 68 years old, we had two years left on our office lease, and I thought, I don’t want to spend the rest of my I enjoyed my law practice. It was good to me. I got a lot of satisfaction out of. It. I made good money at it, but I thought at some point you have to stop and smell the roses. And my wife and I had bought a house, purchased a house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, beautiful. It’s a magical place in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. And I knew I wanted to spend more time in Santa Fe. So when I was 68 I made the decision, I’m a retired age 70, and that’s what I did. And, you know, I quit taking new cases, and I had to candidly, I had a couple of very significant cases in my office that I’ve concluded, but everything worked out fine. In fact, my my paralegal, who was absolutely wonderful, and that’s another thing. Hire good paralegal. They’re better than three associates and and she had come in and she said, I’m getting burned out. And I said, you have two more years. And she said, for you, I do so we left the field at the same time. Yeah, okay.
Steve Fretzin [25:52]
And any, any regrets, as far as how you how you wrap that up, or just everything kind of worked as smoothly as I could,
Tom Conner [26:01]
not at all. And to be, to be candid with it, about it, the fire was going out in my belly. I mean, there was, there were times, you know, I couldn’t wait to get the courtroom and do my best and be prepared. And, you know, have my witness outlines, my exhibit outlines, you know, everything, or exhibit books and and ready to go. But, you know, I can’t even I knew, I knew I didn’t have it left in me. And it was, it was time to go on.
Steve Fretzin [26:26]
Yeah, my dad, my dad was 65 to the day, and I think he and then he did a little bit of arbitration stuff after but I think he in retrospect and conversations, you know, thought maybe he probably should have gone a number more years. But he also went down to Marco Island and was in the sun all winter, which, if you’re in Chicago, you know this is not a place to be. All right, I got a big question for you, Tom, What’s Tom’s big mistake?
Tom Conner [26:51]
Well, the biggest mistake I made was somebody I hired had had a law clerk and fell in law school, and he’d worked for us for two years, and we decided he was a good candidate to be an associate. We hired him. And I was representing a man who was a very successful businessman in town, former trustee of Rice University, and he and his daughter were having a disagreement over half a million dollar Exxon stock certificate, so I put it in my safety deposit box in the office for the agreement of the other council take care of it, and we settled the case. And so I went my office manager and I were the only two had access to that box. And I went to her, and I said, the case is settled. We need to get Mr. Jones’s stock certificate down. And she literally blanched, and she said, Clement came in six months ago and said, you wanted that certificate. And she had gone over there and given him the certificate. He cashed it out. He that was the worst day of my law practice when we found that out. And he had bought a small beach house in Galveston, taking a very nice trip to New York, bought a new car. Wow. So it was pretty devastating. And so thankfully, we had our employees bonded, and so I was able to get him repaid within about three or four weeks. But the rest of the story is in the book, but we ended up getting his mother when we got an arrest warrant out for him, his mother put him in a mental hospital, thinking that that would keep him from being arrested. Well, we happened to be friends with a district attorney. We called Johnny Holmes, and we said we got a warrant, but the sheriff won’t pick him up because he’s in that hospital. Well, Johnny got on the phone with the sheriff and said, I don’t care what your deputies say, you’ve got a warrant signed by a judge, go pick him up. And so eventually he got this barred. Ended up serving some time in prison, but it was an arduous, terrible ordeal. Oh, wow,
Steve Fretzin [28:46]
that’s no fun at all. But lesson learned, right? I mean, what do we you know, is that, is that more background checking? Is that just bad luck? Is that, you know, just, just maybe longer to, you know, slow to hire, quick to fire? Like there’s things that we need to consider when we bring people out. I got stolen from two from a bookkeeper who I didn’t do a background check, and turns out she was not a great person at all, and so I think. But, you know, lesson learned, I will not hire anybody or bring someone on without a background
Tom Conner [29:15]
check and without but it does remind me of a story of two lawyers that were partners. This is a true story, and they had a secretary that stole from and they’re walking in the courthouse together. They’re going to talk to the VA and as they’re walking, each of them kind of starts slowing down, and they finally admit, each of them admitted to having an affair with the secretary, and they were, they were both married at the time, so they just said, you know, we’re going to count our losses and move on down the road. Oh, God,
Steve Fretzin [29:44]
all right. Well, listen Tom, this has been amazing. I thank you so much. Take a moment. Thank our wonderful sponsors, of course, rankings, io, crushing it for the PI World, helping you guys get the business in the door. We’ve got law her podcast with Sonia, crushing it on her show every single uh. Every single episode. And, of course, lawyer.com so check that out, get in their directory and know you’ll thank me for it. Tom, people want to get in touch with you, and they want to, they want to grab your book from cornfields to courtrooms. Maybe take 30 seconds and give us, like, what is that book about? And then, then, how do we grab a copy that type of thing?
Tom Conner [30:18]
Well, the book’s about some of my personal life, which is kind of interesting. I was a major market disc jockey at one time. I spent one summer driving six tridells from the University of Texas around Europe in a Volkswagen bus. But I also have a lot of interesting cases, and they are in the book. I’m pleased to say that Kirkus gave me a rave review. Publishers Weekly gave me an editor’s pick. Since the book’s been out, I’ve gotten nine or 10 of his books only been out about two weeks. I’ve gotten nine or 10 five star reviews on Amazon, and the book is on Amazon from cotton fields to courtrooms, or you can go to Tom Conner books, C O, N, N, E R Tom Conner books.com and I appreciate you allowing me to plug the book, but actually, it was a joy to ride, and I had a wonderful time writing it, and I learned a lot about the publishing business too. Now, so anyway, but I appreciate you having me on.
Steve Fretzin [31:10]
Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing your wisdom, your stories, your experience, with my audience. I’m not going to tell you they’re all spring chickens, because they’re not, but it’s a nice mix of people who really, I think, value the words that you’re saying and the advice that you’ve learned over a career doing this incredible in this incredible Industry known as the legal profession. So thank you, man. I appreciate it, and I want to definitely keep in touch with you, and I definitely want to grab a copy of your book and read that sucker. I enjoy that as well. So thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, and thank you everybody for hanging out with Tom and I for last 30 and change, so many great you know, I got my typical page of notes here. A lot of great video clips are going to be coming out. We’re going to throw this up on above the law, so be sure to check it out there. And you know, guys all about being that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care. Everybody. Be safe, be well, and we will talk again soon.
Narrator [32:06]
Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal, business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.