Ric Keller: The Power of Connecting and Networking Can Be Life-Changing

Welcome to LEGALTECH MATTERS, a Litera podcast dedicated to creating conversations about trends, technology, and innovation for modern law firms and companies - big and small.

00:00:14:05 - 00:00:42:03

Adriana Linares

Welcome to another episode of Legal Matters with me. Adriana Linares I'm a legal technology consultant and trainer, and today I'm very excited to be speaking with and interviewing Ric Keller. Ric Keller is a friend of a friend of mine. We will not have time to get into why Ric, in my mind, is a star that shines out of both my eyes because Ric helped get one of my best friend's brothers out of a Vietnamese prison.

Now, Ric, that's a whole story we're not going to get into today. But you did it while you were a U.S. congressman. Another impressive thing about you. So, let me real quick just read a tiny bit of your very impressive bio, and then I'm going to let you tell us your favorite things about yourself, which is this? Well, I'm going to tell you what your bio says, and then you get to talk about yourself.

So, you were a former congressman. You served eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida. You chaired the House Higher Education Subcommittee. You served on the Judiciary and Education Committees. Today, you are still an attorney. You've always been an attorney, a writer, a humorist, motivational speaker, and a TV commentator. And you have a very popular talk on TEDx talks.

That's a lot. So, tell me just real quick about your legal career. You started at Tennessee, you went to Vanderbilt, and then what happened?

00:01:36:06 - 00:01:59:17

Ric Keller

So, my first job was at a firm in Orlando called Lowndes, which is a good big firm, but they sort of do a lot of different things. And then I wanted to just do litigation, which comes easier to me personally. So, I switched over to a firm called Rumberger Kirk and Caldwell, and I was there for my whole career, and I finally made partner and like one month later I got elected to Congress.

So, I never got the big money. You know, it was bad, bad timing.

00:02:03:20 - 00:02:18:15

Adriana Linares

If you had an attorney, come to you and say, wow, you were a congressman, how did you do that? What would be the top two or three things you would suggest to an attorney looking to get into? You know, pretty much achieving the highest achievements and in politics.

00:02:19:17 - 00:02:36:24

Ric Keller

So, I would say three things. Number one, the way it worked 30, 40 years ago is not how it works today. It used to work where you would be connected within the party, whether it's Republican or Democrat, and pay your dues. And they would sort of handpick you and then get behind you. That's not the way it is anymore.

Now it's more like being your own startup. It's on you. And so, there's sort of two paths to get there. The traditional path and nontraditional. I went nontraditional, but the traditional path would be if you wanted to be a congressman and your attorney get elected to local office, maybe city office, then state legislature, an ideal position if you want to run for Congress is state senator, but that would be the normal approach because you gain some experience and a lot of a lot of valuable contacts.

If you don't take that approach, you're going to need to raise a lot of money to cure the fact that you're not well known. And so, when I filed to run my to run for Congress, I had never run for office before. I didn't have any rich friends or political connections. I literally could not pay people to work for me because they said that I had no chance, and I didn't have a lot of experience.

And in my first debate, two of my opponents, super talented one was a mayor for eight years and the other state legislator. And one of them called me an amateur and I said, yeah, I am an amateur. But it was amateurs who built Noah's Ark and professionals who built the Titanic. And I didn't hear about that issue anymore.

And I wish I could have said it was smooth sailing, but my campaign sort of became the Titanic itself. Six months later, I'm losing by 27 points in the polls. I'm out fundraised 4 to 1. The leader of my party travels down from Tallahassee, knocks on my door to ask me to quit. And so, I was like, really against the wall there.

And I caught a lucky break. I was invited to give a five-minute speech in Washington, D.C. It was essentially American Idol for politicians and group of CEOs, got together for the first time and they decided to put some big money into a handful of races. And they invited 16 people from across the country. And I was the last one picked and barely made the cut.

And I go up there and the last one to speak that day, each person gets 5 minutes. The people ahead of me were so good, like Mike Pence was one of my competitors, for example, Jeff Flake. And so, I'm like, you know what? Just be yourself. You are you are such an underdog that you have nothing literally to lose.

And so, I went up there and I said, guys, I've been waiting here for hours, and I feel like Elizabeth Taylor, seventh husband on his honeymoon night. Technically, I know what I am supposed to do, but at this point, I don't know how to make it interesting. And they erupted and it made me relaxed. And I spoke passionately without notes for 5 minutes.

And that little speech changed my life. That group ranked me number one in the country. They gave me $400,000. And a few months later I was elected the US Congress and a narrow win.

00:05:17:19 - 00:05:43:04

Adriana Linares

That's amazing. Did you? I'm just wondering, how did you become such a good public speaker? Had you gone to Toastmasters? Did you go to training? Were you in debate school? Like to inspire lawyers on how and why being an import a good speaker is important and then self-deprecating humor is one of your points of note when you're speaking and how important that is and how that can adhere you to audiences.

So, do you want to talk a little bit about that?

00:05:45:04 - 00:06:08:22

Ric Keller

So, speaking and humor came pretty naturally to me, and I sort of think it's a gift. I think we can get 10% better in both of them, but I think if you are if you're comfortable in speaking, you're going to know it very early and doesn't mean you can't improve with Toastmasters and other things. But I think it's more of a natural thing and if I wasn't naturally good in speaking still be a lawyer, but I'd just maybe do something else.

Maybe I'd be a real estate lawyer, maybe I'd be in bankruptcy law, maybe do something else. So, I'm a big believer in and using your gifts. So self-deprecating humor, especially in this age where you don't want to say anything offensive, and that sort of thing is the best secret weapon on the planet that's not used because you're the target.

Right. And it has such a valuable effect because it builds rapport with people, it relaxes them, it deflects criticism, but it's very rarely used. And the reason it's very rarely used is that you and I and most people have been conditioned since we were little kids to put your best foot forward. Fake you do, you make it. Never let him see you sweat.

But put this perfect image out to the outside world. And I think the way to connect is exactly the opposite of that. I think you connect with people by being vulnerable and authentic and real, but it takes self-confidence to poke fun of your of yourself a little bit. And so, a lot of people don't do it, but it's been super helpful for me.

I got my start in politics as Jeb Bush's joke writer when he first ran for governor. No kidding. Yeah, the big line, right?

00:07:15:11 - 00:07:15:24

Adriana Linares

Jab.

00:07:16:05 - 00:07:31:01

Ric Keller

Yes, it was volunteer. I wrote it on it. I read on back a business card. But it became the start of his stump speech. And the line was one of my opponents has accused me of running on my father's coattails. To show that I'm running on my own merits, I've decided to go ahead and change my last name.

I don't know what I'm a change it to yet, but it's either going to be Reagan or Eisenhower.

00:07:38:18 - 00:08:01:14

Adriana Linares

Yes, very good. Very good. I love that. So, your journeys have taken you from being a congressman and now you're a lawyer and lawyering, but you've also written a book. So, let's talk about using your talents and your skills and writing. Chasing the bears. Chasing the bears. Yes, that's at the chase. The bears. Chase the Bears. And there's a cute story behind where that name came from.

00:08:02:16 - 00:08:22:17

Ric Keller

So, I'm drinking coffee with my wife, Lori, reading the paper, and we look outside our window. At the time I was in Lake Mary about a mile or two from the woods, and outside my window is a pack of bears, a mama bear and three cute little cubs. They look like they're four or five weeks old. Lori's a smart girl and a Harvard MBA, and I like to think I'm a little bit smart.

But we were morons that day. We went without saying a word. We jumped up and chased these bears because we wanted to continue this experience and especially see the cute little cubs. And we never we never caught them. And it was dumb because in Florida, as you probably know, black bears will leave you alone unless you threaten their cubs or chase them, and they can run 35 miles an hour compared to an Olympic athlete, 28.

So, if that mama bear had decided to turn around and charge after us, she would have got us. And so, I said to her, you know, that's nuts Lori. But if you think about it, it's a metaphor in life because most people in life would stay inside, play it safe, and look out their windows. Life passes them by and eventually the clock runs out.

On the other hand, some people go for it, they chase their dreams, they chase the bears. And Lori said, Oh, my gosh, that's the name of your book. Well, it's called Chase the Bears.

00:09:14:23 - 00:09:51:09

Adriana Linares

I love it. Yeah. So, you know, part of a big message in your book is that is follow your dreams and use your gifts to connect to your goals, which sounds like you are an expert at doing that. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you would encourage and really, you know, lawyers are so tough there, you know, a lot of times are adverse to risk don't like change what would you say to lawyers when it comes to, you know, really defining your book in a way that they might be able to connect.

00:09:52:05 - 00:10:11:19

Ric Keller

With lawyers, by definition, you got that. You've had a lot of success and you got into college, you got in law school, you've passed a bar. You probably don't need a lot of coaching. You've achieved a lot. The reason I wrote the book and the reason I'm so passionate about using your gifts and trusting your intuition, is that I didn't even meet my father until I was 14 years old.

And at the first meeting he handed me this little paperback book and it was called Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. So, I had this formula of how to succeed, how to set a goal and read it every morning and night and visualize yourself achieving it. And it. I said the first big goal was graduating first in my class in college and I had been a mediocre student in high school, and it happened.

And then I set a goal to get elected to Congress and that happened. And so now that I'm older, I just turned 58. I thought it would be really cool to write a book and share these principles that can change young people's lives. Just like that book changed my life. And so, I take those principles. The three-step formula, they talk about thinking grow rich, but I add a lot of stuff to it.

Like I have teenage daughters, so I have a lot of girl power stories and super highly successful women. And I try to write it in a humorous way to make it easy to understand. And rather than talk about Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford, I talk about modern day celebrities that that you would know, like Jim Carey and Dolly Parton and Steve Harvey.

So that's the crux of the book. If I had to say the first half is trying to lift people up and help them chase their dreams. The second half is probably the part most relevant to lawyers, and that's connecting with others, such as networking and the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. And there's no area more important if you want to chat about it between the difference being a mentor and sponsor than at a law firm.

00:11:34:14 - 00:11:52:05

Adriana Linares

I totally do. Yeah, because here's two things that so remember, I'm not a lawyer, but I've only worked with lawyers and law firms for 25 years. And so, what I have been doing now for almost 20 years is helping lawyers launch their law firms. And what they're always afraid of is not getting business. How am I going to get business?

I want to do this, but how many get business? Every expert and every successful attorney I have talked to in 25 years says one thing networking and connecting. Yes, there's still so many lawyers today, young lawyers, that it's hard to believe that that's the way you're going to do it, that you're not going to use Google ads and social media.

And but, man, there is there's one thing that doesn't change is that that is the number one way to meet people, make connections, and get clients. So yeah, definitely talk about that. And then I have always found it found it really hard. And Ric, you've worked in big law firms legal loves to talk about mentoring. I find that when where I get to see true mentoring happening it's typically in the smaller boutique firms.

The big firms are often, in my opinion, like really driven by billing and statistics, and it's a rushed environment. But I always feel like the smaller firms, they're looking for succession and they want their firm to survive, and they want people that become part of the family. And I tend to see mentoring like truly happening in smaller firms.

00:13:01:05 - 00:13:26:19

Ric Keller

So let me address first since you just talked about that, the mentoring versus sponsorship and then the networking. So, mentoring versus sponsorship. Mentoring is someone giving you advice and guiding you think of sponsorship as mentorship on steroids. A sponsor is someone who's willing to put their political capital on the line to advocate for you. So let me give you a clear example, and I have to change a little bit of the details to protect some people's privacy.

But it's pretty much the story. So, I was at a big firm and there was a young lady up for partners. She had been passed over two years in a row. People thought she was a nice person, not the world's best lawyer, not a not especially great candidate. But this year and when she came up for the third time, she had a sponsor.

She had one of the most highly respected equity partners in the firm. And he said, I don't expect much from you guys. I don't ask you for anything. I'm asking you for this. I want your vote. Now for me, this is the guy who, when I tried three cases as a young lawyer, let me do everything opening, closing, cross-examination or picking the jury.

He was saying, I'm going to put my capital on the line. I am going to fight for you. And so that's really, really important. And it's important for young lawyers to spend one less our billing hours at your desk and one more hour networking with people and developing a relationship and going out and having a beer with that partner or coffee or whatever.

Totally agree on the networking. Three key principles in networking. And this is going to be odd for some young people, but number one, for any new contacts, never ask for one year because people don't want to feel used. And so, one way to show that you're not just being nice to them to get something out of it is don't talk about a new contact, not an old friend new not know.

Ask for one year. And what I'm talking about is something that requires them to expend political capital. You know, don't come up to me if you never met me and say, hey, I know you know the governor and I'd like to be a judge, would you call him tomorrow? And let me be a judge that requires me to use a lot of political capital.

Yeah. If you said to me, hey, I'm new in town, can you recommend a tailor or a dentist.

00:15:28:11 - 00:15:29:17

Adriana Linares

To come on my podcast. Right.

00:15:29:17 - 00:15:48:21

Ric Keller

Yeah, that's easy. Right. So, no political capital. So that's rule number. That's rule number one. And number two is you need to bring some benefit to the relationship, right? It has to be two way. And so sometimes people think, oh, man, you know, how can I possibly help this rich, famous, powerful person that I want to network with?

And there's little things you can do. Like I, Jeb Bush was rich and powerful and had everything. But I could write a joke and I could help him that way. Yeah. If you're a young lawyer and you want to meet this person, maybe you do a Florida Bar Journal article and you do all the work and you put in sweat equity.

Or maybe you can't help them, but you know someone who can. So, bring something to the relationship. And then finally, most important is choose to network with high quality people that you would hang out with regardless if they can help you. Because the worst thing that can happen is you don't get anything from them, they don't get anything from you, but who cares because you would want to hang out with them anyway.

And so, like and I could go on. Sandra Day O'Connor is a perfect example. She's kept her relationship with Bill Rehnquist. He asked her to marry to marry him, actually, and she turned him down.

00:16:39:02 - 00:16:42:12

Adriana Linares

But to actually marry him or to oversee him.

00:16:43:05 - 00:17:02:16

Ric Keller

No, and there's her biographer discovered a note. Would you marry me, Sandy? And she said, no. She had met this other guy, Mr. O'Connor, but she really liked him as a friend. They stay connected for 30 years. And when Ronald Reagan said that he was going to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court if he were elected, he got elected.

And Rehnquist said, I know just the woman. Wow is a little unknown state court justice. But she had made this great connection and stayed in and in touch. And if you want to make it even freakier to show you how powerful networking is, she needed help to get approved by the Senate. This was the first confirmation on TV.

So, they signed some guy fresh out of law school, a young guy named John. He had been a clerk for Rehnquist, and he was like really good at federal stuff. And he tutored her and helped her, and they worked hard together. And she was approved 99 to nothing but two years later, Rehnquist dies, and President Bush says, I want someone who's young and smart.

And she's like, I know someone.

00:17:40:13 - 00:17:41:09

Adriana Linares

Who's I got a guy.

00:17:41:13 - 00:18:02:04

Ric Keller

I got just the guy. And the guy only had two years' experience as a judge. But O'Connor went in for him and Bush picked him as. His name is John Roberts. Chief justice. Youngest Chief Justice. And 200 years. So, you have three people on the court, but all of them got their sincere, long term, authentic relationships. That's good networking.

00:18:04:11 - 00:18:28:13

Adriana Linares

It's so critical and it's so underutilized. I think. I think you all as lawyers in general, figure it out much later. But I love seeing young attorneys that have figured it out early. And I see them working the room and being very active in local bar associations, big bar associations. And I just I love encouraging them to do that because when you come to me and say, help me start my law firm, how am I going to get more clients?

I can help you pick technology. I can help you build your infrastructure. I can help you be a better Word user but can't help you network better.

00:18:36:21 - 00:18:58:00

Ric Keller

Karma on your side too if you're a young lawyer. I once had a situation. I've been I've been trying to get a big client who's a huge amusement park. You would know it. For many years I wasn't successful. I finally set up a lunch with this lady who is the decision maker. And the day before lunch she said, I don't think you want to have lunch with me because I quit my job and there's nothing, I can do to help you.

And I said, no, no, you seem like a good person. Let's have lunch anyway. And we had lunch and just made small talk and I took a fellow partner with me, and I didn't think anything of it. And six months later I got a call from this lawyer in Chicago, and he sent me a huge case. The case almost made $1,000,000 on.

And I said this out of curiosity, it was a product liability case. Why did you send it to me? And he said six months ago, when my girlfriend couldn't help you, he went to lunch and she said, you were such a good guy, and I did it. So, karma helps to you know.

00:19:30:00 - 00:19:32:19

Adriana Linares

Karma helps. Being a nice guy helps being a nice gal, helps.

00:19:33:13 - 00:19:50:08

Ric Keller

That that client I from the day we I started whining down until we got the was probably three years so don't expect to land the big fish you know it's going to take a couple of years of friendship and hanging out with them but pick picked the client that you would want to hang out in anyway.

The general counsel at this company that you think's pretty cool that you'd want to drink a beer with pick that person, he or she.

00:19:57:14 - 00:20:12:18

Adriana Linares

You know, we've referenced a lot because I tend to do that young lawyer. But I think all of the advice you're giving is good for an attorney at any stage in their life, whether it's their age or whatever level they are as far as becoming a partner or moving along or starting their own firm.

00:20:14:09 - 00:20:19:13

Ric Keller

Yeah, I don't know if you have time. One of the biggest things I would like to say to young lawyers is civility.

00:20:19:13 - 00:20:22:19

Adriana Linares

How empowered? Yes, please. Let's talk about this.

00:20:23:05 - 00:20:50:09

Ric Keller

Yeah. And I, I think there's three rules of civility that I would really want to hammer home to young lawyers and any lawyer's - me too. Number one is truly listen to people with opposing views. Just listen, listen. Get the other side. Understand it to keep an open mind. And number two, you don't have to agree on everything or anything, but just be respectful.

Your actions act respectful. There's no need to cut someone off and yell and use the lots of adjectives and send nasty grams. Just be respectful and three put your relationship above the differences. If someone is your opponent today, that may be the person a year from now that sends you the biggest case of your life. So, you know, it used to be in the old days that there's ten things and you and I agree on seven of them, but we're still we're still buddies.

Nowadays, it's some people like, well, you're worthless, you're an idiot. Wah, wah, wah, wah in law and elsewhere. And the erosion of civility, I think, is the number one root problem. And in America with politicians. Yeah. And talking heads. And I got to tell you, I am so impressed when I have a lawyer on the other side who's civil and I say, hey, man, I know my discovery is due on Friday.

It's my kid's birthday. I haven't even got a present. I'm so screwed. Is it cool with you if I have a two-week extension? Any cool civil lawyer will say yes, and I'll return the favor and extend that professional, courteous. Be nice to people. You're not a cool lawyer by being Rambo and being a jerk.

00:22:02:16 - 00:22:14:16

Adriana Linares

And you know, in your lawyer world, you all cross paths a lot. So that little leeway that you might give or get from one is going to come back to you in your community no matter what.

00:22:14:16 - 00:22:32:10

Ric Keller

And I think one of the things most people don't understand about politics is a lot of times behind closed doors, Republicans and Democrats get along a lot better than, yeah, we have lunch together, we drink beers together. You know, I, I was in the Oval Office one time with President Bush, and Ted Kennedy was signing ceremony for my bill.

And they were joking and laughing. And President Bush said to me, this is saying this is same desk, JFK used, and this is the same spot. John Jr had that iconic photograph. And now we're going to reenact that scene by having Ted crawl under the desk and take a picture. And everybody was laughing, and I was like, it's really cool that the leaders of the two most powerful political dynasties on polar opposites are courteous and say yes to each other.

00:22:57:24 - 00:23:18:09

Adriana Linares

What? Wouldn't you just love to see that all day, especially these days, I feel. I mean, you just can't even turn the TV on anymore, you know, I live by I don't know who you are, who you are going to become in my life. So, I try to be civil and nice to everybody. And it's something I remind myself and everyone I can.

You never know who someone is going to become in your life. Very quick side note I've lived in an apartment complex in New Orleans for five or six years and have had my neighbor friends, my neighbors. And little did any of us know that I would become their landlord after years and years. So, you know, it's one of those weird things where you just never know how, you know, the person who's making your sandwiches, subway or your Uber driver or the client you just hired, that's going to affect your future.

So, I love the idea of just remembering to be civil and to be nice to each other.

00:23:57:11 - 00:24:13:20

Ric Keller

And put karma on your side. Any time problems use that, you hear things like Karma's a bitch and you're going to get paid back. Well, you know what? It works the opposite way too. It is impossible to do good to someone and not being repaid. You may not be that person, but it's going to be somebody and you're going to get it with interest.

It's impossible. So put, plant your seeds of kindness because it's going to come back to you.

00:24:19:23 - 00:24:31:17

Adriana Linares

I love saying that and reminding people of that. I'm just wondering, you very loosely mentioned having a bill signed. Did you have lots of bills signed when you were a congressman, or do you think we're talking about the same bill?

00:24:32:12 - 00:24:50:03

Ric Keller

I had four bills that that independently I had signed where you introduce it, and it goes to both houses, and it becomes law. I had maybe 30 that you take a bill that's real important and you attach it to another vehicle that has to go, you know, like No Child Left Behind Act had to pass. It was what you ran on.

So, I attached my mentoring bill to that. So, but my oh yeah. So that's a that's a big technique. You don't get a lot of credit, but you pass a lot of legislation that way. And so, my, my niece, even though I happen to be a Republican, I focused all eight years on what most people perceive to be a Democrat issue.

And I was chair of higher education because I was a poor kid and couldn't go to college without Pell Grants. I spent my time increasing Pell Grants to help poor kids get to college, and we increased them by 62%, help five and a half million people. And so, it's a perfect example of civility, because if some liberal Democrat votes against my tax bill on Monday, I don't get mad at him because on Thursday that's going to be the guy that pushes my Pell Grant and do bill through Congress.

00:25:33:11 - 00:25:39:01

Adriana Linares

So, let's just spend the last couple of minutes of our conversation with how you helped our friend was.

00:25:39:13 - 00:25:40:00

Ric Keller

Yes.

00:25:40:08 - 00:25:58:00

Adriana Linares

Was that a bill that you helped pass in order to be able to do that? It was something else. I remember there was some. Okay. Let me set the background real quick. Ric and I have a mutual friend who's Vietnamese, and her mother had traveled back to Vietnam to visit family and they took her and put her in prison.

She had been and Ric, you could tell the story better than I did, but she had been because of the way she was outspoken politically here in the United States. They decided to mark her as a terrorist and threw her in Vietnamese prison for 18 months. And you helped get her out. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Because if you have some great accomplishment accomplishments in your life and you do, I think that's got to be at the top of your list.

00:26:22:05 - 00:26:38:10

Ric Keller

Yeah, I'll give you the short version. I said I spoke to a women's lawyer group and afterwards Liz asked me, asked to speak to me and she told me what you just told me. And I said, you know, we're going to have her home by Thanksgiving. And I don't know why I said that, but my intuition told me to give her some comfort.

And so, I went back to D.C., and I found out we had leverage. There was a bill important to Vietnam that was worth $10 billion to them. And so, I put a hold on it in the house. So, Mel Martinez, what a rock star. He put a hold on it in the Senate. And we said to them in a moving and two, you let her out.

And not too long afterwards, a guard appears at Liz's mom's jail cell and says her name is Kirk Cook. You look sick. And she said, I am not sick. And she says, Yeah, you look sick. We're sending you home.

00:27:09:00 - 00:27:09:20

Adriana Linares

Oh, man.

00:27:10:04 - 00:27:11:18

Ric Keller

So, I choke up thinking.

00:27:11:18 - 00:27:12:19

Adriana Linares

About I know I do, too.

00:27:12:19 - 00:27:31:14

Ric Keller

So, we had a big celebration. We got back she got back in November of 2006. And I looked at my little watch and it was three days before Thanksgiving. And it is awesome now. Every year that day in November, I wake up to a ding on my cell phone and it's always Liz and it says, thank you.

This is the day you saved my mom's life.

00:27:33:15 - 00:27:37:17

Adriana Linares

Yeah, it's amazing because they are both amazing women.

00:27:38:07 - 00:27:59:07

Ric Keller

What? But I and I write about this in book and the detail, but I'm not the hero of the story. Liz is the hero, and Liz has been building up authentic relationships with people for so long. So, when she needed someone to help get to me, she brought she brought a guy who was really prominent, who knew me well, and got to me when she needed someone to get him out.

She had friendship there. She had she cashed in all of her chips and all.

00:28:03:13 - 00:28:03:23

Adriana Linares

People.

00:28:03:23 - 00:28:20:22

Ric Keller

We're trying to help her. Next thing you know, Mel's talking about this case on Air Force One with the president and Condi Rice is involved. And I got the speaker of the House involved. And it only happened because she refused to take no for an answer and one door closed. The lawyers couldn't help her, or diplomats couldn't help her.

She just kept going. And it's a perfect example of persistence and networking being life changing.

00:28:27:06 - 00:28:37:12

Adriana Linares

I think she's one of the I think she's one of these attorneys that truly values and understands connecting and networking, just like you do.

00:28:38:07 - 00:28:50:24

Ric Keller

There's one terrible injustice that I just want to bring up I usually talk about, but I get her mom out of jail, she comes back and then she dates my brother. You know, I'm like, oh my God, you know, what did he do? You know, but I'm just teasing.

00:28:51:20 - 00:28:55:24

Adriana Linares

Wait and let's clarify cooked in date your mother your brother listed.

00:28:55:24 - 00:29:20:22

Ric Keller

Les Liz they did my brother yeah, I get Les mom and yeah you date my brother Jack and so they dated for a couple of years. So, she became almost part of our family and to this day is one of my best friends and has been there for lots of good things. But one of the coolest things for me in writing Chase the Bears was getting to tell her story, and I put it under the chapter of networking because I couldn't think of a better example for young lawyers than Liz McCausland.

00:29:20:22 - 00:29:40:05

Adriana Linares

It's so true, and I'm honored to get to work with Liz. It's one of my favorite people on the planet. Maybe I'll have her on the podcast next and we can extend this conversation. Ric, I know you're really busy guy, so I very much appreciate your time. I love that you have a website that is outside of your law firm, and it's Ric Keller.

But it's RIC that's your first name? Ric. Just RIC and then Keller - Keller dot net. People can go there, learn about you, connect with you. Watch your awesome TEDx talk, which I strongly encourage everyone to go watch this TED Talk and that I see a statistic that it was like the sixth most popular TED talk in the world earlier this year.

00:30:01:23 - 00:30:09:00

Ric Keller

And in May it was the sixth most watched talk in the world in May when it went viral. So, it was kind of cool.

00:30:09:00 - 00:30:12:00

Adriana Linares

It is like one achievement after another and you're the nicest guy.

00:30:12:15 - 00:30:30:06

Ric Keller

Well, thank you. And if I could leave your listeners just words with only one thing, and it's this that you're going to you're going to face a situation at some point in the future where there's a fork in the road and you have your own choice to make. Do you play it safe, or do you chase the bears?

Chase the fRicin bears.

00:30:32:24 - 00:30:46:06

Adriana Linares

Chase the Bears. Ric, thank you so much for spending time with us today on legal matters from Litera, we really appreciate your time. And everyone, go check out Ric Keller dot net connect with Ric. He'd love to hear from you. I am sure.

00:30:46:21 - 00:30:48:11

Ric Keller

Thanks Adriana.

00:30:48:11 - 00:30:54:03

Thank you for listening to LEGALTECH MATTERS. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.