The ALPS In Brief Podcast

ALPS CEO David Bell discusses navigating the 2020 pandemic, embracing change, fostering a resilient company culture, and exciting future initiatives in an insightful conversation with Rio Laine. This is the first in our new quarterly thought leadership series, ALPS In Brief: The Deep Think. — Transcript: Rio Laine: Hello and welcome. I'm Rio Laine, the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS Insurance. And today I have a chance to sit down with our CEO and fearless leader, David Bell, and we'll be talking about what's happening at ALPS, how the last year has gone, our vision moving forward, and also talk about how far we've come since the 2020 pandemic. Hello, David. Welcome. David Bell: Thank you, Rio, for having me on. Rio Laine: Yeah, thanks for joining me. It's always a pleasure to get a chance to sit down and talk with you. David Bell: For me too. I look forward to the conversation. Rio Laine: 100%. Fabulous. So do you want to take a minute, David, to just tell the audience a bit about yourself, how you came to be at ALPS, a little bit about your background. David Bell: Sure. Well, I've been in the insurance industry my entire career since college. I joined Chubb Insurance and was with Chubb for a number of years. And then in the wake of 9/11, Chubb AIG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners formed a joint venture, and I went with Chubb's Capital to help start at an organization called Allied World, AWAC. And so over the course of a decade living in Bermuda, we built that business up, ultimately took it public. And then skipping a few chapters of this book, ultimately, my wife and I decided to come back to Montana where we first met three decades ago, where she is originally from and where we both went to college. And coming back to Montana, I had the opportunity to take the helm at ALPS. And it has been a true blessing for a dozen years to work alongside the men and women at ALPS and doing what we're going to talk about today. Rio Laine: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so you've been at the helm of ALPS for about 12 years now. And during that time it seems that you've steered the company through a lot of really exciting changes and transitions and also perhaps some uncertainty, probably most notably like the 2020 pandemic. I think we can all agree that was a very interesting time all around. So I'd like to start with talking about the years since the pandemic and the last time we sat down with you, which was in 2020. Now, obviously ALPS is still here and thriving, but I'm curious to know what is something that you feel that you could point to that was the most important factor in helping us navigate that time and also what was something that helped our insureds navigate that time as well? David Bell: The pandemic time? Rio Laine: Yes. David Bell: Certainly just solidarity. I think as a country we came together, as a world, in a lot of cases, we came together. And at ALPS, that was particularly true. To be fair, ALPS has employees in a dozen states, but the nucleus of the organization is in the home office in Missoula, Montana. And Montana did not have a number of the challenges that the larger cities had, particularly with population density. When you have a global pandemic and airborne transmittable viruses, not having the same type of population density did help us. But everybody at ALPS really rose to the occasion. Our technology was ready to allow people to be working remotely. We were also able to bring people back into the office much, much earlier than I think larger cities were able to do. But most importantly, I think people rose to the occasion. They understood that they had the need to balance the challenges and the opportunities that they had confronted at home, and then also the responsibilities that we continued to have at the office. And I was so proud of everybody. It was week by week. We were intensely communicative, always together, always talking about what our objectiv

In this mini episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar & Affinity Partner Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Mary Jane Pickens, Executive Director at the West Virginia State Bar to discuss the importance of bar partnerships, how they create value for members, and the pivotal role bars play in the legal community. — Transcript: Rio Lane: All right. Hello everybody. We are back for another mini-installment of the ALPS in Brief podcast. I am your host, Rio Lane, and I am talking today with Mary Jane Pickens, who's the executive director of the West Virginia Bar. Hi. Mary Jane Pickens: Hey, how are you? Rio Lane: I'm good. How are you doing? Mary Jane Pickens: Wonderful. Very, very happy to be back in Montana. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. Rio Lane: Wonderful. Yes. Thank you for joining us. I'm happy you're here too. I love Missoula. It's such a lovely city. Mary Jane Pickens: It is. It's fun. We went out and just took a quick walk this morning, and it's a wonderful little place. Lots of good stuff here. Rio Lane: It is. It absolutely is. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself, Mary Jane. What's your background, and how did you come to the Bar Association? Mary Jane Pickens: Well, I've done a lot of different things. When I first became an executive director, I went to one of the ABA annual meetings, and they had us a boot camp for brand new executive directors, and you had to pick out a song. It was an icebreaker thing, and they would play your song and you were supposed to jump up and say, "That's my song." And my song was Long and Winding Road by the Beatles. Rio Lane: Oh, nice. Mary Jane Pickens: Because I felt like I had had a rather long and winding road to get to the bar. I graduated from law school. I went to Ohio Northern University, so I did not go to law school in West Virginia. Came back to West Virginia because it's my home, and went into private practice in a small firm, kind of a little boutiquey... We mostly did bankruptcy work. And did that for about 15 years and decided I needed a change and had an opportunity to go to the Insurance Commissioner's office in the state of West Virginia. And shortly thereafter, became general counsel for the West Virginia Insurance Commissioner. And I was there for about 11 or 12 years. And then I went to a large firm, did mostly government relations and lobbying mostly around the insurance industry. Rio Lane: Yeah. Mary Jane Pickens: Did that for about three years. And then because I love public service, it's where my heart is, I had a chance to go back to the state and be the executive director of the West Virginia Board of Risk and Insurance Management, which provides all of the property and liability insurance for the state of West Virginia, and also simultaneously be the Deputy Cabinet Secretary for the Department of Administration, which provides all the back office-y stuff and services for the rest of government. Rio Lane: Oh, wow. Mary Jane Pickens: And I was able to be acting cabinet secretary during 2016 during Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's last year, and then had a chance to go to the state bar, and that's where I am now. So it's kind of a long and winding road. Rio Lane: Yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. And you've been at the bar for two years? Mary Jane Pickens: Yes. I hit my two-year official mark on July 1. Rio Lane: Oh, congratulations. Congratulations. Mary Jane Pickens: Thank you. Rio Lane: Yeah. How are you liking it? Do you find it's a lot different than what you were doing before? Mary Jane Pickens: It is a lot different. It's still considered a state agency, but it's in the judicial branch. I've always been in the executive branch, so there's a lot of differences there. But it still is that public service feeling like you have constituents, you have customers, and you're there to help folks. And so that's what I love about it. Rio Lane: Yeah, that's fantastic. How do you find working with a bo

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with University of Montana Professor Jeff Brandt to talk about synthesizers, AI, and his class on the history of rock and roll. — Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful Downtown Missoula, Montana. As many of you know, I have been in Florida now for a number of years, but I'm back at the home office here, and we have a special event every two years where we bring in a lot of our bar associates from various bar associations around the country. Then we have some special speakers that come in and talk about all kinds of things. I have just finished attending a presentation given by Jeff Brandt, who is a professor here at the university and does a course on the history of music. I got to say, in all honesty, folks, I wish you could all have been here. This was one of the most fun, creative presentations I've seen in a long, long time. Jeff, it's a pleasure to have you here. Before we get started, can I ask you to take just a little bit of time and tell us about who you are? Jeff Brandt: Okay, so I was born in Sitka, Alaska, which is a tiny, well, it's a big island actually, but a tiny town on a big island in Southeast Alaska. Average rainfall there is about 96 inches per year, so it's a Pacific Coast rainforest. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. Jeff Brandt: I went to college in Tacoma, Washington at Pacific Lutheran University. Taught private percussion lessons after that for about 20 years. Somewhere in the middle or somewhere in there, I got my graduate teaching degree. Then we ended up in Missoula, Montana as a result. Then by happenstance, the History of Rock & Roll as a course fell into my lap. Mark Bassingthwaighte: That was an established course before you got here? Jeff Brandt: It was. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Jeff Brandt: Yeah. There were a lot of people that have taught it prior to me, but when I was given the opportunity to run with it, it was one of the first online courses developed at the University of Montana, and that's really when I dug in because I knew that teaching it in an online setting, I was going to have to be more aware of the points I was trying to get across and how they were delivered. I dug deeper and deeper into the historical aspect of the course, and then I just started creating these different slide programs. Now I'm on my third set of slides and I think it's my final because they're so good now I don't want to mess with them, but that's my brief history. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I didn't realize this is online. Could anybody get online and just take this course? Jeff Brandt: Anybody can take it online. I'll give my spiel about online education, to be honest here, is I think online education is good if you have time to do it. I think in-person education, generally speaking, is better. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I would agree with you. Jeff Brandt: There are so many different resources now for people to learn. Just with YouTube alone, you can go down an endless pit of stuff on one member of one obscure band, it seems. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. Jeff Brandt: Yeah. Mine is one of the many resources out there. Mark Bassingthwaighte: You're welcome to share. Folks, I'm telling you, if you have any interest at all in the history of rock and roll and want to have some awesome fun, this is a course I would encourage you to take and see. I didn't realize. How might folks find this? Jeff Brandt: Well, you go to the University of Montana. I believe you have to register as a student. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Jeff Brandt: You think that I would know all the hoops you have you have to jump through. Mark Bassingthwaighte: No, that's fine. Jeff Brandt: You have to jump through several hoops and then you can t

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Troy De Baca, the man behind The Silk Screen Machine, Inc. to talk about life, risk taking, and an ice cream dream. Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the Historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula Montana. I'm here on a business trip at the mothership, the home office here, and we've had some interesting speakers the past couple of days. And the one that I have enjoyed the most, and have been it's just got all kinds of things gone in my head here, just a lot of things to chew on in terms of life insights is a presentation given by Troy De Baca. And I just want to sit down, and we're just going to chat a little bit. For those of you that have listened somewhat rightly, or more rightly on all that I've done with podcasts, I've done several on listening to your life. I am going to add this discussion to this series, if you will, because man, oh man, is there a lot here. So Troy, welcome. It's a pleasure. Troy De Baca: Mark, great to meet you. Thanks for having me. Mark Bassingthwaighte: You're most welcome. And before we jump into just having a chat, can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are, and what you are in life I guess? Troy De Baca: Sure. Sure. So out of the many titles that you can be given, I've magically found myself in this role of entrepreneur, and I know that's a very big buzzword right now, but yeah. I basically am an American entrepreneur, who creates very outside of the box thinking in terms in the world of advertising, and marketing, and promotional items. And what my job is for the most part is when people ask me, "What do you do for a living," I say, "I'm a professional solutionist," because that encapsulates everything that I do. My job is to find solutions primarily for Fortune 500 companies to go out, and do experiential marketing, which is basically finding a company's demographic, or target demographic audience, and then providing them with an experience that they then hold onto, and they have a positive moment with, that they'll hopefully buy the brand, or support the brand. Mark Bassingthwaighte: I love that. I love that, professional solutionist, and boy, trust me, folks, when he talks about what he's done here, it's just like, good for you. God bless. Man oh man, are you freaking kidding me? Got to stop. Troy De Baca: You're too much. Mark Bassingthwaighte: You talked in this presentation yes a word that it explains some things, but entrepreneurs is not necessarily a word you use comfortably to describe yourself. You just don't see yourself that way. Troy De Baca: Right. Mark Bassingthwaighte: But you talk about all of this being unexpected. Troy De Baca: Yeah. Yeah. Mark Bassingthwaighte: What does that mean? You are in a great place, and tremendous success, but it's very unexpected. What's the journey? Troy De Baca: Yeah. So what I'm realizing now that I didn't know growing up is that I've just deeply been passionate about art and creativity. I didn't really know how to express myself. And that got me down paths that as most artists or creatives, there's a dangerous side to it, because you want to explore everything. And then that can be hurtful or harmful when you're not fully in control of your art, or your craft. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. Troy De Baca: So growing up, I took a lot of [inaudible 00:04:15]. I wanted to get into everything, and explore everything. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Right. Troy De Baca: And through doing that, like many artists, I got involved with drugs, and I went down a rabbit hole pretty deep. I got addicted to heroin, and I spent about six years of my life pursuing that. And it took me to some really deep, dark places. And I also overdosed a few times, and was considered legally dead two of those times. So I consider my

Despite best intentions, sexual harassment is still a very prevalent issue that impacts the legal profession on a wide, wide basis to this day. In this episode, Rio sits down with the founders of Women Lawyers on Guard to discuss their work to confront sexual harassment, and other issues impacting women in law and what you (yes! You!) can do about it. — Rio Peterson: Hello, everybody, and welcome to In Brief episode 83, Women Lawyers on Guard. My name is Rio Peterson. I am the Bar Partnership Strategist at ALPS, and today, I'm going to be chatting with two fantastically inspiring women, Cory Amron and Corrine Parver. Cory, Corrine, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you. Corrine Parver: Thanks so much. Cory Amron: Thank you, Rio. Rio Peterson: Thank you. Cory Amron: I'm really pleased to be here. Rio Peterson: Wonderful. So, before we dive in, I know we've got a really interesting conversation ahead of us today, which I've been very looking forward to for the past few weeks, since we had our first chat. But before we started, I wanted to find out if you could tell us a little bit about you, who you are, where you live, where you came from. Corey, why don't we start with you? Cory Amron: Okay, great. Alphabetical order. I live in Arlington, Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C. I've been here for yeah, 30 some-odd years. I'm now retired, but I worked primarily for a number of law firms that, some of which are no longer around, but most recently retired from the firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, which started as a Midwest-based firm, here in D.C. I have been working over my 40-year legal career not only day-to-day clients, et cetera, but also on women's and diversity issues. So, for instance, I was the chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, the second chair. In 1991, I took over right over right as Anita Hill was testifying in the Senate at Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing. So, that was kind of a trial by fire. Rio Peterson: Right. Cory Amron: So, I've also had a lot of experience working on sexual harassment and things like that, and then, fast-forward, co-founded Women Lawyers on Guard in 2017. Rio Peterson: Great. All right, fantastic. Corrine, how about you? Corrine Parver: I'm also a retired lawyer. First career was as a physical therapist for 15 years before going to law school. So, I went to law school primarily because I wanted to work in the health law area. My practice, when I was a partner in a law firm, was geared towards policy, regulations, as opposed to litigation. After I retired from practicing law, I was a law professor for close to 10 years, where I created the Health Law and Policy program at American University Washington College of Law and enjoyed teaching the young students and remained involved with the law school over the past few years, even though I am retired from actually teaching, and joined forces with Cory and our gang of warriors in 2017 to now be the president of Women Lawyers on Guard Action Network. Rio Peterson: Got it. So, you both retired to then go on to do more incredible things in your post-retired life. Fantastic. Now, you mentioned you both founded and you run Women Lawyers on Guard. We know that's a nonprofit organization that's been doing some really especially important work around understanding and addressing sexual harassment in the legal profession, and that's what obviously what we're here to talk about today. So, before we really dig into the deeper part of this conversation, I'd love for the audience to learn a bit more about what Women Lawyers on Guard does. What is your mission? Why don't you tell us a little bit about how everything got started? Cory Amron: Okay, so in the end of 2016, I was a member of a national network of women lawyers, and we decided that we really needed to do something, both to protect women's rights that we had worked so hard over 40 plu

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar Partnerships Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Tamara Nash, Director of Experiential Learning and lecturer at the University of South Dakota School of Law and Chair of the ABA's Young Lawyer Division. They dive into her upcoming initiatives for the year ahead and discuss the inspiration behind her focus on empowering and motivating new and aspiring lawyers. Lastly Tamara, a first-generation lawyer herself, shares her plans to reach more young lawyers by organizing the ABA's inaugural first-generation summit in April 2024. — Rio Peterson: Hello everybody and welcome to episode 81 of the In Brief podcast. I'm your host today Rio Peterson, coming to you live from Chicago. And as we all know, I am the bar partnership strategist here at ALPS and one of your new hosts for the podcast. So today I am sitting down with the fantastic and fabulous Tamara Nash. Hello. Tamara Nash: Hi. Rio Peterson: How are you? Tamara Nash: I'm great. How are you today? Rio Peterson: Good, I'm fantastic. Better that I get to sit here and chat with you. So we are both attending BLI, the Bar Leader Institute conference here in Chicago. And so we thought this would be a great time to sit down and talk about a lot of, well, all of, or as many as we can, the exciting things that Tam is doing because you do all the things. So yeah, happy to have you. Thanks for joining me. Tamara Nash: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Rio Peterson: Fantastic. All right, so let's get started. I would love to hear a little bit more about you. I mean, obviously I know a little bit about you, but our listeners don't. So why don't you tell me a little bit about who you are, what you do, and yeah, we'll go from there. Tamara Nash: Yeah, I would love to. So those kind of questions always strike a chord of panic. Who are you? It's like, "Well, let me encapsulate my life in this one sentence." I always like to start that with I'm a proud first-generation attorney, born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and then transplant to South Dakota, a proud South Dakota young lawyer, but I can only say that for one more year and then I'll be aging out. So I'll go kicking and screaming to veteran attorney status. Rio Peterson: Yes. Tamara Nash: O I guess a quasi veteran attorney status, but... Rio Peterson: Young veteran attorney. Tamara Nash: Young veteran attorney. Yes, I like that. We'll bring that term into use. I am the oldest sibling of three. I'm very close with my siblings. I have a brand new nephew and I have a niece. I'm quite obsessed with them. I bring them up any chance that I can get. I was a prosecutor for about eight years and then recently made a transition into academia. I currently have the joy of serving as the director of experiential learning and a lecturer at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. And I am kind of a serial joiner. I really like bar service, so I do quite a bit in the South Dakota State Bar as well as the American Bar Association and the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division and just try to squeeze in time to read and bake when I'm not doing all of those things. Rio Peterson: I do all of the things when I'm not doing all of them. Tamara Nash: Basically, yeah. Rio Peterson: Yeah. And so I think it's incredible that you do all those things. It really just shows that you're so passionate about what you do. And so something I would really love to hear is a little bit about your origin story because I know you mentioned that you're a first-generation lawyer, so that's a really, I think, exciting thing when somebody in your family takes that next step. So I'd love to know more about what inspired you to become a lawyer. Tamara Nash: Yeah. So I love telling this story. It's something I'm super proud about and something that has always followed me. It's always like a little seed or flower I carry with me everywhere. So I think I come from a f

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Bar Partnership Strategist Rio Peterson sits down with Liesel Brink and Amber Kuhlman from the ALPS HR team to talk about careers in Insurance. Learn about their path into HR and learn about all the exciting opportunities that exist in this often overlooked industry. Transcript: Rio Peterson: Hello, everybody, and welcome to this month's installment of In Brief. This is episode 79, and I am your host for the first time ever, Rio Peterson. I'll be joining you, hopefully more frequently in a rotation on the podcast, and very much looking forward to it. So this month is Insurance Careers Month, and so we thought it would be really, really appropriate to speak to the two people here at ALPS, who really make sure that people can have careers at ALPS and bring us new talent, and really keep the lights on and run all the things. So I'm going to be talking to Liesel Brink and Amber Kuhlman. Kuhlman. Sorry, Amber. So Liesel, do you want to start by introducing yourself, telling us a bit about who you are, what you do here at ALPS? Liesel Brink: Sure. Thanks so much, Rio. This is an exciting opportunity. So I am your manager of HR and payroll coordinator here at ALPS Insurance. Do everything from hiring, recruiting, all the way to payroll. Not to take any of this under from Amber, I can't do it all on my own. I've been with ALPS for, it's going on nine years, and yeah, been a great time so far. Rio Peterson: Awesome. How about you, Amber? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Amber Kuhlman: Yeah. So I'm Amber. I'm the HR generalist here at ALPS Insurance. I've been here a little about year and a half now, but in my role, I focus more on the onboarding, recruiting side of things, but I also participate and help out all things wellness with our employees, so that's great. Rio Peterson: Yeah, that's right. You kind of run things on our Employee Wellness program, which I will speak from experience, is an incredible program and definitely a major perk of working here. So thank you both for all your work and for putting that together for us. It's really fantastic. So we're kind of taking some time to explore careers in insurance this month. I don't think necessarily, an industry that a lot of people wake up when they're like five or six, and they're like, "Ah, I want to work in insurance," but so I think it's really important that we can take some time and kind of explore what we do and all of the incredible kind of opportunities and possibilities that exist when you do choose to pursue a career in insurance. So I'm really curious to find out kind of from both of you like, "What was your life before ALPS? What did you do? What was your world before that?" Amber Kuhlman: Yeah, I can start off. It definitely wasn't insurance. This is my first job in insurance, but prior to coming onto ALPS, I actually came from retail sales, so very different. It's a great learning opportunity, working with individuals, helping them find what they need, but definitely enjoy the insurance side a lot more. Love the stability within insurance. Everyone needs it for a variety of things, whether it's car insurance or attorney's liability. So I love that aspect, and we have a lot of opportunities at ALPS as far as diversity within our department. So there's Liesel, myself and HR, but there's also business development folks in sales. We have our claims attorneys, account management, maintaining our policies, and everything else you may need from finance all the way to the C-suite, so it's great. Rio Peterson: Yeah. Fantastic. And Liesel, what about you? Where were you at before you found your way to ALPS? Liesel Brink: So before ALPS ... I mean, how much time do we have, Rio? Rio Peterson: We've got a couple minutes. Liesel Brink: Yeah. So I've been doing HR for about 25 years, and in the last, ooh, 12 mostly in HR, previous to that, nonprofit work, and many people know in a nonprofit, you become a jack-

In this episode of ALPS in Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares his 25 holiday risk tips to keep your law firm's cybersecurity happy and healthy as we roll into the new year! Transcript: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at Alps, and welcome to another episode of Alps In Brief, that podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. As you can tell, it's the end of the year and I'm trying to get ready and set for the holiday celebrations and whatnot, just having a little fun. So I thought about what to do for this month's podcast. I thought, why not share my 25 holiday risk tips as a countdown. And these are risk tips for 2023, the end of 2023, and maybe we'll do this every year. Who knows? We'll see. Let's jump right in, shall we? Number one, don't wait for that after Christmas sale. Make sure your firm's security software and operating systems on terms of all the devices, the servers, the computers, the laptops, everything. These updates need to be current systems need to be patched, and the reason is I just want to make sure you're properly protected during all of that online holiday shopping. Number two, the turkey helpline. I remember back in the day, they used to have these shows you could listen to, and my memory was it's on the radio, but you could listen to people calling in. They record some of these crazy calls to the Turkey hotline. I remember a woman very upset that her bird tasted like soap. And apparently what she had done was read in the instructions, you should clean your turkey before cooking it, then rinse it out, that kind of stuff. And apparently she used a lot dish washing soap and that's going to taste like soap. That's not how you clean a turkey, but I always got a kick out of that. But sometimes things don't work out quite as planned when it comes to the holiday bird, and some people really don't know what they're doing with these turkeys. And there is a turkey hotline out there to help you out, use it. Well, in a similar vein, if you have no idea how to properly secure your smartphones or other devices, the files that you have in cloud storage, even your home router, if you're using it for work, rest assured there's a support line for you too, and that's just called your IT support. Whoever he/she/they may be, please don't hesitate to reach out and get the help that you need. Number three, untangling the lights. As you search your attic or your basement, wherever you have your holiday decoration stored, remember to protect and organize your firm's virtual storage space so your digital files don't end up sort of in a similar mess. I remember year after year for a lot of years, trying to untangle all of these light strings and checking for the bulbs, etc. It's just a headache, just a headache. So, let's try not to let that happen with our client files that are virtually stored. Number four, make a list and check it twice. And before taking on a new matter, make certain that you and your client are in total agreement on the scope of representation, and that might even include discussing what you're not going to do. And then of course, make sure that you thoroughly document all that in writing because after all, memories really can be short. I mean, even Santa, after all, why do you think he has a list. Number five, up on the house top. Some of us excel at navigating a snow covered roof to hang the lights. Boy, there's some guys around here, I've seen this here, I'm thinking, these guys don't excel and you're just worried that dickens that somebody's going to take a fall. But on others, you really do need to learn that the annual trip to the ER can get expensive. The point of all this is no one excels at everything. Learn to say no when you really know that you should don't dabble and don't take on clients that you can't work well with. Otherwise, the control of your professional life is going t

In this latest episode of ALPS In Brief, ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte shares some vital information about the Corporate Transparency Act as it relates to the practice of law ... as well as some other spooky insights. A Brief Statement of Correction from Mark: “During this podcast I stated that under the Corporate Transparency Act, BOI reports were to be filed annually. That statement was incorrect. The correct requirement is that reporting companies have 30 days to report changes to the information in their previously filed BOI reports and must correct inaccurate information in previously filed reports within 30 days of when the reporting company becomes aware or has reason to know of the inaccuracy of information in earlier BOI reports.” — Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I am Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I was just out in Missoula just a couple of weeks ago and visiting the home office, I had a wonderful time. And I will have to say now that winter's kind of moving in here and it's nice to be back in Florida. But it's always good to get back to the old stomping grounds, if you will. It's November now, and I have been trying to think about, okay, what would I like to share with all of you this month in November? And I got thinking, well, it's November and they're also... I just felt that there are two topics that I'd like to talk about, two that I think a lot of lawyers don't know that they need to know a bit more about these two topics. And so given that it's the month of November, the theme is what two things that you don't know that you need to know... get the play here? No, I'm just having a little fun. So anyway, let's get to it. The first, we've just had October pass, and that is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. And I'm sure some of you're probably just dog-tired of hearing about cybersecurity, and it's just one of these topics that, man. I know, I know, I really get it. But I wanted to follow up. So one of these topics is going to be sort of cybersecurity related and just explore another topic here that I just think is very, very important. And it really deals with backups in light of ransomware. And I'm sure we've heard all kinds of things about ransomware. If you follow any of these stories going on and education going on in October. And for those of you that don't know, maybe I should stop very quickly. Ransomware, just as a reminder, it's these rogue programs that can be downloaded unintentionally by anybody in your office, your staff, another associate, partner, anyone, just being tricked into doing something that wasn't in their best interest. Clicking on a link they shouldn't have, downloading a document or opening a document that they were tricked into opening. And it may look legit. There's some stuff here. But it also comes with this payload of malicious software. And it will encrypt all of your data, sooner or later. It can sit at times. But it will again encrypt everything and then eventually you get this little ransom note that says, if you'd like access to your data, again, you need to pay this amount in cryptocurrency by such and such a deadline. And if you don't, you're not going to get your data back. As an aside, I would encourage you never to pay this because even if you get the decryption key, sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it only decrypts part of it and you need to pay more. Sometimes you can get some of your data back and then they'll say, "Oh, by the way, we want another ransom because if you don't pay us, we still have all your data. We upload it and we're going to sell it or we're going to post it online." It's just a heck of a mess. Well, one of the best ways to avoid having to pay ransom if you get hit with something like this is to have a good backup. And for quite so

Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm delighted to have, as my guest today, Bill Harvit, and Bill is the chairman of the Succession Planning Committee at the West Virginia State Bar. And I'll tell you, as a risk guy, succession planning is a huge issue, and it seems to me, in recent years, more and more states are starting to move a little bit on this topic, and for good reason. Bill and I are going to have a chat about succession planning, and I thought it'd be fun to have Bill not only because of his involvement with the committee and all this going on in West Virginia, but I think, folks, it's important, too, to hear from another practitioner, from somebody that's out there. I've been in this risk management space for 25 years, and I'm sure some of you are tired of hearing just from me, and I like to have different types of thoughts. Before we jump into this, Bill, may I have you take just a moment and introduce yourself. What do listeners need to know about you? Bill Harvit: Oh, probably not a lot. No, I'm teasing. I've been practicing law for ... this is my 37th year, coming up on 37th year. I've represented both plaintiffs and defendants through the years, but principally, I've been involved in toxic torts, mass tort litigation, through the years. And, unfortunately, I had a situation, back in 2017, that thrusted me into this succession planning situation, and Mark, it's not because I didn't prepare. We thought we were prepared and we were not. It's a very important topic. I thank you and ALPS for focusing on it. And, listen, to the extent I can help anybody not go through what I went through, I'm happy to do so. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Are you able to share a little bit about what happened and what brought you into this? Bill Harvit: Sure. I had been practicing, in fact, I had a firm for 25 years, and my partner and I, as I said, did a lot of mass tort litigation. And literally, one day, I'm not kidding, in April of 2017, I knew he was having some issues, but he walked in and literally said, "I'm done," and walked out, and we had about 5,000 files that were open, again, because we did mass tort litigation. They weren't all 100% open. Some were just waiting on settlements and bankruptcy defendants and things of that nature. It took me two and a half years to wind down that firm and deal with all of the issues that, hopefully, we're not going to get to all of them, but hopefully at least touch on a number of the issues. I lived it, and I will tell you it's probably one of the most stressful times in my life. And, just in this same vein, that happened to me as a lawyer, but it also happened to me as a non-lawyer. When my father passed away, he and my mother operated a small women's clothing store in southern West Virginia, and not unlike a small law firm, they each had their own duties and responsibilities. And, when he passed away, of course, they had no succession plan, and I had to step into that. I've learned it both as a lawyer and as a non-lawyer. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Well, what I appreciate about this story is there's this temptation, as I see it, among the bar at large, is succession planning really is an issue that we need to focus on in terms of solo lawyers and the rest of us don't really need to worry about that. And you are so right. I've seen problems in firms of five, eight, 10 lawyers where we have these unexpected, unplanned for transitions, whether it's an untimely death or somebody just saying, "I'm done." All kinds of things can come up here that create some problems. I was also interested, as we were talking a little bit via email, you had mentioned that West Virginia is in the process of considering some rule changes, and specifically, as I understand it, really making it clear that the o

We have extremely exciting news for you all — Rio Peterson, who you may already know from Clio — has joined ALPS as our Bar & Affinity Partnership Strategist! Mark sits down with Rio to welcome her to ALPS and hear about her new role! Transcript: Mark Bassingthwaighte: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS, and welcome to our first video podcast recording of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. You'll notice I'm sitting here with our guest, Rio, and more about her in a moment. Now that we're on video, a couple of things. For those of you that listen you finally get to see a little bit of what the remote office in Florida looks like. Maybe I'll have to do a little camera spin at some point. But I'm also thinking we need to maybe post some videos or a short video of the beautiful historic Florence building in downtown Missoula, Montana. People keep hearing about this. I do have as my guest today Rio Peterson. Rio is someone I've worked with on and off through the years when she was at Clio, and she is now a very valued new member of the ALPS Corporation here. We're going to be talking a bit about that. As we were talking, Rio, I'm based in Florida, as many of you know. Rio is based in Vancouver, BC, which makes us... This is a unique podcast. We are the two employees, I think, the farthest apart. Here we are. Rio Peterson: I think so too. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Kind of an odd little thing. Really, folks, what I wanted to talk about today, I do some presentation, I've been doing it for a lot of years, on the basics of lawyers' professional liability insurance, and some programs on how to buy, really explaining what coverage does and doesn't do. Really digging into the ins and outs because so many lawyers, I think, really don't even know what their coverage is until all of a sudden a claim arises. That's the first time they pick it up and oh my gosh, oh my gosh. It's worthwhile knowing what your policy covers. But I also talk about value adds, and when you're thinking about purchasing insurance, looking at or asking the question, what are you getting for your premium dollars? There really should be a bit more than just the peace of mind that the policy can bring. Companies are doing all kinds of things and today we are going to talk about some of the value adds that ALPS has. So before we jump into this a little bit, Rio, could you just give us a little bit of brief background, a verbal bio, and I'll share a little bit more about myself, but I'd love for you to start. Rio Peterson: Yes, absolutely. Thank you first of all for having me. It's very exciting to get to span the Continental Divide with you today. I came to ALPS by way of Clio, which is a Canadian-based legal practice management software tech company. I was at Clio for about five and a half years where I managed Clio's Bar Association Partnership Program. Clio and lots of other companies just like ALPS partner with bar associations across North America to really provide value to their members in the form of lots of different ways, which we'll talk about shortly. But as part of that role I did a lot of public speaking, a lot of education about best practices for running a law firm, and just kind of a lot of event attendance, different things. But ultimately it was my job to make sure that the relationships we had with these bar associations were mutually beneficial, that everybody was winning when we partnered together. Mark Bassingthwaighte: Folks, I don't know how often or how far we've really driven down. I'm the risk manager here at ALPS. I've been with ALPS now... It's been over 25 years and always been in the role of risk manager of some sort. What that term means or has meant over the years has changed a bit, but I have done a tremendous amount of consulting with firms of all shapes and sizes all over the country. Do a lot of content c

We all carry baggage in our personal and professional lives as lawyers. If the baggage isn't addressed, we get depressed. In this episode, Mark offers some wisdom, tactics, and examples of how to let it go. Transcript: Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I had some things happen this week that got me thinking, and so I want to tell some stories and share some insights or just responses, I guess, to things that have been going on. I want to start out with a story that goes back a few years. Sometime ago my wife and I attended a weekend family get-together out in California, beautiful home that could put up a whole bunch of us, and then some others stayed in nearby hotels, but it was a lot of fun. It really was a lot of fun. One evening, the extended family was all gathered around a huge table and the other people outside in hot tub and people on the beach, walking, things, but there was a nice group around this big table, and one of the young grandchildren there was quite a fan of Frozen, and she just was so proud of herself. We all got to talking and she had memorized the song, and I'm sure many of you are aware of the song or have heard of it, called Let It Go. She wanted to sing for all of us, and everybody's all excited. She climbs up and is standing on the sort of the center of this table, and she just starts belting out, Let It Go. She gets through the first verse and we're all just hooting and hollering kind of, "This is great," and she just says, "Well, stop, stop, stop. I'm not done yet," and she just launches into the next verse, and we're all kind of looking around and she just keeps going. She's going to sing the whole darn song. I see near the end, it becomes abundantly clear there are more than a few people that are very impatient, ready for this to be over, "Oh my gosh, it's almost painful," and I'm thinking to myself and sort of smiling. I see people really aren't listening to what she's saying. I think there's some wisdom here. Let it go. It's a little girl, enjoying, trying to entertain and just so proud of herself. We all can certainly get through a few more minutes of listening to her sing and just have a nice, wonderful evening in spite of that. So that was just a fun memory, but it's relevant to some other things that have happened and get just things I've been thinking about. I also recently listened to a presentation on forgiveness, and I must say it was one of the more, powerful is the word that comes to mind, but it just, a presentation that really struck home for me in a variety of ways. One of the things that I very much appreciated and thought was just, "Well done." The presenter was talking about that people are at times wronged by others. People are sometimes betrayed by others, hurt by others, and he wanted to sort of give a visual to this in terms of how this impacts us individually when we hold on to these types of feelings, feelings of betrayal, hurt, all of that, and so he had two people come up. He put them together, handcuffed them together, and he says, "You know, so you have a bad relationship. One person will be the person that was perhaps betrayed in the relationship and the other person, handcuffed is, together here, is the person who betrayed the first person." So you say, "Okay, I'm going to exit the relationship and move on, get a divorce," whatever it might be, but as the person walks away from the relationship, they're still handcuffed together. Now, obviously, the person that truly betrayed doesn't come along everything, but the baggage, if you will, is still there. There's still this attachment because there's been no forgiveness. You might be in a situation, perhaps an associate has a problem with a partner and has been wronged or is constantly hurt and belittled. There's just a ver