Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the U S law essentials law and language podcast, the legal English podcast for non-native English speakers. That helps you improve your English, listening, improve your legal English vocabulary and build your knowledge of American legal culture.
Speaker 1 00:00:17 All the honorable.
Speaker 2 00:00:22 Welcome to us law essentials law and language podcast. I'm your host. Steven Horowitz today's episode continues our series of interviews with multi-lingual lawyers and law school professionals. Today's guest is George Alison Drago's a litigation associate at keen and being PC in Westchester county. New York. George is a graduate of St. John's law school in New York city and George. I know because he was, uh, my teaching assistant when I taught legal writing for, um, LLM students at St John's. So now George is part of the working world and I'm really, really glad and honored to have him here. George, welcome
Speaker 3 00:01:04 A professor. How's it going? Thank you for having me really looking forward to this. Uh, we haven't spoken, you know, we haven't seen each other nor spoken in a little while in person, you know, uh, COVID happened and all that. And I graduated almost a year ago over a year ago, which is pretty crazy to me. So it's good to be here. Good to interact with.
Speaker 2 00:01:23 Yeah. Nice to, nice to see you. Um, and I know you've got a couple of stories about, about working and doing stuff during the COVID. So before we get to that, I gotta, I gotta ask you, I, I like to start sometimes with a dad joke. Um, are you, are you a fan of dad jokes?
Speaker 3 00:01:40 Uh, I, my friends are huge fans of them. I just got hit or miss with them. You know, I remember you used to do some of these in, in class too. People would look at me for answers and I'd be like, guys, I have zero clue, so we'll try it. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:01:56 Um, uh, let's see. Okay. Here's the question. What did the police officer say to his belly button?
Speaker 3 00:02:05 Uh, man, what did the
Speaker 2 00:02:07 Police officer say to his belly button?
Speaker 3 00:02:11 I'm trying to think, but
Speaker 2 00:02:13 Don't worry. You won't, you're not this isn't going to work against your grade or anything. Okay. So, uh, first question I want to ask you is have you ever lived in another country other than the U S
Speaker 3 00:02:25 I have not. I haven't lived in another country physically, mentally. I have, um, based on, you know, what's going on around me with, with languages and, and family and culture and stuff like that, but always lived in New York.
Speaker 2 00:02:38 Oh, so say more about that.
Speaker 3 00:02:40 I, uh, so I'm Greek. Um, you know, my father was born in Greece. He came to America about 30 years ago. Now my mother was born in Utah. Um, but she, her parents were born in Greece, so they also straight off the boat. Um, so growing up Greek was, was my primary language. You know, I speak English to my mom, but I Greek to my father. I spoke Greek to my grandparents. I speak Greek till basically all my family and my friends. Um, so, and one thing about being Greek, you're very proud to be a Greek. So growing up, you, you have to know the language, you have to go to Greek school and you have to go to church and stuff like that. And I think a lot of people start off doing that and then it tailors off as they get older. I was lucky enough that, you know, I went to the Greek schools for a few years and I spoke to my father every day in Greek and I watched Greek TV and I read Greek news and I read, I watch Greek sports and stuff like that. And, uh, I think with language, it's something that if you do every day, it's great. If you don't do it for a little while you forget it. Um, so I, I just was surrounded by the culture and I felt, you know, growing up Greek, that's how I grew up.
Speaker 2 00:03:46 Let me ask you another question. I like to ask people who, um, whenever I talked to somebody who grows up bilingually, or by culturally, now, if you do math in your head, what language do you do? The math in?
Speaker 3 00:03:59 It depends on the numbers actually, you know? Yeah. I'll do the math in English most of the time, but, uh, like numb increments of five, all oftentimes repeat in Greek, you know, like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, I'm doing something like that. I'll, I'll sometimes say it in Greek because, uh, growing up when, when we played hide and seek and Greece on vacation, it, we would always count. It would be up to a huge number in increments of five. So you learn how to say it really, really quickly. And now that just clicked in my head. So in my head, I just repeat that like long blurb of numbers and, and yeah. And what
Speaker 2 00:04:38 Does that sound like when you, when you count really fast by fives and Greek
Speaker 3 00:04:41 In Greek it's, um, and it keeps going and going and going, and I just got up to 55 there, but like, that's how we cheated in hide and seek. And that's how, like, I'll, I'll remember sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2 00:04:56 Oh, interesting. So, so Matthew did primarily in English because you were in school in the us and doing math and English, but that, that one number usage that was very frequent and that you did very quickly is something that always stuck with you in Greek. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:05:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, and, and it's not only, you know, I mean, oftentimes too, and us not only with numbers, it's with words too, where all, no words in Greek that I don't know in English, and I'm trying to translate them in my head. And I'm like, guys, I don't know how to say this in English. And people are like, how, how do you not know how to S like, it's a basic word, but I just, I don't register. Cause sometimes too, it depends on who I'm speaking to or what I'm speaking about. You know, it's always, people always ask me, do you think in Greek, or do you think in English and it really depends on the context and who I'm speaking to and when I'm speaking about,
Speaker 2 00:05:48 And are you aware when you're thinking in Greek versus English or is it almost like it's not even on your mind?
Speaker 3 00:05:54 I only become aware of it when I'm struggling to put out the word in English and people are probably looking at me like, why are you paused for like a minute now? And then it's always, oh, man, I don't know how to say it in English. And then, then people are like, what are you, what are you doing? Like, what do you mean? You don't know how to say it in English, you know, but it's, you know, a lot of people might not know that I'm also bilingual and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 00:06:18 And do you dream? What, what language do you dream? And more frequently?
Speaker 3 00:06:23 That's probably English. Probably English, but it depends too. If, you know, if I'm dreaming, I'm in Greece, I'm dreaming in Greek
Speaker 2 00:06:32 And you've been to Greece before I assume. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:06:35 Yeah. Growing up, I would go every single summer. Um, because that's one of the things when you're growing up Greek in America, um, especially for the first generations. Um, and I don't know if I'm first generation I'm first and a half generation. I don't know what the definition is. Um, I consider myself first generation and it's big that you have to know the culture and you have to know the country and you have to be proud and know the history. And it's like a Rite of passage going to Greece in the summer. Um, and I had family there, you know, because my dad came straight to America. So my family was there, my grandparents and stuff. So it was a chance to go see them, but also a chance to go see where you're from. And, um, you know, so I used to go every year, then college started and I couldn't go every summer. Um, so I went in 2017 at the end of college. I went in 2019 entering my three L year of law school and go incidentally, as of a few days ago, I'm also going this August, uh, with, with some of my friends. So it's, it's good to go, go back home. So to speak
Speaker 2 00:07:38 And the best Greek food in New York city,
Speaker 3 00:07:41 Anywhere in the store. Yeah. Anywhere in the store. Yeah. You want to get Greek food, you go to the store, you, and that's just, that's
Speaker 2 00:07:47 The neighborhood in Queens. You mean? Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:07:49 Yeah. The story of Queens, you know, there's, there's good restaurants in Manhattan and long island and stuff like that. But if you want that authentic experience where you've, you know, it's not the, the prim and proper linen napkin experience, you go to a story. Got it. Got it.
Speaker 2 00:08:05 Okay. So now let's, let's, uh, ask you a little bit about your work. This is your, you, you started this year, this past year during the pandemic, um, working as a litigation associate at and bean. And actually before we even get to that, before you started working there, you had to pass the bar exam. Right.
Speaker 3 00:08:26 And
Speaker 2 00:08:28 Tell, tell us what happened with the bar exam this year during the pandemic.
Speaker 3 00:08:32 Yeah. No one really knows what happened. Right. I tried to keep track of it as much as possible, but basically, you know, the bar exam is always the second, uh, the, the last Tuesday and Wednesday of July. Right. And then they also do an in February, but as a JD student, you're, you're taking it in July, you know, absent on the unexpected circumstances. So that was supposed to be July 29th and 30th. Something like that COVID happens around March 10th or whenever the, the beginning of this, you know, shutdown happened and we got an email and it's like, okay, the, uh, the bar exam is canceled for now. Something like that. I don't really remember. And we're like, okay, what's going on? Then they, we got an email two months later and it's like, okay, the bar exam is going to be in September or, yeah, I think it was September, beginning of September.
Speaker 3 00:09:22 And we're like, all right, well now we're going to prep for this. Fantastic. So you start prepping and no one really knew what to do, right. Because people typically start studying for the bar exam either right after graduation or a little before. So it's like, you know, end of April, may time, but that's our July bar exam. So now in September, I'm like, well, what do I do? You know, I don't want to burn myself out, but I don't want to just think like, oh, now I have extra time. Long story short. I started prepping probably like June or no, no, July. I would say I was trying to go on that 10 week schedule. That is pretty typical for, for bar prep. I'm starting in about two weeks in mid July. We get another email and they're like, yeah, we're canceling the bar exam.
Speaker 3 00:10:08 Cause COVID is not letting it happen. We're like, okay, well, this is the second time as being canceled. Um, when is it going to be this time? They said until further notice, we don't know. So we didn't know what to do. Our bar prep companies didn't know what to do. So they're sending out emails. Like guys, this is completely new. Um, just take a break right now. You know, you're going through a lot of stress. St. John's even sent out an email and they were like, guys, you should probably just not study for a few days or take a week off. Just, you know, relax a little because everyone's in limbo. And I don't know if it was a week later or two weeks later. And they said, okay, it's going to be in October, but it's going to be online. And online was through the, uh, the software that we actually use at St. John's it was exemplify. And, uh,
Speaker 2 00:10:57 There were, that's the software that,
Speaker 3 00:10:59 That, yeah, that's a software ExamSoft.
Speaker 2 00:11:02 They make you put it on your computer so that you can't. So while you're taking an exam, you can't access any other apps or programs or the internet or anything like that.
Speaker 3 00:11:11 Absolutely. Yeah. They lock you out of everything. Um, and when we were in law school, they didn't have the camera on for, for this one. They had the camera on and they were recording you. And they said, you know, if there sounds, it will be flagged by the AI, the artificial intelligence, the computer, and then we'll have, you know, real people go and review it and see, you know, where you looking away from your computer, where there are indications of you cheating, you know, this, that, and the other. Um, so that got a lot of people nervous. Um, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 00:11:41 I remember hearing stories of people who were, were flagged or cited and told that they had failed the bar. They had to stop taking the bar because there was some sound got
Speaker 3 00:11:53 Picked up, even though we haven't done anything. Yeah. I don't know if it was in live time. I know that, you know, my biggest concern because people were trying to take practice exams and in other states too, um, cause it was a UBE thing, you know, the uniform bar exam. Yeah. And multiple states, we were all going through the same thing. So social media really became a place where you could go and see what other people are doing and what other people are going through. And they're like, yeah, you know, every time I try to take a practice exam, my computer crashes and what am I supposed to do if this happens on the day of the exam. And so there was a lot of panic on that. And, uh, we were the first first group to take it a remote exam or remote bar exam on technology that there, it was not tried and tested on for the actual bar exam.
Speaker 3 00:12:39 So my biggest concern was twofold. One, let me finish the exam. I knew that, you know, if I'm going to fail the exam, let me, let me fail on my own. Not because my computer didn't work and the software didn't want to work. And two, I didn't want any noise or anything to disqualify me. I didn't think that was, you know, that was fair. And to be fair, I had the, I was lucky enough where I, I wasn't a quiet space and stuff like that, but I know other people and friends of mine too, they were in, you know, in a small apartment or something. And they had a roommate working from home at the time. And what are they supposed to do? Or they had an animal or they had plenty of people have kids and they have to take care of their kids.
Speaker 3 00:13:21 Or they have, you know, a lot of people were sick and they had to, they needed a break and they needed accommodations that in-person, you can get an online, you cannot. And so that was a big thing. Again, I'm lucky enough that I didn't have to deal with that, but, but a lot of people did. And that was just unfortunate because I don't know, you know, I was reading online that accommodations weren't being granted, or they were being granted last second or they were being half granted and stuff like that. So it was, it was really weird for us. And, um, you know, to be fair, we did only take technically half the exam. They cut the exam straight in half. Um, because we were the first people, they had no clue if you know, it's two long essays, I forget what they're called. Um, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:14:08 I mean he or something. And then there's six shorter essays normally. And then 200 multiple choice, I think the M E or the six shorter ones. And then two longer ones are MPT. Something like that is one of those and 200 multiple choice. Um, but for us, because I think partially because we were the first group to take it, um, even though some companies didn't want to admit it, they had no clue it was going to work. I think they said, let's cut it down because there's a lot of data going on here. We don't know if this is going to work. And the other thing that they did was, and I don't know if they're still doing it this way, everyone taking the exam started at the same time. So that means we were on the same time as Hawaii, Hawaii. If we were starting 9:00 AM on the east coast, Hawaii, they're starting at like 3:00 AM or 4:00 AM. I don't know what the time. Yeah. So
Speaker 2 00:14:59 I don't know about that. That's
Speaker 3 00:15:01 Crazy. There was no way for us to put in those long hours on the east coast without going into the night. And there was no way for them to do it on the west coast without starting from, you know, 4:00 AM. So
Speaker 2 00:15:14 What time did the test, so you started at 9:00 AM. What
Speaker 3 00:15:16 Time did it end? Well, I started at 12. I started at noon because we're in New York so that California can start at 9:00 AM.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 Before we move on any briefly, just to any, uh, advice you would have for future
Speaker 3 00:15:28 Bar takers. Absolutely. And, uh, I, I say this to people that are taking it. Now I say this to one, L's I say it to two Wells. Um, this was a piece of advice I got and it really stuck with me is that this is not the hardest thing you're going to do. That's what really I repeated to myself while studying. Um, it's not the hardest thing we have to do. It's, it's an exam. We've taken plenty of exams so far. Uh, we've been in school for many, many years. We know how to take exams. Granted this one might have slightly more importance to it and granted it might have slightly more, you know, uh, anticipation behind it. Cause you've been working for it for three years in law school for this one moment is not the hardest thing you're going to do. You know, have faith in yourself, have, you know, what works for you.
Speaker 3 00:16:16 This is what I tell people all the time. You know, what works for you in terms of study habits, in terms of testing habits, it's not the time to change it. And that's what I stuck to to myself at first, I was like, no, I'm going to do flashcards. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I never did those growing up. I never did those through law school either. And within I opened a pack of flashcards and, uh, after I saw the first flashcard, I was like, Nope, this is, this is not happening. And I stuck to what I know works. It worked for me this far. I had faith that it would work for me again. One last time on possibly the last exam I'll ever take. So what,
Speaker 2 00:16:51 What worked for you?
Speaker 3 00:16:53 You know, I just, I didn't, I took Barbary. I took Barbara as the, uh, the, the bar prep company. And I think all the companies do this. Do they have a progress meter? They say where you should be every day I started a month after every one. So it said I should have been 20 or 25% of the way through. I know what works for me. I know that I can catch up because I will put in the hours and I will put in the work and I'll know where I can cut corners a little bit, whether it's a subject I know, or whether, you know, I'm not too concerned about the MPTs for example, I know my strengths. I played to that. I knew that if I start panicking, um, that's gonna not be good for myself. So I tried not to panic. It's very difficult. Um, during the exam it happened, but I just had faith in myself. I know, I know that I'm a sit down, you know, get my things together and put in work for the next eight to 10 hours. And then onto the next day, you know, it wasn't, uh, I wasn't as structured as necessarily the bar courses or even, you know, professors would suggest, but I never, I never did do that. Even in law school, I knew what worked for me and I just stuck to it.
Speaker 2 00:18:04 Okay. So it sounds like that serves you well. So you finish the bar, you passed fortunately, and now you're working at this law firm. How do you describe what you do to say a grandmother or, or your aunts or uncles who ask about it or perhaps some younger nephews or nieces?
Speaker 3 00:18:25 Yeah. Um, so I started off with saying, I do a little bit of everything. Um, you know, as you said earlier, it's a general litigation position. So, so it's all litigation. I don't really do any transactional work first and foremost, but I'm where I'm
Speaker 2 00:18:40 At, because that means you're suing people. You're in court all day.
Speaker 3 00:18:43 I haven't gone to court yet, but, uh, yeah, that's, that's what the people around me are doing. Yeah. They're not, they're not doing like, you know, wills and trusts and contract drafting and stuff like that. These are the people that you would see on TV, so to speak, except we don't do criminal law, but you know, maybe if it's a civil case on TV, never on TV, cause it's not as juicy, but you know, that kind of, that kind of stuff. Um, so, so in terms of litigation, we don't do personal injury. We don't do criminal, but we do a little bit of everything else. Um, my website profile says I do environmental law and it says I do land use and zoning. And it says, I do general litigation. And I think the most accurate one is general litigation because it's not only environmental, it's not only land use. Um, but what do I do? How would I explain it to someone? Uh, whatever you can think of breach of contract. We've worked on, um, you know, environmental compliance, regulatory compliance stuff I've worked on. Um, a lot of our clients are municipalities cities, towns, villages, Westchester county area in north. And, uh, when you work with municipalities, you're sort of, you know, there's a whole wide variety of issues that come up every day.
Speaker 2 00:20:00 When you say municipalities, you mean like the towns, the town governments, there's a lot of small towns in New York city, which is above, sorry, in Westchester county, above New York city. Um, there's a there's county government, there's town government, but not yet. You don't mean state government,
Speaker 3 00:20:16 Right? No, no, we do. We represent town, specifically towns, villages, cities, and, uh, you know, things that come up and whether that's advising on, you know, applicability of a contract or something like that, or whether there is a, um, a land dispute or an easement with, you know, that the town has or is granting or something like that, uh, it really runs the mill. It could be anything. So
Speaker 2 00:20:45 Are you drafting complaints? Are you legal research are
Speaker 3 00:20:49 A little bit of everything again and a little bit of everything. Again, I actually, I, I w I was at work today, drafting a complaint. Um, it's mostly legal research, um, because I just started and, and that's actually, uh, something that I always tell people in law school that is something that if you could get good at, there is a market for that. There is really important to be good at researching. I'm not saying I'm good. I hope I'm good. I hope I'm good enough, but you know, um, legal research, a lot of it, uh, interactions with clients it's weird now because of the pandemic, right? Like that's, I don't really quite know what this, what the norm is because I just started working and I don't know what the norm is because I also started working at a time where nothing is normal. Right. So, uh, yeah, th there's that, um, but it'll be drafting parts of a brief maybe, or, you know, sometimes take a stab at drafting the entirety of one. It really depends. It really depends on the case and my availability and the availability and the timeframe that we have to work with. Right.
Speaker 2 00:21:55 So what are, what are some of the tasks you did at work today, for example?
Speaker 3 00:22:00 Uh, so today I drafted a summons and complaint. I, uh, I reviewed a contract, uh, to see if, if there's a certain provision in there that that calls for, uh, allocation of, of spending, um, not allocation of spending, but whether whether a certain party has to pay for something. Um, what else did I do today? I did the contract. I did the summons and complaint. I worked on drafting, a letter to a, uh, a town board regarding a land use application, uh, you know, uh, land use. Can you
Speaker 2 00:22:33 Say more about what a land
Speaker 3 00:22:34 Use applicant? Yeah. Land use application, you know, that's one of the things on my website profile, uh, land use and zoning is that, you know, if someone comes and says, Hey, uh, I want to do this on my property, but the, the town code says, I need X number of square feet to do it. And, uh, I only have Y number of square feet, which is less than X. How do I go about this and what you would have to do in most situations, as you seek for a variance, which is a variance, is just, you know, the town saying, okay, I know that you have less than the required square feet, but we'll let you do it under these conditions or whatever. So you have to file an application and a lot of town codes or village codes or city codes describe what the application process is and what you have to show and all that.
Speaker 3 00:23:19 So today I was right drafting this letter, and I found the town code that says these eight factors are going to be considered. So what did I do? I put it in the letter. And I said, all right, addressing factor, number one. Here's why, you know, our client should be granted the, uh, the, the special permit. Here's number two. Here's why they should be granted the special permit. Um, so that's what the land use kind of stuff is. Building permits, variances, um, site plan, approval waivers, stuff like that. It all sounds, you know, very complex, but it's really everything that you would expect. You can't just go somewhere and just build right. You need permits. And that's where you hire attorneys. Most of the time to handle this for you,
Speaker 2 00:24:06 What are, what are some aspects of your legal practice that you like or that you enjoy?
Speaker 3 00:24:11 I, I certainly like, um, the land use stuff that I, I, I like, I mean, I there's, I'm not saying I only enjoy land use. I want to make that clear, but I can sort of relate to it. Um, I took a construction law course at St. John's, for example, because my father is an architect and my brother's an architect, and I've always been around construction going, growing up. I've always been around renovations and projects like that. My dad would take me to job sites. So now seeing the transactional aspect of it, the building permits and the waivers and variances and stuff like that before you get to construction, that's interesting to me. Um, you know, and, and I think that I've also been lucky enough to work on some pretty interesting cases so far. Um, you know, not necessarily again on TV, they, all they show are criminal cases, right?
Speaker 3 00:25:05 Like murders and stuff like that. And terrorism, plots and stuff. But the civil aspect has some interesting things in it where you sort of see, like, when you learn new things, you learn new things. You know, there's not necessarily a run of the mill case and being able to learn these new things, I think is pretty cool. I think it makes you, you know, more well-versed because you come out of this and you're like, Hey, trivia night, I learned something by working on this case. Um, and now I'm going to get this question right. And no one else is going to know it. I know it because I spent, you know, eight hours reading into it or something like that. So you really build up a lot
Speaker 2 00:25:41 Of background knowledge and cultural knowledge.
Speaker 3 00:25:44 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You, yeah. And you don't even notice that you're doing it until you're having a conversation with someone, you know, with your friends on a weekend and they bring up something and you're like, well, actually it's this way. And they're like, how do you know this? You wouldn't believe this, but, uh, it came up the other week at work and
Speaker 2 00:26:04 Benefits of practicing law. Yeah. Yeah. Could you, would you be able to write a legal document in Greek or is that a whole different skillset?
Speaker 3 00:26:14 That is a whole different, entirely different skillset. And it's funny you ask that because my grandmother, um, she's been on me for the last few weeks. I actually, I just came back from seeing her over the weekend. I visited her in Utah for her birthday. Um, she's been on me to translate her will from Greek into English. And I'm like, all right, I could do this. And she writes, she writes in Greek, like a it's it's called . It's like a, not at now ancient Greek, but it's like a, like a legal Greek, so to speak. And there's, this is just like a sort of different language. It's like a different dialect
Speaker 2 00:26:56 And the movie, my big fat Greek wedding accurate, or
Speaker 3 00:27:03 Growing up, growing up, I always got that question. It was, and, and, you know, I went to Greek school, Greek school being daily Greek school, where you had Greek classes every day in Greek history and stuff until fourth grade, fifth grade, I started going to quote-unquote American school. And that's where people were like fifth grade. It was probably for me 2005, 2006. So my big fat Greek wedding, I think came out around then, or maybe a little before then. So a lot of people were like, oh, you're Greek, you know, my big fat Greek wedding. This is that Windex is that in the other. And I still, I still hear it to this day, but what I remember growing up, I was like, man, these Americans, they don't get it. Like, it's not like this, this movie really put out a bad name, but then I watched it a few years ago.
Speaker 3 00:27:50 And I was like, you know, this is obviously a hyperbole, but some of the underlying parts of this are, are sort of accurate. Like, you know, um, we don't necessarily spray Windex on everything, but, but the, the underlying aspect of like, my father is obsessed with like baby wives, for example, we always have to have baby wipes everywhere. You know, anything that spills can be cleaned by baby wipe. If you get oil on you, baby wipe just spill wine on you, baby wipe, you should have baby wipes in the car, things like that. So that kind of stuff is, yeah, that kind of stuff is accurate. And the, the whole, like, you know, the, oh, you, what do you mean? You don't eat meat. It's okay. I'll make lamb like that kind of stuff again, sort of accurate because it's like, you don't really hear people say, you know, in, in, you know, to Greek party, for example.
Speaker 3 00:28:40 Yeah. I don't eat meat because Greeks eat a lot of meat. Th th the diet is heavily meat based and stuff like that. So, you know, it's, it's almost like cuisine, especially for example, my grandmother she'll, she'll offer people food. And I think this was like this in the movie, she'll offer people food, even if she just met them, the mailman comes by, why don't you come in and have some food? You know, someone came to fix the sprinklers, come in, I have food ready for you. And I think the movie does a good job of showing that. Um, and it's almost like disrespectful if you say no. Right? So, so some of it, some of it is, again, the underlying tones are accurate and that they had an hour and a half to get this out there. So, you know, it was hyperbole at some points, but looking back at it, there, there are certain things that
Speaker 2 00:29:27 It fits with an experience I had years ago in, in Ohio, we were visiting a friend, um, uh, who was from there. And we went over to visit his brother and his brother's wife is Greek American. And they happened to be having a, a lamb roast, I guess they were roasting an entire lamb and their backyard. And people were always, people were coming over and they just invited us right in, they didn't know us, but they started giving us food. And, uh, it was, it was, uh, and I know at the time that that's, that's sort of how it is.
Speaker 3 00:30:03 Yeah. My friends love it. My, uh, you know, a lot of my friends are Greek, um, or Italian and Italians are like Greeks, you know, similar that, there's the saying will not outside one phase, one race. You know, we look the same where the same culture, all that stuff. Um, I jokingly tell my friends that Italy is Western Greece too. So they, they love when I say stuff like that. But, um, the non, if they hear this, they're going to laugh when I say when the, when they, when they hear that part. But no, it's, it's really, I remember back in, uh, in high school, I brought some of my friends and my friends from high school were in Greek. And I brought them to a Greek social club that my dad was the president of, and that night it was just, you know, food and food and wine and soda and all this and music. And one of them was like, do you guys do this every week? And I'm like, yeah, we pretty much do this every week. Like, this is how it is. They're like, this is so cool. I'm like, yeah, you say that now, but then you get tired of the video.
Speaker 2 00:30:59 Well, George, thank you so much. It's been, it's been really a treat, getting to talk to you. Um, uh, before we finish, I wanted to ask if you have any advice that you've been given in your life that you'd want to share, or maybe advice that you like to give to, to other law students or lawyers.
Speaker 3 00:31:20 Yeah, for sure. So the one thing I touched on earlier was for the bar exam, this isn't the hardest thing you're ever going to do. And that applies for law school. That's not the hardest thing you're ever going to do. And that applies to applying job for jobs. That's not the hardest thing you're ever going to do. And that applies to working. It's not the hardest thing you're going to ever do. That's one piece of advice, my second piece of advice, um, and, and I've, I've noticed this over the years, I grew up playing soccer. And one of the things I was told back then, and, you know, professional soccer players say, commentators, say, coaches say it is that the game is 90% mental. And I think that I gave this advice when ITA with you, I gave that advice to a lot of the students because the students were coming from abroad and they were new to America, or they've been here, but they were new to this program.
Speaker 3 00:32:12 And they're like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I don't know how to use a computer. I don't know how to speak the language I'm doomed. I'm doomed. I'm like guys is 90% mental. And to tie into that, my sub piece of advice on that is always go out. I told them, go out, live your life, spend time with your families, enjoy your weekends, enjoy your nights. Because if you don't have the mental clarity, everything is so much more difficult. Whether it's prepping for the bar, whether it's doing work for school, whether it's going to class, whether it's working in an office, working in whatever situation you need to have that mental clarity, they need to have that mental positivity. And you need that downtime to just unwind because school gets on you work gets on you. Bar prep gets on you, and the more you hold it in, eventually you're just going to shut down.
Speaker 3 00:33:03 They're going to burn out. So my, my single biggest piece of advice, and this applies not only to the legal world to everything, remember, it's, it's 90% mental take care of yourself. And you know, mental health is a big thing now. And I don't wanna, you know, make this about mental health, but it's a, it's a problem that a lot of people are dealing with, especially now with COVID and being inside and all that stuff. Um, you have to take care of yourself, take care of yourself first and foremost, and everything else will be much better if you're not taking care of your body. If you're not taking care of your mind, uh, work is harder. School is hard at bar. Prep is harder. Life is harder. So my biggest piece of advice, one day at a time, focus on yourself, do what you enjoy. If you're having fun doing it, you're going to love it. If you're miserable doing it, it's not gonna last long. It's gonna be,
Speaker 2 00:33:51 Yeah, that seems like something that the legal profession and the law school world have started to take a lot more seriously and are really focusing on. And that's, that's, uh, I think that's a really important,
Speaker 3 00:34:03 Yeah. And I hope so. And I, and I know for example, I have friends that's that are taking the bar exam this summer, took it over the winter are going to take it next year. And they're always like, you know, I have to study I'm so far behind, and this is what I referred to earlier with the progress meter on Barbary. Don't worry about what you should be doing, right? Focus one day at a time you can't change the past. And importantly, I told, I told my friends too, if you're going to, if you're studying for the bar the first month, the first few weeks, I knew what worked for me. I went out on weekends. I suggest people go out on weekends on wine. You can't let this take over your life. And I'm not saying go out and then come home at four in the morning on a Sunday. Cause it's summer. And then, you know, have to wake up. I'll wake up at two at 2:00 PM on Monday and I'll study, no, go out with your friends, have that connection, speak to your family, watch a movie, do things like that. That is so important. So, so important. Um, for everything, you know, for work, I can't stress it enough. That's definitely my biggest piece of it.
Speaker 2 00:35:08 Thanks, George. Um, and now we get to come back to the dad joke. Let's see if any of this has tripped some wires in your brain that bring an answer to your, to your lips. Okay. What did the police officer say to his belly button and he new thoughts?
Speaker 3 00:35:27 Absolutely not. And I'm going to go with you're under arrest, but that probably doesn't make sense. Make sense? I want to say it's you're under something.
Speaker 2 00:35:35 Yeah, you almost got it. It's you're under a vest.
Speaker 3 00:35:40 Uh, oh man.
Speaker 2 00:35:43 You're under a vest. Melly button is under the vest. So anyway, thank you, George so much for being here. This is, this is a really unique and interesting interview in, and of course, a great chance to catch up as well.
Speaker 3 00:35:57 No, and thank you for having me. I definitely loved catching up. Um, it, it, you know, time flew by. I didn't even realize how long we've been talking, but it, it's just great. It's a great to interact with people that I've worked with in the past or I've seen in law school. It's it's, it's nice. So I appreciate it. I appreciate being able to speak to you about this. I hope people can hear this and maybe it can help one person, two people, however many it helps. Um, so thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm very
Speaker 2 00:36:25 Okay. And I have a feeling we're going to be checking back with you at some point to, to, you know, to hear more about how things are going and experiences as well as, as well as evolutions in, in Greek culture,
Speaker 3 00:36:37 You let me know and I am available. I am available.
Speaker 2 00:36:40 So thanks everybody for listening to us. Law essentials, law and language podcast, and stay essential.
