One of the best stories that somebody has shared with me was about a mechanic that she knew who was a little bit more creative than your typical mechanic. He didn’t want to get himself dirty. He didn’t see why someone with this much ingenuity should have to do it. So instead, what he used to do is rig up his car so that all of the pieces were put together just enough that they would stay on the car while he was driving. He would wait for a nice car to come by and then he would deliberately get into an accident with them. And because all of the pieces were barely screwed on the car would be absolutely totaled in the accident. And he would be laying there in agony. And the pictures would just be terrible and heart-rending for the jury. And this is pretty much how he made his living. And he’s not the only one. He was a professional accident victim.
My name is Bradley Bailyn, and this is Episode 15 of the #ThinkLikeALawyer Small Business podcast and Vlog. Today, we’re going to be talking about the virtues of keeping your mouth shut and not giving back all of your success. A lot of times the clients who come into me have never experienced the level of success before that they’re now experiencing. And the first thing that they want to do is get a real nice car and let the whole world know about their success, because what fun is it to be secretly rich if you’re not a celebrity?
People want to be celebrities. And wouldn’t you know it? There is a huge industry of plaintiffs’ law firms that specialize in looking for unsophisticated businesses that seem to have a lot of money and going after them for legal technicalities that come with draconian consequences. And I’ll do other episodes on what those things are. But believe me, there’s plenty of them, especially if you look for California laws that you can sue a New York company for violating.
So somebody came to me a little while back and there was a show that Joan Rivers was putting together. I think it was Joan Rivers was putting it together. And it was called “How did you get so rich?” And it was about rich people. And her premise was that really what everyone wants to know is how did you get so rich? And so she would interview entrepreneurs and other rich people just about that topic. And so he came to me and said, “Do you think I should be on Joan Rivers’ show? Is there any reason why not?” And I was like, “Don’t even think about being on that show.” And he was like, “Why?” You know, you don’t have to look very far. Look at all of these reality stars and movie stars where the government makes an example of them sending them to prison.
Basically, if you’re going to be featured for being rich on TV you’d better have lived holier than Caesar, as the expression goes, because everybody’s going to want to make an example from you, profit from you, and so on and so forth. One of the best examples I can think of is in the venture capital context where people get funded or they get some kind of an investment and they’re so proud because it legitimatize them in their eyes. And the first thing they want to do is put out a press release and put it on Crunchbase and all this other good jazz.
Before you do that, you really have to say to yourself, is my brand about growing fast and being super successful? If it is, then maybe it’s worth all of the lawsuits and threats and problems that are going to quickly follow announcing that you’ve been funded. I have represented clients and in truly ridiculous nuisance lawsuits and/or related threats. And I’ll say to them, “Why? Where did you even get the idea to raise this against my client?” And they say, “Well, your client is rich. They just got funded. They can share the wealth a little bit. Spread it around. They did violate my client’s rights, technical as it may be. And we’re going to fight you guys until you share something.”.
So bottom line of it is as much as possible, if you just got funded, if you had a mega year this year, think twice about running around and telling the whole world about it, because it may not be in your interest to do that.
At any rate, if you have questions, thoughts, comments, please feel free to post wherever you see this. Click “Subscribe” wherever you see this. My name is Bradley Bailyn,. I’m a small business attorney in New York City.
My standard disclaimer: please don’t rely on what I say in this video, what I write on the internet or anything else that you might find which is not specifically written for you or told to you by a competent attorney, because facts may be relevant that you don’t even realize are relevant, and they can completely change the advice which is given to you and the strategy which is best in your particular case. So consult with a competent attorney, me or someone else. And until the next episode, have a wonderful profitable day.
