Joe Giovannoli  

You’re listening to the Tip of the Law podcast where legal insights meet practical advice. In each episode, we bring you stories, insights and tips straight from the legal industry’s brightest minds. I’m your host Joe Giovannoli, founder and CEO of 9Sail. This week, I am speaking with Howard Matalon. Howard is a partner at OlenderFeldman, LLP in Summit, New Jersey, where he leads the employment practices group. With over 30 years of experience, he provides precise guidance and cost-effective solutions in human capital management. Howard’s proactive approach to employment law covers the entire employee lifecycle. He advises on key issues like hiring practices, workplace harassment, discrimination, whistleblowing, and worker classification. Howard also coaches senior executives through crisis management. He works with both businesses and career executives to maximize human capital value. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Howard, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Howard Matalon  

Alright, love being here.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah. Looking forward to today’s conversation. And, you know, we’re going to start out with my favorite question that I asked everybody that joins me, which is an interesting fact about yourself, but I feel like I’m about to give it to you because you work with wolves. Can you talk about that? 

Howard Matalon  

I do. So for years, I’ve been a participant and a donor at Howling Woods, I’m their outside counsel. Howling Woods is a 501(c)(3) wolfdog preserve. It’s located in Jackson, New Jersey, less than a mile from Great Adventure, and we promote the causes and education of wolfdogs across the country, but mostly in New Jersey. And I’ve been working with the farm for over a decade now. And it’s my first love. So it’s where my heart and soul go. And anytime I go back there, I can reconnect with the animals as if I never left them. And because of that work, I became a trustee of the Turtle Back Zoo. So I’m also on the Zoological Society board, natural evolution, the zoo I grew up with as a kid, my parents took me there more than anywhere else. And it was like a second home. So that’s a lot of animal causes. For sure.

Joe Giovannoli  

So amazing. Yeah, it has to be really rewarding. And I’ve seen pictures over the years of you doing your work down there. And you know, it’s awesome to hear how heavily involved you are and invested you are in that. So that’s amazing. And they’re big, they’re really big.

Howard Matalon  

Yeah, some of them are really, they’re really large because as wolfdogs, they have genetic qualities that aren’t necessarily akin to wolves. And so if they’re mixed up with Husky or Malamute, you’re going to see massively larger animals than you’ve ever seen in a wolf form. And it’s, and we run tours through the facility most days, you know, shameless plug for, for Howling Woods. Anytime you want to go down there, you call them and make a reservation, and you and your kids, you know, age appropriate are going to have the time of their lives there, bar none. 

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, cool. That’s awesome. And, you know, for the people that maybe don’t know, right? Wolves, and even huskies and bigger dogs, they get a little bit of a bad rap. Obviously, wolves are a little bit different, full bred wolves are a little bit different. But, you know, is it safe to be around these animals?

Howard Matalon  

Of course, I mean, we haven’t had an incident at the farm since its inception, which goes back more than 15 years now, when there was only one animal on the farm. These animals are socialized beings, they have dog DNA in them. So they’re natural human companions. And we would never bring anyone through that facility that we didn’t think was entirely safe, and we can take kids that are in their early teenage years and up. But it tends to be the case that the adults, you know, basically devolve into teenagers when they’re there. Yeah, it’s that unexperienced we also have a rescue facility that is adjacent to the preserve. The animals get enormous amounts of attention. They are unique in that they are there, most of them are higher content animals than you would otherwise see. A lot of dogs have wolf DNA in them, you just don’t pick up on it. And we’re very, very acutely aware of how wolf-like they are. And we promote those causes. Because many wolves are still endangered species. They promote ecology across the country, particularly out in Yellowstone. There’s a great documentary about how the wolves change rivers, because they ultimately brought back the beavers. And so you realize that everything is connected in life and nature is the greatest conservancy of man that exists right now. 

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, that’s cool. I actually, I’ve seen that, I’ve seen that series. There’s a couple of documentaries around Yellowstone that I’ve seen which are great. That’s awesome. That’s, like I said before, that’s gotta be so rewarding. And thank you for plugging that because I think, anybody, any of our listeners in the tri state area, that all that might be something fun that they can go do and support a cause. That’s great.

Howard Matalon  

Absolutely. I’ve taken, you know, the New Jersey Entrepreneurs Organization went and visited with them a couple years ago. And it was hugely impactful that most of them have never even known because it’s like one of the best kept secrets of New Jersey, it’s made the list of no top X number of things you’re supposed to do and a bucket list. It’s definitely well worth it.

Joe Giovannoli  

That’s awesome. You’ve kind of sold me on it, too. So that’s great.

Howard Matalon  

Anytime, anytime you want to go! Cool.

Joe Giovannoli  

So let’s dive in here. You know, I want our listeners to get to know you also, professionally, a little bit here. So you are the go-to employment law guy in New Jersey. Can you tell us about what got you into employment law and how you ended up at OlenderFeldman?

Howard Matalon  

Yeah, sure. So I don’t know about go-to, but I’d say that I have a real passion for what I do. I like to look at myself as an entrepreneur in what I do. I believe that, and my firm believes that, you know, human beings are the greatest capital assets that our business will ever have. And God help us if AI ever takes that away. It became a natural progression. I started my career, some 34-35 years ago, doing environmental insurance coverage work, that was definitely not for me. And while I found commercial litigation interesting, there wasn’t enough of the human condition involved. And employment law is about as close to the human condition you get outside of something like family law. It’s probably the number two practice area. And it affects both sides. And I think the more that we work as lawyers to benefit and promote the integration of human beings and the businesses they serve, the better off we’ll all be. So it became a natural fit. I have taken an HR certification course. We have a separate business that does employee-related work now to kind of promote and benefit the relationship between employers and employees. And all of it comes together as a whole. But I eat, breathe and sleep employment, like I love it. It’s my night and day. And people who know me would identify with me that way. It is definitely a calling, not just a career.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, and I totally agree with that. I think you have used this term, that you’re a 360 practice, a number of times and for the people that don’t understand what that means, can you just define what a 360 practice means?

Howard Matalon  

Sure. So we were involved in every aspect of the employee lifecycle, whether it’s hiring, onboarding, retaining them, or separating them, and that’s a wheel, it’s a 360 itself. Our practice at the firm is unique in that we do both employee related work, that’s our primary focus, but we also do executive level work to coach them up and to get them into positions where they can move to better and better businesses. And so we’re able to take a unique bird’s eye view of both sides. And that allows us to understand uniquely how employees need to benefit from how management views things, and vice versa. It gives us a very unique creative approach to resolving most problems and most issues as employment lawyers.

Joe Giovannoli  

Totally. And I can totally see that just from conversations that we’ve had, you guys have helped us in a couple of ways with, you know, phantom stock agreements and things of that nature, right, which is very much executive level compensation stuff. And I could see how those two can blend together. And, you know, when people hear “oh, they do both employee and employer side,” sometimes there’s a bit of a negative stigma around that. But the reality is, you learn on both sides of that, where you can really help to serve your clients, which end of the day, that’s what you’re there for, you’re you are there to serve, you know, and work with your client the best you can and give them the guidance that they need to to be successful. Right, no matter what side of the fence, they said, right?

Howard Matalon  

I mean, and if you think about it, as well, when you focus on the employee as an asset, just like any business asset you hold your job with your business assets, is to retain those assets, is to promote those assets and share those assets are functioning optimally because otherwise you’re losing money. So it actually fits perfectly because the focus is around operationally getting those assets to function, making those assets perform, making sure that they’re being treated fairly because that’s the only way for them to remain with the business and grow the business and that we you know, OlenderFeldman is an M&A firm, and so we started with– our origins is building businesses and growing them and ultimately selling them while fostering them. And what we’re doing in employment just meets the mission perfectly.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, totally, totally agree. That’s awesome. So what trends have you guys been seeing? Or that you have been dealing with, you know, in the last 12 to 18 months that you think are noteworthy that companies and firms should be kind of on the lookout for or aware of? Like, is there anything that you’ve, you’ve seen happen repetitively, that, you know, has kind of raised a flag for you to say, Hey, this is something that we need to focus on.

Howard Matalon  

So I’d say since, since what we’ll call the COVID, and post COVID error, that the biggest issue we’ve had is this complete lack of alignment between the expectations of the employer and the expectations of the employee, you know, post COVID, or in COVID, we rushed to deal with the health and safety issues. But then we also did a lot of over-hiring on the employer side. And that led to a lot of jettisoning employees who thought they were going to have a nice fit at some of these larger companies. And unfortunately, that didn’t happen. And then you end up with this surplus of great talent in the marketplace that gets kind of walked all over, because they’re not able to assert themselves and their value in a sea of people. And we’ve kind of sorted through that. But the problem of alignment has been around since employment existed, that is unless you actually know the person’s expectations. On the other side, the employer is invariably going to hire someone that’s not going to stay similarly on the employee side. And we’ve injected all kinds of new issues like remote working into that process. And what a lot of employees don’t appreciate or understand is that there is an out of sight, out of mind mentality that exists when you’re not in the workplace. And while Zoom and Teams and Slack and other things can help promote communication channels, they’re still– we haven’t found a duplicate for in-person interactions. So you know, now we’re starting to get studies that show that those who are not getting the right amount of face time, whatever that is for a business, are failing behind from an elevation or promotional standpoint. And look, careers are your lifeblood, they are the most important value that you have as a human being in a business context. And just like a stock, you know, you want to watch the stock grow and constantly be increasing in value, at some point in time a job ceases if it hasn’t changed to have that value. So eventually, some kind of remote needs to pave the way for hybrid or direct access, in order for you to be successful in your business. So alignment is and remains the greatest challenge that we have as employers and employees.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, you know, and it’s, I’ve seen studies like the ones that you’re citing, and I think that there’s a distinction, though, of companies that do have good virtual versus hybrid versus all in office, right, like when they when there is a combination of the two or three, that I think that that is one of the biggest distinctions in the studies that I’ve read that, you know, the people that are totally virtual kind of go out of sight out of mind, right. And they’re not the first thought for promotion or whatever. I can speak in, you know, terms of my company, where we are 100% remote, there is no office, right? It’s a little bit different, because there’s no one person that I’m necessarily passing in the hallway all the time or anything like that, right. Like we all make a very concerted effort to see each other and to, you know, have face to face interaction, daily huddles, stuff like that. So I think that, while there’s such a small percentage of companies that are 100% remote, right, and most of these companies still have some sort of an office and there are still a few people in it. I think that totally virtual companies are kind of off on their own. Because, you know, again, you don’t have that exposure to any one or two people within the organization because they’re showing up to an office. Would you agree with that?

Howard Matalon  

Yeah, I think it depends on whether the business is transforming itself to cater to remote, or whether the business from inception has been a remote based business. If you haven’t seen any difference or distinction, then the answer is the business is probably operating fine. But for corporate America, it’s been a real challenge. Yes. And a lot of businesses can operate without direct face to face interaction. Marketing businesses, PR companies, creative advertising. These are businesses that their lifeblood depends on– and of course, if you’re operating in professional services, you’re operating in the medical profession, there are a lot of places where remote doesn’t come close to what you’re doing on a regular day to day basis. So it is industry based but I think a lot of– particularly in IT and in Salesforce related companies, it’s been a real challenge.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, agreed. And, you know, the resurgence I’ll call it because I know that at one point when telehealth became a thing it was, you know, a lot of people were focused on it, and then it seems like it died off a little bit. And then COVID, really, and even post COVID telehealth has really gone up there, right. But at the end of the day, and this is how I feel that, you know, if I need somebody to talk about a medication I’m taking, and I just need to have a quick conversation about it, then yeah, telehealth is great. I don’t have to go anywhere. It works. But you know, if I’m having a challenge, or I want to talk about something, like, there’s nothing that can compare to being in person with a doctor and hands on with it. 

Howard Matalon.

100%. 

Joe Giovannoli

I think the industry is really important there. So misalignment being, you know, being something that you talked about here, what’s one of the biggest mistakes companies and law firms we could talk this to, because I’m sure you’re constantly interfacing with other lawyers and other firms– what’s a common mistake that you find that people are making when they’re bringing in new talent?

Howard Matalon  

I think that there needs to be more of an emphasis placed on helping the employees in the onboarding phase. Okay. And so, you know, that is the second phase after hiring, it’s the one that across the country requires actually the most time. People get impatient with the idea of people then filling some kind of role. But the truth is that, for good onboarding programs, it’s usually 12 to 18 months, that’s a long time, right, for a new employee. But, you know, these employees are coming in whether it’s attorneys or support staff, or otherwise, it’s a completely unknown territory to them. Right, they may know what the core values are, because they learned them or they now know them and they read the handbook. But the actual doing of being at a firm is very different from the practice of operating as a lawyer, you have to learn what makes the actual law firm tick, what people like, how people operate, you know, the structure of the firm and operating within the structure of the firm. These are all things that you have to learn on the job, these aren’t things you can be taught or shown or instructed on before you join. So I would say that onboarding remains the biggest problem. And it’s very important for the employer to put the time in, to bring them up to speed and make them feel that they are not, you know, some legal pad on a desk. Because law firms are not turnkey operations, you can’t operate a law firm that way, you need to have a team-oriented approach, need to make sure you’re having management meetings, even if you’re a remote law firm, you know, and so, that’s really the challenge. And particularly if you know, these days, with firms, most firms are bringing in people from outside the office, there are a number of them that are remote across the country. And you still need to feel that sense of connectedness back to the office, wherever the office is. And so having days in the office, having, you know, team building exercises, or even like a food truck, or where that kind of activity beyond just the traditional Christmas party every year. Yeah, that’s the only way that firms will gel together. And it’s extraordinary how much time it takes, particularly if you’ve got remote employees that don’t see each other except on a zoom, or on a phone call. Right.

Joe Giovannoli  

And you talked about the employer, you know, the role, you know, the job or the career that somebody has being one of their biggest assets. And, and I think companies are are, I want to say finally, but I don’t know that that’s fair to up to generalize, but I feel like they’re finally putting the emphasis on their employees that they should have been all along, you know, the employee experience in a lot of ways is just as important maybe, if not more important than the client experience. Right. And but we can all talk about, you know, the marketing industry, we talked about legal because, you know, that’s the world that we’re in, you know, that we work with, right? What the employee experience is at the firm is so important because it directly correlates to the clients’ experience, right? If you have an unhappy employee, you have somebody that doesn’t feel appreciated, or, you know, doesn’t feel supported, doesn’t feel the camaraderie, you know, their energy going into a client call or working with a client is not going to be what it would be if that person was super happy and super, you know, supported and, you know, so I feel like there’s a lot of this the softer type of skills that the firms are actually starting to look into and work with. 

Howard Matalon  

Very much so. I mean, we’ve watched this migration where management structure has now grown well beyond attorney-led work, right we’ve got, you know, operational CLOs now, right, beyond the CFOs. And we’ve got marketing managers and directors and we’ve even got talent managers that are internal to an organization. The other area that needs a lot of focus is training and feedback. And in a pressure situation where you’re moving paper, you know, the greatest lawyers among us, like my partner Kurt will spend an extraordinary amount of time training and getting people to understand the why of what we do, you know, to use the Simon Sinek approach, why we do things is as important if not more important, and when you spend that time, it has the subconscious or unconscious benefit of showing that person how much they matter, but you’re not doing it for that purpose. Law firms, other professional organizations, I don’t think they can live without on the job training, what we would call kind of in-service, where you’re trying to really showcase how to do something. And you know, it’s not easy to do. So my team now meets, you know, every week, we do charts on where our matters are, we talk openly about the issues we have, we’re on Teams, exploring issues, and the rest of the firm is structured the exact same way. And in fact, we do a lot of kind of multi practice overlap. So if there’s a corporate call, then employment will be plugged in the corporate call, if there are real estate issues, the real estate team will be. And that also gels the firm because you have 90% of the people on the call, then everyone is involved, everyone feels included. And, you know, that is what I believe is the true sense of inclusion. And that sense that you’re all working together as one functional whole of an organization.

Joe Giovannoli  

You know, and you mentioned Kurt, sharing the why, and spending time training and delivering that, and I believe– and we operate on EOS here. But I believe that, you know, people can’t execute the vision if they don’t buy the vision, right. And so if you have somebody new starting, you know, it’s my responsibility as founder and CEO to deliver the vision to them on a silver platter. So that way, they can actually make sure they’re taking active steps to support it. They need to be excited about where we’re going, they need to be excited about what we’re, what we’re offering and what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. So, you know, I think that that’s amazing. I also don’t want to take away from the weight of what he’s doing, right? Like there are a lot of firms out there that are not that it’s not part of their onboarding, right. It’s like, hey, we do legal work, this is what you’re going to do this is, you know, these are your clients, go ahead or go go hunt clients. Right. You know, right, taking that time to share the “why,” share the vision, you know, that can’t be overlooked. That’s so incredibly valuable for the client, the employee experience, which then leads to the client experience.

Howard Matalon  

Sure. I mean, you’re, you know, like every organization, your core values are only as good as the next decision you make. Right, right. Yeah, it’s not like you can have these magical core values mean, you want to take an example of like, you look at Starbucks, before the the incident that happened in Philadelphia with the two African American men and then Starbucks after, they were night and day, it became a fractured business, because their core value was to be in the people business serving coffee, not the other way around. Yeah. And that’s an amazing thing to watch after the fact, to say that that’s where core values come under scrutiny, are you really adhering to those values? Or are you paying lip service to those values? You know, it’s just like the EO organization: we take, as you know, we take trust and respect extremely seriously, that’s the number one value, it’s always stated as the number one value and the minute that that trust and respect is lost, the entire organization could plunge into the sea, because that’s the core of what makes EO special. So everyone has that brand that they reinforce or focus on what makes them unique or special based upon the values they have, what they instill in others and how they and how they ensure that everyone becomes an ambassador of goodwill based upon those values. Yeah, really important.

Joe Giovannoli  

Agreed, and the core values, I mean, I think we could have a whole conversation about that. But hiring and firing and rewarding on your core values are so incredibly important, right? And leading to what you said earlier, you know, the, if you’re hiring somebody based on your core values, you know, the skills should be there, you know, they should have some experience based on what you’re looking for maybe in some roles, maybe not, but you know, assuming that they have some of the experience that caught your eye, you’re you are very largely hiring for, you know, core values fit, for a culture fit, because you can’t teach that, right, and so, you know, a little bit full circle on the things that you said, but I think that the Starbucks example is, is great, there’s a million more that that you could cite and pick out. 

Howard Matalon  

Every business, right, in every single one, you know, it reflects, and what happens, the business’s actions reflect 95% on what its value proposition is. And you know, that can be wonderful and reinforcing. And then can also go in the opposite direction very quickly.

Joe Giovannoli  

Right, and hiring one, one or two bad eggs can really spoil the whole bunch, right? If you’re not, again, you’re not visually out your culture and core values, you know, you could ruin it for everybody else. 

Howard Matalon  

So you take, for example, let’s say an organization that has a sales team, and the company is kind of tone deaf or blind to the fact that one or two of the people on the sales team expect to be promoted in the sales management role. And then the following day, here comes, you know, Sarah, who’s an outsider who’s now been given the sales management role, no effort to let them know she was coming, no effort for Sarah to meet the team or find out if there’s even a gel. And that kind of thing has happened. And you say, how is that team expected, even remotely, to try to work? The first thing they’ll do is try to figure out how Sarah operates, whether they can work with Sarah and maybe they’ll walk out the door now you have destabilized the team that you were looking to promote with a sales director. I mean, so everything we do people have to understand there’s always kind of a cause and effect. Yeah, everything. You know, and it’s a fascinating problem, for sure.

Joe Giovannoli  

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely it just happens to be one of my favorite topics, too. So. So we’re gonna take a quick break here. We just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge our sponsor for the Tip of the Law podcast, 9Sail. 9Sail is a law firm-focused digital marketing agency specializing in providing lead generation and awareness building services, such as SEO, paid search, content creation, and digital public relations. Grow your firm with 9Sail. Howard, you have started a new venture very recently. And I think it kind of ties into some of the stuff we’ve talked about here. But can you tell us a little bit about the new venture that you started? 

Howard Matalon  

Sure. So the name of the business is NAV and navscoring.com is its website address. It’s a byproduct of my feeling that we weren’t doing enough to help the human condition. And so what NAV does– with the support of AI, but it’s human led– is kind of give you a sense of where your value is in your current career, compares it to industry benchmarks, and then can help you understand whether that value would be better served remaining with the organization you’re in or moving on. And we have a whole team of coaches to benefit that journey. In the end, it’s all about our journey, businesses may last hundreds of years, your individual journey may be as little as 30, or 40. And it may be as great as 70 or 80, as people get older, but are still capable of working. But you can’t compare to the age of a business and how long the business is around. And every decision you make on your career is an indelible impression, right? You can’t go back. So we want to hopefully create a science for career trajectory that doesn’t exist right now to help the next generation when they’re wandering through their careers, to make the journey more seamless, to make it more direct, just like any other navigation system. And that’s what NAV does. And my wife Heather’s running it. 

Joe Giovannoli  

That’s amazing. 

Howard Matalon  

Yeah, it’s a great, yeah.

Joe Giovannoli  

Was there a moment in time or something that really triggered this as being something that you guys wanted to do? Or just, you know, your years of experience with hearing similar problems over and over? You know, you’re a serial entrepreneur. So I’m just curious what that, how you came to this.

Howard Matalon  

Yeah, I think it happened right around COVID. Because we’re all sitting around thinking about things and having the new perspective that comes with working more from home and realizing that people are sharing stories with you about how much value they’re leaving on the table, constantly undervaluing themselves, which doesn’t benefit anyone because ultimately, if you’re dissatisfied with the position you have, you’ll leave and then the employer is sitting there and it’s gonna have to go out and it’s gonna have to hire someone at 20 to 50% more salary in the open market. And so why does this keep happening? I mean, we’re no longer in the 50s and 60s where people would say, “Oh, this is a family business. You’ll work here until, you know, we take you out in a box.” Yeah. You know the FM in a business is now three to five years. There’s a reason for that, whether it’s job dissatisfaction, or lack of training, or a lack of experience, or a lack of encouragement, or a lack of promotion, people need to feel like they’re building and growing. That’s the human spirit. And without that, people will flounder, and it benefits people to move from one job to another. I had a friend of mine share with me a story many years ago, she was working in retail. And she was working in one of the big box stores. And she looked up to the buyer who visited one, and they went out to lunch. And she said to the buyer, you know, I hope when I, you know, put a couple of years under my belt that I’m doing what you’re doing, and the buyer said, No, you don’t. If that’s where you end up, you’ve already made a grave mistake in your career. And it shocked her to hear that story, that kind of honest assessment, because the buyer clearly felt that her career, somewhere, had fallen down, had become listless, had become lateral or, or, or, you know, uninteresting, or disinteresting. And you say to yourself, we have to do more, to help our kids to help those who are developing in their careers, get further and further along, develop better build more value and build more wealth, just like any financial planning, you know, you don’t, you don’t wait until you’re 69 to tell your financial planner, you want a million dollars in the bank by the time that you are 70. And you find out that you have 30 cents in the account, you know, you can’t build that kind of instantaneous value unless you win the lottery. It’s the same here, right? What we want to do is promote independent, hardworking human beings who are there to grow and develop, support the organizations they serve, and when it’s time to move on, and the organization will understand when those things have to happen. Yeah. And so that’s the cycle that we’re dealing with here, particularly in our country, and it’s what NAV is designed to really help to develop and promote, and one day we’ll have, with enough data, we’ll have that science. Yeah.

Joe Giovannoli  

Well, as you were talking about all that, I think I think what you’re doing is amazing. And I commend you greatly for that. And the one thing I was thinking throughout the whole whole, you know, summary of, of why you got into it, I’m thinking data, right, I’m thinking you guys are going to have such a wealth of information around the marketplace that you can very much kind of predict certain outcomes and help people with exactly what what you want them to come to you for, right, by understanding, you know, what it takes for people to be in a certain role or to move up in the work. Like, I just think what you guys are doing is incredible. I love that you took what you have spent your career building and doing and turned it into this again. I think that you’re doing good and helping the human condition. I think that that’s incredible. Really, really fun.

Howard Matalon  

It’s really fun.

Joe Giovannoli  

That’s awesome. So we’re coming up to the top of the episode here, I really appreciate your time. And we like to leave our listeners with one tip, it’s called the Tip of the Law, one tip that they could bring back to their companies or their firms that they can implement and see an immediate impact. What would your one tip be if you could summarize it?

Howard Matalon  

I think the one tip would be: spend more time getting to know the people who you’re going to rely upon to help you develop and run your business. Putting the extra effort in pays extraordinary dividends. But when we’re in the moment, we’re just waiting to move on to the next interview, or have the team’s work on that next interview. And it’s precious, those kinds of early meetings, to get to know someone, when someone might reveal what it’s going to be like to work together. You can’t underestimate the value. So put the time in to learning who they are and give them the information they need to understand if it’s a good fit, because one way fits never worked for anyone.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And thank you, I think that that’s so valuable, and I hope people will, you know, really think on that because especially in the legal space, again, a lot of our listeners will be in the legal space– the legal space really has to think this through because, you know, there’s a lot of focus and emphasis on the billable hour. And you know, you talked about earlier that there are, you know, CEOs and I’m seeing firms with CEOs and you know, there are in-house recruiters and in-house HR people. I think that this is a point that really cannot be overstated and overlooked. I think it really needs to be something that firms consider, so spot on. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here and doing this and I look forward to seeing you at any EO event coming up here.

Howard Matalon  

Anything for you, Joe.

Joe Giovannoli  

Thank you so much. Thank you to our listeners. Tune in next week for another episode of Tip of the Law. Thank you for tuning in to the Tip of the Law podcast hosted by Joe Giovannoli. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to tip of the law and leave us a comment wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You’ve been listening to Tip of the Law.