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 00:00:21 Welcome to us law. Central's law and language podcast. I'm your host, Steven Horowitz. And today we continue our series of interviews with multilingual lawyers and today's guest is Maria. Got a, did I pronounce that correctly?
Speaker 3 00:00:36 Yep.
Speaker 2 00:00:36 Cut it. And got a, okay. Maria got a, a tax law associate at the law firm of freed Frank in New York city. She is a graduate of the university of Nevada in Spain. Ooh, I'm not usually good at rolling my RS, but I, I think I got it.
Speaker 3 00:00:51 Did, did a great job.
Speaker 2 00:00:53 Okay. It completed her tax LLM at New York university school of law in 2018. Uh, prior to her current work, Maria also previously worked as a tax lawyer at Ernst and young or E Y as I think it's now called, uh, for over three years. And prior to that, she was a tax lawyer for the global law firm of Clifford chance in their Madrid Spain office. Uh, and we will have Maria's, uh, LinkedIn profile or LinkedIn link in the show notes to connect with her. Um, welcome Maria. It's so nice to have you as a guest.
Speaker 3 00:01:30 Hi, it's David. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really happy that I was able to join some opportunity. I'm here to talk about everything that you want to talk about.
Speaker 2 00:01:38 All right. Well, you are the first tax lawyer we've had on the show. And I know other than the fact that I pay taxes, I know various about tax law, and I know there's a whole nother vocabulary. Uh, so we're hoping you can explain the entire vocabulary of tax law in 30 minutes.
Speaker 3 00:01:55 Okay. That wait, I can do it. I'm ready. Ready to go?
Speaker 2 00:02:00 Okay. So now first I want to say we were introduced, um, by, uh, a friend of mine and a former guest on this podcast, Clara Solomon. Uh, and why don't you tell us how, you know, Clara?
Speaker 3 00:02:11 So Claire was in our professional opportunities team at NYU. She will connect and be the link between the students that they were doing an LMS specific LLMs. And she really devoted herself to try to connect international students with, uh, job opportunities in the United States. So this will be for somebody that wanted to stay in the us to try and to find a job. So Claire will be there to help us with our resume, try to connect us with different, uh, networking options, talk to people and things like that. So, yeah, so she's actually a really important resource for people like me.
Speaker 2 00:02:45 Oh, good to know. Okay. And let me ask you another question. What languages do you speak?
Speaker 3 00:02:50 So I'm originally from Spain. So Spanish is my mother tongue is my native language. I speak English. Um, right now I like to think I'm almost in a bilingual level, not just professional, um, like a little bit above. And then I speak,
Speaker 2 00:03:06 Let me ask you a question. When you, when you dream, do you dream in English or Spanish?
Speaker 3 00:03:11 I dream in English now, which is, which is great because everybody it's funny. Cause you mentioned that cause there was, uh, when I was younger, that was like the myths. If you know a language enough, then you will dream in English. And now I like, I, I do everything in English. Uh, my, for 90% of my life is in English. So yeah.
Speaker 2 00:03:29 Well let me ask you, this is, I used to think it was about dreaming, but this is my new standard for, for bilingual. If I give you a math problem, um, 43 times 27, I just made that up. Um, do you do that? And you do it in your head. You do it in English or in Spanish.
Speaker 3 00:03:47 So that will be, I think I'm a, I'm a mix in between. Cause, uh, as, as maybe we can talk about that later. Uh, we were talking in the free show. I am not very good with numbers for being a tax lawyer, doing my numbers in my head. And then sometimes I do it in Spanish. And what is funny is that when I'm running and I'm doing, I'm counting the seconds left in the sprint, I count them in, in, uh, in a Spanish. So I guess when I'm put into like a stream, a stress, uh, I guess I go, I go back to my native language and I go like five, four, and I do it in Spanish. Cause I'm like lift the sprint bit over. Cause I just want to go on.
Speaker 2 00:04:25 Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. So when your mind gets stressed, the default under underlying it all, is that base of Spanish that you grew
Speaker 3 00:04:32 Up? Definitely.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Oh, interesting. Okay. And what countries have you lived in? You lived in,
Speaker 3 00:04:39 I lived in Spain. I lived in the U S I lived, um, now I'm located in New York city, but I lived in Seattle before, uh, for an exchange program when I was, uh, in the school. And then I lived in Milan in Italy for eight months when I was able to another, another program, another exchange program that I had when I was studied in Spain. Yup.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 You speak any Italian?
Speaker 3 00:05:00 Have a little bit, this is really easy for us. Um, like Spanish and Italian. It will be very similar. And then I'm sorry and apologize. So every Italian speaker that was ever in Detroit before me, because they will be like this completely different language. So it has nothing to do with us. Um, but when I went to Italy, it was kind of like, if you, if I speak Spanish, slow enough, they will be able to understand me and it will, it will be similar for them. So
Speaker 2 00:05:26 Just speak Spanish, like you're singing a song or something, then it sounds right.
Speaker 3 00:05:31 Exactly. They have that a strong accent that makes us special
Speaker 2 00:05:34 And just use your hands a little bit more.
Speaker 3 00:05:37 I know that they cannot see me, but that's exactly what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2 00:05:41 And what about, do you speak any, do you speak French?
Speaker 3 00:05:44 So France was, um, like, um, it was like a subject at school. I did like six years of French at a point I was, I was able to have full conversation, read and write, uh, same as Basque, which I am from the north of Spain. I'm from the country. So we have, we have our own language. Uh, and then, and then exactly, I started studying bask when I was three, but then it's such a complicated language that if you don't practice, then obviously it goes away. So when I went to a school, uh, to, uh, university of Navarro, when I, when I went to study law, there was idea of Prentice and open. Then they went out.
Speaker 2 00:06:21 If, if you, do you have relatives that, that still speak Basque, maybe older.
Speaker 3 00:06:26 Yep.
Speaker 2 00:06:27 And if you see them, do you, can you communicate in Basque?
Speaker 3 00:06:31 Um, so the city, the area that I am right now is not like it's, um, like my family do live. Like don't only be like villages. The, the different would be like, there is older people that, that will only be able to speak basket. I don't have like, my, my, my grandparents were able to speak Spanish, so I never had to go to that. But I have aunts and uncles that are like my, my parents, uh, sisters and brothers that they speak back, bask as good as they speak Spanish. So like, and they actually speak in Basque with a, with a kids. So
Speaker 2 00:07:03 You're never in a situation where you need to, but
Speaker 3 00:07:05 I'm like, I don't know what to do. I mean, it was, there is cases. And then there's people that, um, that if you, if you go like traveling a little bit, cause the bass country has like all those like rural areas, which is really nice and the scenery is magnificent and you go there and then their default will be to, to speak to you and Basque. And you're like, um, I mean, if I go now, I'll be like, yeah, there's, there's nothing left at the time. I was able to like handle myself. Uh, pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:07:34 So you've, you've, you've acquired some languages, but you've also had a language slip from your brain. Do you think it's still somewhere?
Speaker 3 00:07:41 Uh, I think that if it's, if I go back to practicing, but I think I will not be able to I'll have to go back to this street basis. And then of course, the moment I started back, it will probably make it up. I always say that in order to make a space for all the law studies and all the business administration studies, I needed to like make a space in my brain for something else. And basketball is the first thing that got out of the window. It was like, yeah, you're not going to need this anymore. By
Speaker 2 00:08:06 What about English? How did you learn English?
Speaker 3 00:08:09 So English was also like a subject. Uh, the school was like a mandatory subject. Um, when I was disquiet started studying English when I was three. Um, and then my parents kind of picked it up quickly that I like enjoy it. It, um, I will sing the Backstreet boys like now will be, that will be my jam. It will be. And they will be like, oh, so she has a tendency to go to like English speaking music. And so they, they, they paid attention and thank them that they pay attention. Cause they started giving me more opportunities. I started taking like additional classes and my mom would like sign them, send me for like all the Trinity college exams and the Cambridge university exams and then taking the TOEFL and everything to like, uh, improve as much as possible. And then the way I like made my English, I mean, not as good as by like picked up was, um, when I went to university of Nevada, I have a law degree and a business administration degree. So the business administration was completely in English.
Speaker 2 00:09:11 Uh, so that's where you really felt like,
Speaker 3 00:09:14 Yeah, expanding the whole, the whole English vocabulary, being able to like talk about, uh, macroeconomics and cost association in, in, in English. So that was definitely, it was, it made, it made an impact. And from there, like, I mean, Clifford chance is a global firm. So a lot of our clients are international clients. So we had to work maybe like 70% of our job was in English. And then obviously the moment I came here, 99% of my job is English. So yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:43 I was going to ask you what, how much are you using Spanish or English in your work or how much does it speak Spanish at this point?
Speaker 3 00:09:51 I mean, so the good thing is that obviously Mo like the default is obviously English, but I always make aware that I am a Spanish native speaker. So when it comes to maybe some of our clients might be from Latin America, right. So they, and they might not have access to English the same way as, as we do that doesn't mean that they are, they are, they kind of do business with our clients or with us or whatever. So I always offer, like I was saying like, Hey, I can speak, I can help translating. I can help, um, drafting emails or being jumping in conversation. So the, the link between a client, a Spanish speaker client, and I'm an English speaking lawyer, I'm always there. And then I really use it on my pro bono work pro bono work, uh, with, um, uh, Spanish suspenders native Latin-America. Um, uh, so that is definitely
Speaker 2 00:10:42 What's. Can you say more about your pro bono work?
Speaker 3 00:10:44 So, um, Frick is the practice that I've been working with. Franklin is they are, have been focusing on, uh, naturalization process and immigration process for people that might have, especially situations or having an irregular, uh, maybe immigration, uh, like history. And they want to try to clean the slate, made a right. So there is a lot of, uh, Latin America clients that we have that we work with legal aid. And then, and then I always like, they always ask and it's always, it's great. Cause it's always an asset to be able to speak another language. They always be like, Hey, who wants to help with this? And if somebody has other language, uh, capabilities, and I always say like, I speak Spanish. So they, like, I get assigned immediately with like, uh, people that might not have a good level of English to understand what is going on. So
Speaker 2 00:11:33 You're helping them with immigration law and not acts law in that situation. Right. Yup.
Speaker 3 00:11:39 Yup.
Speaker 2 00:11:39 Oh, wow. That must, that must be, how do you feel about immigration law? How, how did you,
Speaker 3 00:11:45 Um, so I'm, uh, I have my own, like as an international student and international lawyer in this country, we always have to go through it. Like immigration is like one of the main concerns. Um, it's funny when I was doing interviews to find too, and like to find the job, if I wanted to stay in the United States, immigration was always like, my main concern is like, are you going to be able to sponsor my visa? Is there something that I'm going to have to leave after a year because my student visa expired and you will not be able to like help me with that. Right. So, um, immigration has always been part of like, it's, it's connected to international or immigrants, people here, obviously in the, in the, in the United States, I have my own green card journey. So, uh, so that, that connects with, with other people that are in the same situation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:32 Uh, so it's kind of like, just by being an international student in the U S
Speaker 3 00:12:36 You get exposed to that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 You, you end up with a master's in immigration law sorta.
Speaker 3 00:12:42 Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:44 I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, there's people that devote their lives to it and really know that
Speaker 3 00:12:50 No, of course they will know way more than me and I will never try to tell them what to do, but the fact that theirs is, um, that actually one, a specific client that I'm working with right now, um, that my, my colleague, my attorney, he is, um, he's a, he's a U S citizen. Obviously. He never had to like say something like that. And then he's like, okay. So we have to like help her for like, fill up the forms and things like that on the ups. I've done this because I I've done it for myself. So like actually like help, um, knowing what forms to prepare and things like that to want to make, to make the job a little bit more easier.
Speaker 2 00:13:25 Oh wow. The people you work with must really appreciate that. Um, so, so you're, you're bilingual in English and Spanish. Are you bilingual in English and Spanish in terms of tax law as well?
Speaker 3 00:13:38 I would say that at this point, I will love to think that yes. Um,
Speaker 2 00:13:44 You can go into all the tax terminology and the legal terminology and do all of that in Spanish as well.
Speaker 3 00:13:51 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:13:53 Is there anything that's particularly hard to translate? It doesn't translate well from Spanish to English or English to Spanish in terms of tax concepts.
Speaker 3 00:14:01 So, I mean, the tax systems are so different between, um, uh, Spain and they, and the United States that there is concepts here that we don't have in the Spain, like it, this concept here as, as for example, tax basis. And then when I tried to that, that doesn't exist in the, in, in the, in the Spanish system. Right. So for example, when I was like, when we were at the LLM and I was trying to understand this there's new things, which, um, and when you're dealing, I mean, I hope it's same. I would like to think that they did a great job trying to like, bring all those new concepts to people that they come from completely different systems and they don't have knowledge or even experience on, on, on all that. Right. So when we talk about tax bases here in the United States would decide to relevant concept for us that doesn't exist in, in, in, in Spain. So I can not like there's no correlation on whether tax basis yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:51 Tax basis. Okay. And just explain, how would you explain the term tax basis?
Speaker 3 00:14:55 So the tax basis will be understood as how much, the, whatever widget that we're selling cost to the seller at the time, and any additional tags or decision or the precision or the tags, uh, elements that will have an effect on the value at the seller point in his tax accounting, uh, books.
Speaker 2 00:15:18 Okay. And that, that doesn't exist in Spanish tax law.
Speaker 3 00:15:22 How we translate it as how and how we estimated here does not exist in the Spain, but we'll have some type of like fair market value adjusted or something like that. But for me, it was one of the things like, what is this thing? Like, why is this people talking about adjusting and do it and adjust attack spaces and things like that. I'm like, whatever caused the seller, mine was whatever their parents is, where the participant want to pay. That is the, that is the gain or the loss of the transaction, not in the United States.
Speaker 2 00:15:53 Well, any, any, any other good ones that don't translate that don't translate well between?
Speaker 3 00:15:58 Um, so another thing that is, um, so how we, but I guess that it's also, this is connects with like, procedure, right? Uh, how we call, like the different rates, the different, like, uh, documents that we submit to the tax court and things like that. There is like, the words in, in, in, in Spanish are like way more complicated than here. Like, it will be just like a brief or a legal note or a legal, or our like, um, an opinion or something like that. Like, it's, it has, it's like a whole complex world. Like <inaudible>, there's something weird. And I'm like, okay, it's not even the same.
Speaker 2 00:16:34 So like we're involved, there's like a bigger, formal name for the deck.
Speaker 3 00:16:37 Yep. For the thanks. And here, it was like, oh, we just submitted a brief. Okay, good.
Speaker 2 00:16:43 And, uh, what about where like, is amortization just <inaudible> or something <inaudible> The Spanish with a TA On top of that, but I definitely
Speaker 3 00:17:07 Th the, it will be, it will be it's, it's easy to relate one to the other, one of the words that I was, and this is not tax related, um, that I never thought that it would be so similar in Spanish and in English as stigmatism, like the eye condition. Yeah. So I have astigmatism when people ask me, oh, so what do you have? And it will be like, you know, that thing, when you don't see the lines correctly, or you don't see the depth or whatever, and people were like astigmatism, and I'm like, oh, it's like, it's exactly so close between itself because my Spanish is a stigma, this mall, which is super close. And I was like, I would have never dreamed that this complicated awareness Spanish would have translate so similar in English.
Speaker 2 00:17:49 And that follows the general theory that Americans have for turning English words into Spanish words, which is adding an O at the end.
Speaker 3 00:17:57 Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:18:01 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:18:02 It will. That will take you places. You will be like, okay. I kinda know what you're trying to say. I figure out, uh, yeah, my, my husband does. So he's, he's, he's, it's funny because he's Hispanic from like, uh, like heritage, his, his family says Hispanic, he doesn't speak Spanish. Um, so sometimes when, like I'm talking to my mom and he, and he hears some words, I, he picks up things, but then was like, you were talking about, and then he puts like the same word and then do like, whatever I'm like. Yeah. Kinda. You can look at that.
Speaker 2 00:18:33 Yeah. And I know there's the false cognates by my mother, once she, she lived in Guatemala and she wants told people that she was embara Sato, I'm sorry. And bought a soda, but she did not mean pregnant. She meant That's the classic.
Speaker 3 00:18:49 And everybody would like really. Okay. Yeah. Um, the, the way that is, uh, sensitive and sensible and all those, those false friends that you have in that you have in English. So several things don't exist in Spanish.
Speaker 2 00:19:02 So when you were doing your LLM at your tax LLM at NYU, were there any, um, what, what was the hardest part about doing the, the LLM program and was any of it language related or was it primarily about the content of the courses?
Speaker 3 00:19:19 So how, um, I feel like the academic and I, and you can, you can elaborate in this way more than I can. The academic life in the United States is very similar to how we go to university. We're go to school in, in, like, maybe I want to say civil law countries, because it's not only related to law, but like in, for example, less, less, less best to sustain. Right. So here, the academic experiences it's is so involved, right. It requires, uh, participation so much from the student. We have to do our readings. They have to prepare for class. You are, you're going to get cold called if you are like, it looks like you're not actually following or paying attention. There's a risk of that. Um, in, in law, in law school, that is, that is, that is, that is a thing I've found a hundred percent in not only in classes like con law, that you will be like, okay, so what are the level of scrutiny based on the, um, the, like the uterus produced from, uh, this, the Supreme court.
Speaker 3 00:20:16 And that will happen with like, so what is the three elements of whatever element of tax or whatever it is, right. So that is not only applies to like regular law, but also talks to though that people tend to differentiate of like, oh, you guys do numbers in the, in the, in the board. And then you, you solve problems that estimate tax costs, we will get the same way that somebody will call called in, in Cola. We'll get co-called in international taxation one. So it was it's, it's, it's that stress of going to Plaza, like the professor's going to ask me. And if I don't like, if I don't know the answer, then I'm going to be in front of everybody. Everybody's going to know that I didn't read it, or I'm not following. Um, and maybe 75% of the class is not reading and there's no following, but they didn't get go post.
Speaker 3 00:21:03 So nobody else knows. Uh, so that, that was one of the things I'm like that it was kind of a little bit more stressful because when the way we go to school more in Spain, and I think that it's been now is trying to add, like, make it more like Americanized way of understanding, like, um, higher level of education. But, um, but yeah, so that was definitely one thing. And then again, for us, it was, it was the tax concepts that I came from a completely different, uh, tax system that made it a little bit more complicated to adjust. Um, but once you like pick up the basis and the professors do a very good job of like, build them, build them from the basis. So that was okay.
Speaker 2 00:21:44 And what, and if you had to pick one course that you thought was the hardest course in your tax LLM program, could you, is that an easy one to pick or do they all sort of fall into that category?
Speaker 3 00:21:55 So from the, from the co in terms of content, I will say that probably it was between tax treaties, uh, with professor Rosenblum or, uh, international taxation till with professor Stein's. Um, there were difficult in terms of content because they were like, the law is complicated in itself. So explain it, it, it is, is also like pick it up as difficult from an English perspective. I would say contracts law was the hardest for me.
Speaker 3 00:22:27 Um, so there was, again, similar with, with the concept of tax basis. There is concepts that will like apply and exist in contract liability or, or the formation of, of, of a contractual obligation here that they do not exist when we study, um, um, contracts in, in Spain or on, in the legal system as, as a Spanish. So like trying to translate the way, for example, a strict liability or a strict pro liability and things like that, you will be like, I don't know. Okay. That doesn't make any sense in, in, in Spain that will not fly when here is actually, it's a district level. It's a concept of this. There's no question that you're going to get paid if something like this happens. Right. So now,
Speaker 2 00:23:06 So when you take contract law in your tax LLM program, are you taking it with the first year JD students in the law school, Except for the tax element
Speaker 3 00:23:17 It's with no noise with it is where the eye is with the JBS. Yep. That was, um, to be able to, to sit for the bar I had to do, um, like w like law or, um, how they call it, um, no tax law, like more like regular law type of, uh, courses. I took con law. I did, uh, contracts, law, and then like legal writing and things like that to be like, so you have like some requirements. Um,
Speaker 2 00:23:42 How, what was your experience with legal writing?
Speaker 3 00:23:45 Um, so
Speaker 3 00:23:48 It's funny because I feel like we come to legal writing, always expecting that it will be better if we are like a little bit more complicated in drafting sentences and things like that. And professor, they always say like, Hey, like we, we need to be as straight to the point. Like, like us legal writing is no like elaborated sentences to end up in the same point. We, when this happened, then you need to say this habit specifically, right? How we, how we, for example, I come from a tax controversy practice a little bit in, in, in, uh, Spain, how we will draft, um, legal rates and everything. It will be like elaborated way of talking kind of complicated. And then, and then it would spend, will be like, and here it will be like, this is how it is. This is what happened. This is my client. This is all the facts. This is a legal obligation. Therefore I am entitled to remedies and damages or whatever it is. And then, so it was, it was a shock. I was like, do I need to elaborate as much as I do in the Spanish writing when I'm writing in English. And they was like, no, don't, don't do that. That will not take you anywhere.
Speaker 2 00:24:51 So you had to kind of learn to code, switch, just switch between. This is how I write for a Spanish audience. And this is how I write for an American legal audience.
Speaker 3 00:25:01 Yep. It is it still like it is to this day that, uh, sometimes I like writing emails, like at work and I call myself, I'm like, I'm over complicating. This delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, and then let's write it the straight forward, Hey, this is what we need from you. This is what we have. This is the cause this is what we estimated based on this, this and this. Do you agree? Do you need, can you confirm this and things like that? And like this, nobody needs to be reading complicated emails, that it will take them more than two seconds to understand what you need from them.
Speaker 2 00:25:30 Yeah. I guess that, that is the trend. Um,
Speaker 3 00:25:35 Feel about it though
Speaker 2 00:25:37 Through the same process I was thinking like, I mean, now I'm much better at it, but I think Americans too, like you, you start off writing something complicated and then you develop a, hopefully develop a process where you're like, okay, I need to simplify this, but I think it's more intuitive. I mean, I've heard that about Spanish writing and French writing also that the ELs tend to be more involved and fancier and formal or something. Whereas American email culture tends to be just very direct. And to the point To the point of seeming almost rude, I would imagine to Spanish.
Speaker 3 00:26:14 Yes. Yes. I completely agree that this, uh, there will be like, we always will be like, good morning, Mr. Whoever. And then, Hey, this is what we need to huge paragraphs. Uh, please let me know if we need to talk. Um, thank you very much, Maria. And 90% of the times he's going to need to talk because he didn't understand the two huge fairgrounds that I put in the middle, because there was no need to say all that that would be a Spanish little practice. If I come here, I will see like when I joined and this was, um, so my first working experience was at a Y and, and funny because in Finland, we translate way. There'll be, I will see associates or, or even department is answering claims. Like I need this. Can you come? We talk in, in three, like 3:00 PM. Thanks. And there'll be a straight. And I'm like, hi, whoever. Um, I'm, I'm um, working on this project. Can you, uh, let me know if you need to talk, we need to do not. It will be like one line goes not even high, not even thank you. Goodbye. Nothing.
Speaker 2 00:27:12 It's kind of like the difference between people who live in New York city versus people who live out in the country, right.
Speaker 3 00:27:20 The new Yorker is that your goodbye, this it's in, it's in, it's a law practice. Now it's an email writing. So
Speaker 2 00:27:26 It's a different kind of politeness. It's being polite and respectful of somebody else's sort of time and mental Versus polite in terms of really genuinely engaging and asking about some.
Speaker 3 00:27:37 Yep, definitely. So that takes a minute of like, Hey, should I like, am I be like too straight forward? And, and, and I'm when I'm asking about that, they were like, look, the person that we're writing to, they're always super busy. Everybody's super busy, always busy. Right. So it was like, they don't have two minutes to understand something that it will take them 10 seconds to like, just attach a PDF to an email and get you what you want. So don't do that because then the other person on the other side might get passed. So you don't want to do it. Uh, just, just tell them what they need and then that's it. Uh, definitely. So how, how we move in New York city then, then I was, it's funny. I went on vacation when it hasn't to San Diego, which is so quiet and so nice California live in dreaming.
Speaker 3 00:28:25 And then like, I have, most of my experience in the U S is in New York. So I already, he says, I already picked up that new Yorker type of like rudeness walking fast, come on, get out of my way type of thing. And we went to San Diego, which is illegal to jaywalk. If somebody can say that they, they, they work as new Yorkers. We just don't have time to wait for the light to change and the cars to come. It's like, I have to get there. I need to go. Um, and we were like, okay, we're going to just chill walk like quietly. We'll do it. Like, kinda like joking around with like legal up, do walking. But, uh, yeah, it was completely different. We'll be like, why there is nobody in the street why everybody's so nice. People will say hi in the morning. And here in New York, somebody says kind of like, somebody wants something. Yes. Because they will want something for you. Like, Hey, can I talk to you? I'm like, yeah, no, you're going to ask for money or something. I don't buy.
Speaker 2 00:29:23 So wait, you mentioned E Y and now, so now you're at fried Frank, which is a big global law firm. And you just joined in the last year. Has it been
Speaker 3 00:29:33 In November, 2021?
Speaker 2 00:29:35 And what's, what's the difference in the kind of work you're doing or the work style between a place like, uh, Ernst and young, which is, uh, you know, one of the big, one of the big, giant global accounting firms and, and being a tax lawyer at a law firm like Frank,
Speaker 3 00:29:52 It is like night and day, literally. Uh, the not only the type of work that I do, which I can start with that. Um, so I, Jennifer in France specifically on a coordinated, uh, tax asset management type of a position we work with with funds, uh, most of the time. So it's not only giving them tax advice, but also, uh, for information and transfers of funds interests. I didn't do any of that. When I was back at your wife, uh, your way it's classic international taxation tax advice from a us attorney to clients all over the world. We can have clients that are, uh, us multinationals or entities that they are outside and they want to make business in the, in the United States. So the type of work is completely different. Also accounting firms, they always play with the numbers. So I will be doing huge spreadsheets with, with guilty calculation models and somethings like that, that, uh, footprint does not even think about it.
Speaker 3 00:30:52 Right. So we don't, we don't, I mean, I don't do that. They're, um, they always leave. And that is, that is the coordination. When people ask me like, so we have, um, transaction. So there is a, uh, it's always an accountant firm and there's always a law firm. So law firm will review the legal documentation drafting contracts or whatever the, the, the tags, uh, classes of, of, um, purchase agreement. And then the law firm, the accounting firm will come in and say, Hey, we are basing on your predictions for the next 20 years. We have estimated that you do this, this, and this, you will be saving whatever amount of money. Uh, so that is the accountant firm job. And that's what I, what I, what I used to do, there was also a huge different in culture. And how, like UI such a global international there's people from everywhere, even in the New York office, um, is really like, it's flexible, super relaxed.
Speaker 3 00:31:46 Um, there is, you will hear different languages be talk with all over the place, right. Um, in France it's most, uh US-based uh, so most of the people, uh, most of the associates, uh, frequent, uh, uh, residents. So that's, that's a different than the, the culture is a little bit more like serious, more like, uh, prestigious in a way of like, elevated. So that is, that is a difference. And then, then you are in the, in the personal relationship and you will think like, okay, so, uh, for example, uh, I got lucky enough to actually my office for Frank is next to the chair of the tax department. So he's like the boss of our bosses. Um, and then, and then he was like, okay, best of luck. I got just sit down next to the boss. Great. And then he's so nice and sense of like a close person that you will be like, okay, dumb men didn't, didn't look like it was going to be so nice and so close from, from, from the outside.
Speaker 3 00:32:45 And then it's just, it just happened like, like another colleague around there is no difference of like, oh, I just joined and we're not going to talk to you until you are like more or less experienced, nothing at all, which sometimes it's like the fear that people have about law firms. Um, the culture, um, I can say from my experience at Frank Frank is that, that that is not, that it's not something that exists in our team in, in an hour. I cannot speak from other of other departments, other practices, but we don't have that, but I was extremely, it's really flexible, extremely like close to, like, it was just colleagues. We didn't have even office as partners and junior ones will be sitting next to each other on, uh, on, on like open space.
Speaker 2 00:33:28 Oh, wow. Yep. Very not hierarchical
Speaker 3 00:33:32 All.
Speaker 2 00:33:33 And what do you, what do you like about tax?
Speaker 3 00:33:36 So I did, I found that tax was the, the nexus between, uh, my law degree and my business administration degree. Um, I had to kind of, uh, explain to my dad why I decided to do two full degrees when you're going to have a wonderful life as a lawyer. Um, so when I've detached low is, is the nexus, right? Cause it's sometimes, uh, people, uh, and, and we can talk about this, uh, lawyers out afraid of numbers, like, um, like a regular, like a lawyer that is not exposed to. And nowadays, most of the practice has some type of like numerical aspect because I've used the big, um, big transactions have a lot of money involved and things like that. Right. But if you go about it to the understanding that we have a us lawyer, a litigator in court, I object your honor, type of thing, that person that picks up we have is like, no, they don't play with numbers.
Speaker 3 00:34:26 They don't have anything to do. They see a balance sheet and they will like run. Um, so tax lawyers is, is the nexus between those two worlds. Um, so I was able to, I, I felt like, okay, I didn't waste a whole ton of money and tons of years of a study in finding, um, something that it will like, I will, I will not be able to use it also. Um, so there is this, there's two things in this case we have in the United States, we have a solid code, which is the internal revenue code. So we can always refer to the law. And that gives us the whole, uh, the whole Bible, going back to a civil law type of understanding of the law that everything is written and you can actually go and check it out. Uh, so tax law has that, but at the same time, it is so complicated that somebody that will read it, if you, as you mentioned, you don't know tax concepts apart from your personal taxes. Right. Cause people understand, they kind of afraid of tax laws. So they were always going to need tax lawyers. We are always going to end up paying taxes as long as we have a government. Right. So there is a part of like, we are in everything, right? So the, uh, the whole, um, Albany presence of taxes in the whole system, it makes it like, like, oh, they are, they're always going to need somebody like me. That's, that's fine.
Speaker 2 00:35:41 You know, when I, um, I used to work at bankruptcy law and, um, I had a friend who said to me, once he said, you, and he was, he was like a business, you know, had started his own company. He said, you should go into tax law. And I said, why? And he goes, because in tax law, people are happy to pay you money because they know you're going to save them a lot of money. It that's kind of the opposite of that. But in a sense, it is why people want to pay money so they can get a piece of a shrinking pie. Whereas If you're going to save me how much, okay, sure. I'll pay you this much. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:36:17 Okay. You can take that money. Uh, yeah. So, and then you will have clients that will get like, kind of like mad because you're like, Hey, well, how you have your instructor right now, either we do a ton of like work around it and it's going to cause you a ton of money because we're going to have to work and do a lot of, a lot of work from the tusk for like, from the lawyer's perspective to get your, where do you want to be? Or you're not going to get tax, uh, like savings while you have run out. Like, people don't understand that every time that we'll talk for your review, uh, something for you, it's not going to end up in millions of dollars going back to you because your structure is perfect and you just did all the right things. And yes, of course the IRS is happy to pay you back all your refunds and all your, all your deductions.
Speaker 3 00:37:01 So it's a, it's a game of like, Hey, well, I mean, yeah, like we can work on this, but at the end of the day, when you end this, I feel like it happens more with partners when they are trying to sell, uh, um, CA I mean, uh, services, because how we used to understand law practice even. And I think that this was before 2008 and all the whole, uh, economic crisis and everything like lawyers will have contingency piece. We'll be like, okay. So if we win, or if we actually get this, uh, positive letter from the IRS saying that this transaction is good, and there are whatever regime tax redeem applies, then you will get a percentage of how much money that client will be saving. That it doesn't happen anymore. Right. It's not, it's not even an option like fees. I cap you are not able to like go and say like, okay, so this is going to take me whatever time of, uh, whatever amount of hours it's going to take me to review this.
Speaker 3 00:37:55 And then of course, Hey, do it. And we'll do what you need. We'll be like, we have budgets. And, and that, that restraint is a lot how much we can work. And it will be like, it's a, it's a, it's a back and forth relationship between I don't want to do too much, but also I want to generate value for my client, because if I do too much, that will mean that I'm spending tons of hours. And then the client might not be willing to pay. It's a, it's, there's a lot of, but I think that that does not affect only the tax practice. I feel like that is in general, how we see law practice nowadays.
Speaker 2 00:38:29 Um, oh, shoot. What was I going to ask you? Oh, so when, when I was, uh, when I was a child, I wanted to be an astronaut and I know other kids want to be, you know, soccer players or, or, or athletes or doctors or whatever. When you were a child, did you want to be a tax lawyer?
Speaker 3 00:38:48 No,
Speaker 2 00:38:51 They were like,
Speaker 3 00:38:52 That will be that though. I was, I mean, I would have, I would have looked like, uh, I w I did look like a nerd when I was a kid. I felt like I still don't. Uh, I was wearing, like, I hadn't been wearing glasses since I was three. Like, I, my, my, my parents figured out that I couldn't, like, I didn't, it was something was not going well. So they were like, okay, so this girl needs glasses. So I was like, the little kid with glasses grew up, got braces. Like the whole situation went through. Uh, no, never like my father is a lawyer and he always talked horrible things about the practice. He is not a tax lawyer. He is, um, he's more like a corporate attorney, a corporate litigator and type of, uh, type of a practice. He always talk horrible things about the practice about it. He was like, you literally eat, get paid out of people's problems. People have to have problems for you to be able to solve them and get paid. Both my brother and I are lawyers, my brother he's, he's a defense attorney and I'm a tax lawyer. Uh, so we were like, okay, payback, how, how do, how do payback, uh, how, how do we like a rebel child? Okay. I'm going to do whatever you said that I should have not done when I was younger. Uh, I wanted to be a <inaudible>
Speaker 2 00:40:07 Veteran.
Speaker 3 00:40:08 They're very nice. Yep.
Speaker 2 00:40:10 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:40:11 So, um, I never, so I, I love animals. This is my thing. I've been riding horses since I was six. So I was, I specifically wanted to be a horse specialist,
Speaker 2 00:40:23 Uh, a horse veterinarian out in Northern California. Like he really loved it, but
Speaker 3 00:40:28 Yeah, that would be that my mum was like, that's a complicated life. Like, I don't know. You should like my mom trying to look for us to try to make sure that we have, uh, um, like a good future and B be well-positioned. And she was like, you can like be, uh, maybe something a little bit more elevated and then always have courses around it and be taking care of him and all the men. And I'm like, okay, I don't have courses though. I would love to learn. No, no,
Speaker 2 00:40:57 It's hardly in New York city to keep a horse. There's some big apartments, but not that big. So let me, let me ask you one more question before I let you go. And that is, do you have any advice that you like to give other people who are thinking about doing a tax LLM or going into tax practice or maybe advice that's been given to you?
Speaker 3 00:41:21 Sure. So I always think about this, um, because I feel like you, when you are trying to make your little space in a complete different world, which is moving to a different country and start, and the up almost like, like brand new, right. Because, um, I have my life back in Madrid working on clipper terms, and then out of the blue, I decide, Hey, I'm just going to leave everything behind. And I'm just going to cross the pond, hopefully for good. Cause I don't want to come back. And it started from San from, from scratch. Um, so you always feel like, oh, because I'm different, I'm coming from a different space. I'm coming from a different country, different culture. Then that is going to be a liability for me. But it's not though because how different you are and even more so in a world like today that we have those people all over the place from everywhere.
Speaker 3 00:42:12 Uh, as an example, New York city is like, there is there's people from everywhere. You can hear different accents, different languages everywhere. Um, that is kind of like your superpower because nowadays that the new set of skills that you think maybe you already have, because you just were born somewhere else, they are valued in a, in a, in a, in a world like that. And law practice is learning from that. It used to be, um, one of the things that, uh, I had, uh, I, I always wanted to go. And when I started taxed, I was like, Hey, I want to be a tax controversy. That type of litigator, I want to be a tax litigator. And there's a, still a gap between there, from somebody that is not forced like native English speaker than from somebody that has learned to speak Hispanic. Uh, so learn to speak English out of like years of, of, uh, studying and practicing law and, and, and things like that.
Speaker 3 00:43:00 So there's a gap there, there there's law firms that don't understand that, or they didn't consider that I can be equally good as a mitigator than somebody that actually was born in the United States. But apart from that, there's a little bit of a red flag. And that is even that is getting closer and closer. Um, the rest of law practice in this country like welcomes people with, with, uh, skillsets and people coming from, from, from different places of the world. So my advice is like, if you feel like you want to do it, if you feel like you, you have what it takes, just go for it. Not because, oh, I, who am I from a small city in the north of Spain, then people don't know where is it? I never dreamed that I was going to end up having the life that I had.
Speaker 3 00:43:44 And like, I, if I tell my 10 year old me singing in the Backstreet boys in the shower, that I'm going to be living in New York city and working in a braid law firm, I'm straight friend, they will be like no way. And it just, it just little by little, the steps start falling under that. If you have like a straight path, and this is what you want to do, that it just, and just go for it and talk slow. It's, it's difficult because it's a specific tax system in, in, in this country. And it's not like anything else that you have said, but just, it just takes time to learn. Everybody has their first day at Taxol. Everybody has their first day I everything. So just go,
Speaker 2 00:44:18 Thank you then really that's really terrific perspective, especially because, I mean, it is a super power to be multilingual, especially in this day and age. Um, and yet it's still, I think in, in a lot of ways, um, it could be viewed through a deficit model or deficit lens that somehow your, you know, even the term non native English speaking, um, suggests a lacking of something when it's really a positive. So thank you. Thank you for providing all of this wonderful, wonderful perspective on it. Um, and thank you for taking the time to join us today. Uh, we will include any relevant links from this episode in the show notes. And I want to remind our listeners to subscribe to the U S law essentials podcast on apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your podcasts. Where, where do you get your podcasts?
Speaker 3 00:45:11 Um, I, yes, and I do. I have an iPhone, so apple,
Speaker 2 00:45:15 Apple. Okay, great man. And you can also listen to all episodes on us law, centrals.com. And if you have any questions, comments, reactions, ideas, et cetera. We always love hearing from our listeners. You can contact us by email at Daniel, at us law essentials.com or through the U S law Central's Facebook group or LinkedIn group. Um, so thank you again, Maria, for joining us.
Speaker 3 00:45:40 Thank you for having me. This was great.
Speaker 2 00:45:43 Great. Yeah, it's been really, I've learned a little bit about tax, not,
Speaker 3 00:45:48 I kind of give you everything, so you're going to still need me, is that it's, you know, that's the name of the game?
Speaker 2 00:45:55 We will always do tax lawyers. Okay. Everybody stay essential.
