Jennifer Gore

Jennifer Gore (00:00):
The main reason lawyers get disbarred, which if you think about this, look at the data, is not because of their legal results. They mismanage their firm.

Bob Simon (00:09):
And usually it's unhappy clients. So if you keep your clients-

Jennifer Gore (00:13):
No communication. But those are systems issues, they're not really legal problems. I have always had a passion for business. My parents were both entrepreneurial. My dad had started his own company when he was 18. So I grew up in business, like you were saying. And so when I went to law school, I was like, this is so weird because they never talked about that.

Bob Simon (00:37):
Such a shame.

Jennifer Gore (00:39):
And the statistics are that tons of lawyers end up running their own shop. So I think it's a disservice that the law schools are doing to never talk about... Because at the end of the day, if you don't have the cases, if you don't have a tight process for onboarding clients and a great marketing scheme, you know this, you're not going to have the cases to try.

Bob Simon (01:01):
You also have to think about your longevity as a lawyer if you put yourself at the top.

(01:26):
Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we interview those lawyers who have been both successful at law and life. And we do so over a series of spirits, some strong, some light, but they're going to let our spirits sing tonight and we're blessed to have our co-host again in Atlanta today, Mr. Mauro Fiore.

Mauro Fiore (01:40):
Thank you, Bob for having me as usual.

Bob Simon (01:42):
Thank you for coming.

Mauro Fiore (01:43):
It's been an adventure from Alabama to Atlanta here in a 48-hour period, but we're going to get through it.

Bob Simon (01:51):
We're going to get through it, we hope. And Mauro, you have a will, I hope.

Mauro Fiore (01:54):
Yes, I do.

Bob Simon (01:55):
Okay, we're good. We're blessed today to have Ms. Jennifer Gore from Atlanta from the, is it the Atlanta Personal Injury...

Jennifer Gore (02:00):
Yeah, ATL Injury Law Group.

Bob Simon (02:03):
There you go. ATL Injury Law Group. She, everybody knows very big on social media, but probably runs one of the most efficient operated law firms, one of the fastest growing law firms.

Jennifer Gore (02:14):
We are trying to live up to that name every day, but yeah, I think we've had an attention on efficiency, operations, marketing. That's been our focus over the last 10 years.

Bob Simon (02:28):
Love it. We always start with a pour, okay?

Jennifer Gore (02:30):
Yes.

Bob Simon (02:30):
We're going to start with a little rose all day. We got this one called Rose Rye. This is Rose and Rye. We tried this for the first time the other day, Mauro and I.

Mauro Fiore (02:39):
It's amazing.

Bob Simon (02:40):
This one is amazing. I don't drink wine-

Mauro Fiore (02:48):
It's from Germany.

Jennifer Gore (02:49):
Oh, I like it.

Mauro Fiore (02:50):
It's German rose wine and-

Jennifer Gore (02:52):
It looks like wine.

Mauro Fiore (02:53):
... some German rye whiskey.

Bob Simon (02:57):
You ever been to Germany, Jen?

Jennifer Gore (02:59):
Yes. I'm German.

Bob Simon (03:00):
That's why we picked this.

Jennifer Gore (03:02):
Thank you.

Bob Simon (03:03):
Is your husband German?

Jennifer Gore (03:04):
No. Scottish.

Bob Simon (03:05):
Scottish. See, we should have pulled a Scottish wall. You see that? Well, cheers, Jen. Thank you for coming on the show.

Jennifer Gore (03:12):
Cheers.

Mauro Fiore (03:13):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (03:16):
By the way, if anybody's watching this thing-

Jennifer Gore (03:18):
It smells good.

Bob Simon (03:19):
... it's 10:30 AM where we are filming.

Jennifer Gore (03:20):
And we were drinking last night, so...

Bob Simon (03:25):
Oh, yeah. Welcome back.

Jennifer Gore (03:27):
That's delicious.

Bob Simon (03:27):
It's delicious.

Jennifer Gore (03:28):
Hold on. What was this called again?

Bob Simon (03:31):
Rose and Rye.

Mauro Fiore (03:32):
It's called Stork House.

Jennifer Gore (03:34):
That doesn't even have a bite to it.

Bob Simon (03:35):
No.

Jennifer Gore (03:36):
It's so smooth.

Bob Simon (03:38):
Yeah, take this on the south of France and you'll be dancing all day.

Jennifer Gore (03:42):
You know what it reminds me of, one of those port wines.

Bob Simon (03:45):
Yes. It tastes like a port wine.

Jennifer Gore (03:45):
Doesn't it?

Mauro Fiore (03:48):
Exactly. That's what I was saying yesterday.

Jennifer Gore (03:48):
Like a dessert wine.

Bob Simon (03:50):
Yeah. This is good. Mauro, did you shoot it?

Mauro Fiore (03:52):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (03:54):
Thirsty boy.

Mauro Fiore (03:55):
I'm ready to rock. I'm ready to rock and roll.

Jennifer Gore (03:58):
Always. You're always wanting to-

Mauro Fiore (04:01):
I'm always ready.

Jennifer Gore (04:01):
... have a good time.

Mauro Fiore (04:02):
Up until 8:30 and then I go to sleep.

Jennifer Gore (04:05):
You were out last night, past 9:30.

Mauro Fiore (04:07):
I know, but I'm on West Coast time.

Bob Simon (04:09):
That's right.

Jennifer Gore (04:09):
It was 2:00 in the morning when you were out.

Mauro Fiore (04:12):
Yeah. Well, occasionally I do get amped up, but I'm an early riser and I like to go to bed early. Me and Bob are on the same schedule.

Jennifer Gore (04:19):
Are you?

Mauro Fiore (04:19):
Don't text me after 8:00 PM because you won't get a response until 4:00 AM.

Jennifer Gore (04:25):
But Bob was staying out until midnight last night in Atlanta.

Bob Simon (04:27):
But that's 9:00 PM my time and I went to bed.

Jennifer Gore (04:29):
Oh, I get it. So 9:00 is your cutoff.

Bob Simon (04:32):
That is my cutoff. I'm usually have to be asleep by 9:00. A lot of people know you, see you, see your results, see your team, but they don't know how you got into the space.

Jennifer Gore (04:43):
How did I get into personal entry?

Bob Simon (04:45):
Yeah, what drove you to...

Jennifer Gore (04:48):
So I started my law firm the day I got my law license.

Bob Simon (04:51):
Nice.

Jennifer Gore (04:51):
But that's because basically I had a two-month-old baby, and I had worked at a law firm all throughout law school in personal injury. I was the paralegal, the case manager, the secretary, I did all those jobs. I was working for a very small firm and I think the benefit of that is you get to see everything. You get to do a little of everything. I was signing up clients. And so I just got really clear that it would be... Well, I always wanted to start my own law firm, but I think having a young child and your time, I was thinking I can do this from home. I started out my home office and it just evolved from there.

Bob Simon (05:39):
When you took the bar, were you pregnant?

Jennifer Gore (05:43):
I failed the bar the first time. I was six weeks pregnant. I actually found this picture of the pregnancy test. The exam was July 30th, I find out I'm pregnant July 12th.

Bob Simon (05:58):
Oh, boy.

Jennifer Gore (05:59):
When I was studying for the bar the whole time I was like, "Gosh, I'm so tired. I feel like the bar is killing me." You guys have had children, you know. That early stage of pregnancy, you're really tired. So I find out in October I failed the bar.

Mauro Fiore (06:16):
Yeah, every time I'm pregnant, I'm very tired.

Jennifer Gore (06:17):
Well, your wives, your wives.

Bob Simon (06:19):
Lee's always just very tired.

Jennifer Gore (06:21):
But I find out in October I failed. I'm now four months pregnant. I had already leased an office. I was so confident I was going to pass. And so then I had to take the bar again in February when I was nine months pregnant. So my daughter, Julia, she literally went through the bar. I was pregnant with her and studying for the bar for all nine months of her life. So I'm like, if she's got problems, it's because I was under so much stress taking the bar two times and there was immense pressure to pass on the second time. And I passed by two points on the second time.

(07:05):
I was like, "That's it. I'm starting a law firm." I almost couldn't be a lawyer. You face the idea, maybe this isn't going to work, maybe I'm not going to pass the bar. And so I was just like, "That's it. I got my license. We're going."

Mauro Fiore (07:24):
Wow.

Bob Simon (07:25):
You already had space leased, ready to roll?

Jennifer Gore (07:27):
Yeah. And at that point, when I failed I had to say, I'm walking away from that. And then I was like, I'm just going to start it in my house. That lasted for about three months because people started calling and saying, "I want to come to your office." And I was like-

Bob Simon (07:46):
How often do you have clients actually come into your office these days?

Jennifer Gore (07:50):
I would say 25, 30% of our clients.

Mauro Fiore (07:55):
Really?

Jennifer Gore (07:56):
It's not a high volume.

Bob Simon (07:57):
I never have.

Mauro Fiore (07:57):
Never?

Bob Simon (07:58):
We just go to their homes.

Jennifer Gore (08:02):
People will say things like, I think some people just want to swing by. They just want to feel like it's a legit operation. We still have in-office depositions, we still have some people that want to come in and pick up their checks, but it's rare. It's not-

Mauro Fiore (08:18):
We have people in my office, we probably have I'm going to say maybe 10%, but some people absolutely want to come in and meet you and see you.

Jennifer Gore (08:27):
They just want to feel you're real.

Mauro Fiore (08:28):
Some people want to pick up their check. They don't want you to mail it to them.

Bob Simon (08:31):
I would do the same thing to be honest with you.

Mauro Fiore (08:34):
What?

Bob Simon (08:34):
I'd go pick up my check.

Mauro Fiore (08:36):
And then I think as far as the depos go, I know that out here on the south they've gone back to in-person depos, no more Zoom stuff. Right?

Jennifer Gore (08:45):
Well, a lot of times my lawyers like to have our client in-office while we're doing the depo and we might be on Zoom with the other side.

Mauro Fiore (08:55):
Yeah, that's how we do it. [inaudible 00:08:58]. We have the client in the office.

Bob Simon (09:00):
You kick them under the table and tell them, "Shut up."

Jennifer Gore (09:01):
Well, they want to prep them, they want to talk to them. We've found that sometimes they're more comfortable having the lawyer by their side.

Bob Simon (09:14):
I do all virtually even our clients and I like to put a really nice backdrop behind your client at their home, maybe put up a Bible or two, maybe an American flag, depending where you're trying the case later. Look very nice.

Jennifer Gore (09:28):
You could do a lot with backgrounds on Zoom.

Bob Simon (09:31):
You can do a lot with backgrounds.

Jennifer Gore (09:31):
I think some people underestimate their Zoom background.

Bob Simon (09:34):
We were talking about this last night. We were out with some of our friends here in Atlanta, and I intentionally fuck with people when I take, especially expert depositions. I wear a shirt that says Death Row Records, backwards ball cap. I take it in my house where my bar behind me. And as soon as people log on, it's usually these older experts or doctors, they're like, "What the fuck is going on?"

(09:54):
And usually it's a bonding. And people like whiskey. This one expert logged in, he's like, "What is on that shelf? Can I..." Before it starts I'm showing him whiskey. The defense lawyer's like, "What is happening?" First question, and I'm just like, "Hey, swear him in, so you're a doctor, right? You're hired by the defense. You would agree this is all caused by it, right?" I'm like, "Well, if the crash never happened, you can't say with a reasonable degree of medical probability when they would've had pain, right?" He's like, "Well, no." And I was like, "So you'd agree this was an aggravation of preexisting condition?" He's like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Thanks, dude." It was like a 15 minute depo.

Jennifer Gore (10:23):
That's Bob's genius. It's like you find ways to be so unsuspecting.

Bob Simon (10:31):
But that's when our early years, I think it's a gift because a lot of people don't see it coming.

Jennifer Gore (10:35):
No.

Bob Simon (10:35):
That's where we had our biggest results over policy and big verdicts where they were just like, "You can't do it," and then you just do it.

Jennifer Gore (10:43):
Yeah. We like being underestimated. I think-

Bob Simon (10:46):
Do you feel that now, though?

Jennifer Gore (10:50):
I think when you get a certain level of results it bothers you less. I also have leaned into it to the point where I think it's a superpower. I don't see it as a negative anymore.

Bob Simon (11:03):
You guys are dry. We got to...

Jennifer Gore (11:06):
I really do think whatever your perceived weakness is, is a point of leverage.

Mauro Fiore (11:16):
One thing for me for sure, I don't know. I know Bob's an ABOTA member. I don't know if you're ABOTA or not or whatever, but I refuse to be a member.

Bob Simon (11:24):
I don't think you refuse. I don't think they would accept you.

Mauro Fiore (11:26):
Oh, shit. I've told-

Bob Simon (11:27):
He writes letters to defense lawyers like, "Fucking die, you pig."

Mauro Fiore (11:32):
Not, die you pig, but close. But I don't know. But I don't want to be an ABOTA member. I want them to not know anything about me.

Jennifer Gore (11:39):
You like to be elusive.

Mauro Fiore (11:39):
Yeah. I've tried more cases than probably the whole board of ABOTA in LA just myself, you know what I mean? But I don't want to be in ABOTA because then they're going to know I've done all that, I've tried 60, 70 cases.

Jennifer Gore (11:52):
It's like putting you on the radar.

Mauro Fiore (11:52):
But a lot of people love ABOTA and they say it helps them settle cases.

Bob Simon (11:58):
And Jen, we know you're originally from New York. We're going to talk a little bit about your story, and we're going to talk about how you got here to Georgia. So we picked here. This is one from Savannah, Georgia. This is more local in Georgia. You ever had Ghost Coast?

Jennifer Gore (12:15):
A very haunted place.

Bob Simon (12:17):
Exactly. A lot there. But this is a ginger flavored whiskey, which I've never had before.

Mauro Fiore (12:22):
Ghost Coast.

Bob Simon (12:23):
And it also is consistent with the Jen Gore colors.

Jennifer Gore (12:27):
Green.

Bob Simon (12:27):
Greens. See your greens.

Jennifer Gore (12:28):
Yeah, I've got my green-

Mauro Fiore (12:28):
I'm wearing in honor of the Masters here in Atlanta, I'm wearing my Masters T-shirt.

Jennifer Gore (12:34):
Masters coming up.

Mauro Fiore (12:35):
Masters coming up. I'll be back here in Atlanta in 10 days to go the Masters.

Bob Simon (12:39):
Oh, you're going to the Masters?

Mauro Fiore (12:39):
Yep.

Bob Simon (12:40):
Wow.

Jennifer Gore (12:40):
Very hard to get into.

Mauro Fiore (12:42):
Yeah. Coming up here with our good friend Rob May and Garrett and Michael Sanchez and we're doing the Masters.

Bob Simon (12:52):
I'm surprised they let you in.

Jennifer Gore (12:54):
Now this is not like the waste management event.

Mauro Fiore (12:58):
I know. So I have to wear a shirt the all time.

Jennifer Gore (13:01):
Did you guys go to that?

Mauro Fiore (13:02):
I've been to the waste management. It's just bananas.

Jennifer Gore (13:05):
They cut off alcohol at some point.

Bob Simon (13:06):
Yeah, rightfully so.

Jennifer Gore (13:08):
Did you see that?

Mauro Fiore (13:08):
That's nuts. No, you can't even run at the Masters, right? You can walk fast, but if you run they throw you out.

Jennifer Gore (13:14):
Why is that?

Bob Simon (13:14):
Really?

Jennifer Gore (13:15):
It's very strict.

Bob Simon (13:16):
What's it, like a pool? Are we kids? No running.

Mauro Fiore (13:18):
No running.

Jennifer Gore (13:18):
It's so pretty. My dad decided last year he was just going to show up to the Masters and try to get in. They do not play around. They can arrest you.

Mauro Fiore (13:28):
Well, there's a famous story of a guy and they have video and pictures of him, of some Japanese guy. A long time ago he bought a ticket for the practice round of the Masters because they had practice rounds Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And he showed up with his golf clothes and he thought he could play a practice round. So there's pictures of them escorting him off the property because he was there to play a practice round.

Jennifer Gore (13:52):
They don't play around.

Mauro Fiore (13:53):
No.

Bob Simon (13:53):
I expect nothing less of this.

Jennifer Gore (13:54):
This is going to be funny to see you at the-

Mauro Fiore (13:56):
Well, I can comport myself.

Jennifer Gore (13:58):
Oh, you know what I was told? So I know a couple people going that you cannot bring phones in.

Mauro Fiore (14:03):
Oh no.

Jennifer Gore (14:03):
There's no phones.

Mauro Fiore (14:05):
There's no phone and no camera.

Jennifer Gore (14:07):
No camera.

Mauro Fiore (14:07):
Yeah. As matter-

Jennifer Gore (14:08):
That's how you never really see anything.

Mauro Fiore (14:09):
Yeah, you can't. This is going to be on after the Masters. Rob May, who's going with us, he bought some spy glasses.

Jennifer Gore (14:18):
The glasses.

Mauro Fiore (14:19):
They have camera and video. And I told him, I said, "Dude, they know about these glasses." And I said, "If they throw your ass out, I'm not leaving with you. I'm staying. You can take a taxi back to Atlanta."

Bob Simon (14:28):
Actually you can get one of those lapel cameras or something.

Mauro Fiore (14:30):
He's got some spy glasses that he bought. But we're going with this company, I guess there's a restaurant in downtown Augusta that we're going to go to in the morning and they have lockers and they lock up your phone. They bring us out there and they bring us back. So we have a concierge service, but they lock up your phones for you.

Jennifer Gore (14:49):
Out the glasses.

Mauro Fiore (14:51):
We'll see.

Bob Simon (14:52):
We'll see.

Jennifer Gore (14:52):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (14:52):
All right, this we're going to talk about Jen's journey.

Jennifer Gore (14:56):
This smells more like bourbon.

Bob Simon (14:56):
Yeah, this has ginger in it, can smell it.

Mauro Fiore (14:58):
I don't really taste the ginger.

Bob Simon (15:03):
I smell it, but I don't taste it.

Mauro Fiore (15:04):
Oh, you know what, the aftertaste is the ginger.

Bob Simon (15:06):
This is good.

Jennifer Gore (15:07):
And very drinkable.

Bob Simon (15:09):
It's also over 40%, which is surprising. I thought this had been under for sure. But ginger's good for you, so they say. So, Jen, tell us about your journey from New York. Why did you get into the personal injury space? It seems like when you were in law school you were working at a firm in personal injury, but what drove your passion there?

Jennifer Gore (15:26):
Immediately. I was in a really bad car accident when I was 19. I was in a head-on collision. I was braking and when you put your foot straight out on the brake really hard, the impact of the crash traveled up and shattered my pelvis. I had a back fracture. When I was in the car, I was on my way. I'm 19, I'm on my way to pick up my sister to go out. It's a Friday night around Thanksgiving. That night before Thanksgiving everyone's going out and I'm like, "Damn, I don't have time for being in this accident." That was my first thought. That's what 19-year-olds think.

(16:07):
I'm there, the wreck is pretty bad. And my first thought is, "I want to get out of this car." And when the airbags deploy, the car has a lot of smoke. I just felt like I needed to get out of this car. I could not move. I was paralyzed because when your body has trauma it tries to keep you from moving. So temporarily you can be paralyzed. I thought, "This doesn't seem very good." They had to cut me out. When you say, "I can't move my legs," they basically try to cut you out of the car because they want to take you out flat.

(16:47):
My parents show up to the scene, they see me getting cut out of the car. People I know are at the scene. It was a big event. I was an athlete in college at the time. I was in business school. I had to leave college. At that time, remote school wasn't a thing. It was completely disruptive for my life. I was very active to go into being in a wheelchair for six months, living with my parents when I was a college student. It was awful. And I remember the insurance company called me and was like, "We don't normally do this, but for you, we'll give you $2,000."

Bob Simon (17:28):
What a deal.

Mauro Fiore (17:30):
No, that happens a lot. They still call my clients and offer them 500 bucks all the time.

Bob Simon (17:34):
Isn't that crazy, that we're not allowed to go directly solicit ethically-

Jennifer Gore (17:37):
But they are.

Bob Simon (17:37):
... but they can. They go offer you money, a check.

Jennifer Gore (17:39):
And they will go to your door within 48 hours of you being in an accident with a $500 check, which is fucked up.

Bob Simon (17:46):
It is fucked up.

Jennifer Gore (17:48):
I remember at that time, as a 19-year-old, $2,000 was a lot of money to me, but you don't have perspective. I could be seriously fucking injured. So that experience gave me a bad taste about insurance. They hassled me on the car. I feel like we give-

Bob Simon (18:11):
Do you remember the insurance company?

Jennifer Gore (18:14):
I don't. I could go back and look, but this was back in 2006 or 2005. I just remember thinking this process is very overwhelming. I had lawyers, I knew of lawyers and it still didn't really click to me that I should have hired a lawyer.

(18:37):
And then almost 18 months later, I had a boyfriend that was in my life when I was a teenager, so he was in my life for three years, which was a long time at that time in my life. And he got in a car accident with a Schwan's truck where Schwan's truck rear-ended him. And because there was construction, they claimed that he was partially at fault, which looking back, it doesn't make sense to me as a lawyer now.

(19:08):
What ended up happening out of that is we hired a lawyer and his case got fucked up and he got no money. And what he ended up doing was buying a motorcycle because he was like, "Okay, I need to get another vehicle." There was no money. So he's like, "I'm going to get a cheaper thing. I'm going to get a motorcycle." And then within basically a year after that, he got in a motorcycle accident that he died.

(19:38):
I always think the thing you have to remember as a lawyer is if you fuck up somebody's case, it's like the butterfly effect. You don't know how that's going to affect them down the road because I really don't think he would've bought a motorcycle had that not happened. And so I just saw these things happening. He actually survived for six months because he was near a brain trauma hospital, but he had a massive brain injury.

(20:04):
Now, it was his fault because he wasn't wearing a helmet, but he was in a very low speed motorcycle accident in maybe 20 miles an hour of traffic. But he got hit so hard that he landed on his head. When he died, it was just devastating for so many people. We were actually broken up at the time, but if you lose somebody in an accident that was close to you, it's pretty traumatic. So then that happened.

(20:40):
Then when I was 22, which is a year later, basically, I got involved in a federal lawsuit where my employer stole my identity and I had to go through depositions. I had to be deposed, I had to defend myself. And that was horrible. So I feel like I was just in these legal situations for several years and I was like, "I think the universe wants me to be a lawyer."

Bob Simon (21:08):
Do you have any lawyers in your family?

Jennifer Gore (21:09):
No.

Bob Simon (21:10):
Wow.

Jennifer Gore (21:11):
But I was like-

Bob Simon (21:11):
Same thing for us, right?

Jennifer Gore (21:12):
Yeah. And I think it's just like, I got so tired of not feeling like I knew what was going on. I think that's the heart of our firm is people that have legal problems, these legal problems are very stressful and we are not intimidated now by depositions or trial or being sued. That doesn't stress me out today. We understand the legal environment and we have a lot of friends and people in our lives that if something goes wrong, we feel pretty comfortable. But that's not how the average person feels.

Mauro Fiore (22:00):
They're overwhelmed by a lot of-

Jennifer Gore (22:01):
It's the top stress in their life. When I was going through that federal lawsuit where I was being sued because my employer stole my identity, I was being sued for over $100,000 and I was level 10 stressed every day.

Bob Simon (22:18):
What type of employer was this?

Jennifer Gore (22:25):
This is terrible, but you know how you give your employer your social security card? She went and opened a ton of credit cards in my name. And you know what's terrible-

Bob Simon (22:34):
What kind of job was this?

Jennifer Gore (22:36):
I was just working at a gym.

Bob Simon (22:37):
Oh my God.

Jennifer Gore (22:38):
And there are people out there that are con artists that do this. But you know what's terrible in that side is we hired a lawyer to defend me, and you know what you get at the end? You spend eight to 10 grand, you get, "You're innocent."

Bob Simon (22:54):
Yep, but you spent all this money.

Jennifer Gore (22:55):
And at that time, that was a lot of money to me, 10 grand as a 22-year-old. And my parents were like, "What the fuck?" So I just got tired of feeling like people are fucking with me through the law. And I was like, no more. So since then, we've been taking vengeance on the insurance company since, and I just feel really comfortable. We all live in a society with laws and shit, and most people really don't understand the rules of the road of the society we live in. So I think having a law degree is like having this armor, this power of knowledge.

Mauro Fiore (23:37):
I grew up with, my dad was a business guy, but a real rogue business guy. My dad was crazy. So he would get sued all the time. I remember yesterday, he would get served with a lawsuit. They would come to our house and serve him and he'd just throw it in the garbage can.

Jennifer Gore (23:52):
Trash.

Mauro Fiore (23:53):
Just throw it right in the trash and never think about it again.

Bob Simon (23:58):
Well, Mauro stole somebody's identity once.

Mauro Fiore (23:59):
No, I didn't.

Jennifer Gore (24:01):
Why do I believe this?

Bob Simon (24:02):
No, there's another Mauro Fiore that lives in Hollywood that's a cinematographer that's won all these Academy Awards.

Jennifer Gore (24:07):
He's trying to be you.

Bob Simon (24:09):
But he lives in Oklahoma. We did a story on this recently. But the guy, all these fans send, because they look up Maura Fiore and they said he lives in Hollywood.

Mauro Fiore (24:15):
Well, how many Mauro Fiores can there be, right? And I live in Hollywood. So they look him up and they think it's me and they send me... because he won an Academy Award for Avatar.

Jennifer Gore (24:27):
Oh, this is not a bad person to be.

Mauro Fiore (24:29):
No, he does giant blockbuster movies.

Jennifer Gore (24:31):
You should be leaning into this.

Mauro Fiore (24:32):
So they send me shit to my house to autograph and I feel bad for these people that went through the trouble, so I sign it and I send it back to them. I feel bad to throw it-

Jennifer Gore (24:39):
They don't know.

Mauro Fiore (24:39):
Yeah. How do they know? I sign it, "I bet you can't wait for my next movie."

Jennifer Gore (24:50):
That's so funny.

Bob Simon (24:51):
Then he sends back a Venmo QR and steals from these people.

Jennifer Gore (24:54):
What do people say when they see your license and it says Hollywood, California?

Mauro Fiore (24:59):
Well, my office is in Pasadena, so it's not in Hollywood. I live in Hollywood.

Bob Simon (25:03):
No, but your passport says Hollywood.

Jennifer Gore (25:04):
Your passport.

Bob Simon (25:05):
Because when I travel with him, they always ask him, they go, "Oh, Mr. Hollywood." And he's like, "Yes, I do films there." And I was like, "You know what kind of films he's doing there." This thing is the running joke. We know every language.

Mauro Fiore (25:16):
It is funny when you go to places around the world and they ask for your ID. If I'm at a store in some remote village someplace, because I've been to some crazy places with Bob, and they ask for your ID and they see my address that says Hollywood, California. Everybody knows Hollywood, right? So they're like, "Oh, Hollywood, Hollywood." So I say, "Yeah, it's not that great actually. But yes, I'm from Hollywood."

Bob Simon (25:35):
And sometimes there's languages which Mauro doesn't know most of the same. And I'll try to find a say way like, "He's a very famous porn actor in Hollywood." And I'll say it in the language and Mauro's like, "What's going on?" This happens.

Jennifer Gore (25:44):
I need to share your on the road names.

Bob Simon (25:49):
He has one. I don't have a on road name.

Mauro Fiore (25:52):
Bob refuses to have a European alias, but my European alias is Rrats Melbourne and it's Rrats with two Rs. Rrats Melbourne.

Jennifer Gore (26:02):
No, with a rolled R?

Mauro Fiore (26:04):
Rrats Melbourne. Bob says I'm an international cryptocurrency trader.

Bob Simon (26:10):
That's right.

Jennifer Gore (26:11):
And Bob, you don't want a name?

Bob Simon (26:12):
I don't want to partake in this. They like to go first stop every time we get in this beautiful city ever in the world in-

Mauro Fiore (26:18):
In Sweden.

Bob Simon (26:19):
And he's like, "Where's the casino?" That's the first question, he's like, "Where's the casino?" And he goes and does this alias thing, he was doing it with Ray from [inaudible 00:26:27].

Mauro Fiore (26:26):
Ray's name is-

Bob Simon (26:26):
They get kicked.

Jennifer Gore (26:26):
But we decided Ray has a new name we've come up with.

Bob Simon (26:31):
Yeah, Ray goes by Bulldogs Madrid in Europe, but he's going to have a new name.

Jennifer Gore (26:35):
I told him he needs a much more Asian name like Yoshi Chan.

Bob Simon (26:39):
He said this last night, but he looks like the most interesting person in the world. Okay, so we got this last born. Jen, do you know about this one?

Mauro Fiore (26:46):
High West from Utah?

Bob Simon (26:47):
Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (26:48):
We've been to this distillery.

Bob Simon (26:50):
Yeah, we have.

Jennifer Gore (26:50):
I brought this.

Bob Simon (26:57):
Why don't you tell us about this bottle? This is one you brought, you display this one. Go ahead.

Jennifer Gore (27:01):
Why don't I tell you about it? You know of this.

Bob Simon (27:04):
I know this very well. It's one of my favorites.

Jennifer Gore (27:04):
Why don't you tell about it? Because this is the one we pulled.

Bob Simon (27:07):
And you say we, who? Who's we?

Jennifer Gore (27:09):
My husband pulled it because he works in the liquor industry.

Bob Simon (27:11):
Didn't know this, but now-

Mauro Fiore (27:12):
Double Rye, woo.

Bob Simon (27:14):
We drank this every day while you had [inaudible 00:27:17].

Mauro Fiore (27:16):
I can't remember the last time we had the double rye. We have-

Bob Simon (27:19):
They're all double rye.

Mauro Fiore (27:20):
Really?

Bob Simon (27:21):
I always bring back my old hamburger ordering days. When I go to restaurants I see High West, I say, "I'll have a double, double on the rocks, a double double."

Jennifer Gore (27:29):
Remember Rob, we were in Kentucky. What were we there for? For the KJA auto. And we went to that little place.

Bob Simon (27:37):
The barbecue place.

Jennifer Gore (27:38):
No, we went to that little bourbon place.

Bob Simon (27:40):
Oh, that's right.

Jennifer Gore (27:42):
That was so nice.

Bob Simon (27:42):
With Jay Vaughn. And we went to this little speakeasy bourbon place off the trail way out. And they had some of the best bourbons you've ever heard of.

Mauro Fiore (27:51):
I think the same place has the antique bottles and all that, 100-old bourbons.

Bob Simon (27:55):
And then Jen disappeared for an hour. She was the phone with a client.

Jennifer Gore (28:01):
I was hiring somebody.

Bob Simon (28:01):
Something work related. And Jay and I had two or three bourbons while we were waiting for her to come. We were on the way to the airport.

Jennifer Gore (28:06):
I think this one is aged in some kind of barrels is what he was telling me.

Bob Simon (28:10):
Yeah. These are charred oak barrels. But the High West double rye, this is Utah, which I think it's only one of the only distillers in Utah. I have been-

Jennifer Gore (28:18):
It's normally a dry place.

Bob Simon (28:20):
I know, but you can't actually take these out of there.

Mauro Fiore (28:22):
All of the guys there at the distillery said that the Mormons make lots of whiskey and everything and that it's kind of weird that they have a lot booze-

Bob Simon (28:29):
The Mormons can't even drink whiskey, the real ones. Those are jacked Mormons.

Jennifer Gore (28:33):
Have you been to Utah?

Mauro Fiore (28:33):
Yeah, a bunch of times.

Jennifer Gore (28:33):
I went for-

Bob Simon (28:33):
We've been to this distillery in Utah.

Mauro Fiore (28:33):
Yeah, we've been to this place.

Jennifer Gore (28:34):
You've been there?

Mauro Fiore (28:34):
We've been to High West.

Bob Simon (28:34):
Not too much.

Mauro Fiore (28:38):
It's up in the mountains above Park City or near Park City. I remember when we-

Bob Simon (28:42):
I've been there a bunch because they have what's called the Silicon Slopes there. So they have the mountain region, which a lot of tech startups are there in Utah. It's beautiful.

Jennifer Gore (28:51):
I went the first time this past year for Nifty Con.

Bob Simon (28:55):
We'll talk about Nifty Con. Oh God, I love this one. This is a straight good vibe where you can drink every day.

Jennifer Gore (29:02):
This is an old school. That's all I like-

Bob Simon (29:02):
This is a limited release, this one. This one. This is my day drinker.

Mauro Fiore (29:06):
Oh, that's so good. This is a numbered bottle too?

Jennifer Gore (29:08):
Yes.

Bob Simon (29:09):
Limited bottle.

Jennifer Gore (29:10):
My husband had two options and he was like, "I was really thinking-"

Bob Simon (29:14):
Everybody knows on the show, I'm a big rye guy. If you have one of these every morning, you'll have a really good day.

Mauro Fiore (29:20):
This is 100 proof.

Bob Simon (29:22):
Yeah, bought this... Yeah.

Jennifer Gore (29:23):
We're at the event last night and people are talking about giving up drinking and y'all are like, "Yeah, never."

Mauro Fiore (29:32):
The guy said, I thought to myself, I'm not going to drink anywhere. And I'm like, I've never thought that. I never had that thought,

Jennifer Gore (29:42):
He calls that out from the crowd?

Bob Simon (29:42):
I never had one of those days where you're like, "I drank so much, I'm never drinking again."

Mauro Fiore (29:47):
I remember after Law-Di-Gras last year when I slept on the carpet and it was bad [inaudible 00:29:52].

Bob Simon (29:52):
His wife sent us a photo. He was just in his underwear. She's pouring water on him because he's just laying on the floor.

Jennifer Gore (29:56):
Law-Di-Gras was so fun this year. It was so good.

Bob Simon (30:00):
We're going to try to do more fun stuff.

Jennifer Gore (30:01):
How can you outdo it every year?

Bob Simon (30:03):
And that's a problem because now you expect more. We're trying to figure out-

Jennifer Gore (30:06):
I would just take the exact same. That was great.

Bob Simon (30:09):
Flo Rida puts on the best show. Ice Cube is fantastic, but I do want to-

Jennifer Gore (30:11):
Flo Rida was better.

Bob Simon (30:11):
Flo Rida is the best.

Mauro Fiore (30:14):
Flow Rider is always good to me. Bob's hired him a couple times. First of all, you don't realize how many cool songs he has.

Bob Simon (30:20):
He has 20 bangers.

Jennifer Gore (30:21):
And you're like, I love every one. It's our generation.

Mauro Fiore (30:23):
And it's like, wow. You don't remember how many cool songs he has. And then he puts on a show. The guy's jumping off the stage.

Jennifer Gore (30:30):
High energy.

Mauro Fiore (30:31):
It's amazing, the-

Jennifer Gore (30:32):
And my favorite thing about Law-Di-Gras was that box.

Bob Simon (30:35):
Oh, the...

Mauro Fiore (30:39):
The virtual box that teleports people?

Bob Simon (30:41):
Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (30:41):
The teleport thing.

Jennifer Gore (30:42):
Bob, you were so cutting edge with that.

Bob Simon (30:46):
My goal by hopefully by the time this airs, is I'm going to turn... I have my AI chat bot that has my voice, which I was showing you yesterday. You can ask it a question answers in my real voice, and we're going to make it into an avatar and then into a real person so I can beam into these boxes and answer any question that people want. I can do this for everyone. This is the goal. We are going to do for some, but you have to have a lot of data. So you probably could pull it off because you do so much media.

Jennifer Gore (31:14):
You do.

Bob Simon (31:15):
We would transcribe-

Jennifer Gore (31:16):
You can make a fake of me now.

Bob Simon (31:17):
Well, if you took this episode, transcribe it and feed it to the AI, LLM, your internal LLM, you can make it based off of you because it'll learn so much about you. But it has to have that print PDF data that put into it.

Jennifer Gore (31:30):
I think me and Bob both put up a shitload of content. Bob, you always know he's going to put up 35 stories a day.

Bob Simon (31:39):
And the stories are usually, sometimes my wife asks me, "You got to take that one down." You push the envelope a little too much.

Mauro Fiore (31:46):
I don't put up that much. Very, very little.

Bob Simon (31:48):
I showed Mauro this thing called LinkedIn on the plane.

Mauro Fiore (31:51):
Yeah. I was like, "Oh, this is cool."

Jennifer Gore (31:51):
Oh my God, I'm such a fan of LinkedIn.

Bob Simon (31:51):
LinkedIn's good.

Jennifer Gore (31:51):
We use it for recruiting-

Mauro Fiore (31:51):
I follow Jen. Jen, do you follow me?

Jennifer Gore (31:51):
I just added you last night.

Bob Simon (31:51):
Because he's on.

Jennifer Gore (31:51):
You're on LinkedIn?

Mauro Fiore (31:51):
On LinkedIn or on Instagram?

Jennifer Gore (32:02):
I added you on all the platforms.

Mauro Fiore (32:04):
You got to follow me on Instagram.

Bob Simon (32:05):
Don't follow him on OnlyFans.

Jennifer Gore (32:06):
What is your handle?

Mauro Fiore (32:08):
Fiore Legal. @fiorelegal.

Jennifer Gore (32:08):
So that's not the firm, that's you?

Bob Simon (32:08):
This is good.

Mauro Fiore (32:14):
No, I have one Instagram. It's the firm and personal-

Jennifer Gore (32:15):
All melted together?

Bob Simon (32:16):
All-in-one.

Mauro Fiore (32:18):
And the CEO at my office keeps telling me you have to have your own Instagram. And we got to get [inaudible 00:32:24].

Bob Simon (32:24):
Let's talk about this because we talked about this off-air. Jen is a big believer and I think we need to do the same thing. She has an executive team at her firm that are actually-

Jennifer Gore (32:32):
Yeah, so we run on EOS. Do you guys know what EOS is?

Bob Simon (32:35):
Yeah. Explain that because I love it. You've probably never heard of it, but it's fantastic.

Jennifer Gore (32:38):
Entrepreneurial Operating System was a system designed by Gino Wickman. He wrote a book that basically describes EOS is how to run any company, which applies to law firms. And basically, you run the firm where there's a visionary at the top.

Bob Simon (32:58):
You.

Jennifer Gore (32:59):
You both, and then there is an executive team below. So CFO, head of finance, head of HR, head of marketing, head of intake, head of legal. And you can split head of legal into managing attorney or whatever. Pre-lit team, lit team, and then A COO. I don't run the firm alone. I have an executive team that runs my firm. So we have a weekly leadership meeting and everybody brings all the issues from their departments and we talk through those issues. And I think the greatest thing has been empowering leaders in the company to run areas of the company and to own areas. If our recruiting is down, it's like that's HR's...

Bob Simon (33:51):
And this is what Jen teaches a lot about is how to... It's a masterclass on running your firm as a business. And this is so important in today's world where business is entering the legal space, the lighting space.

Jennifer Gore (34:05):
Well here's the thing, Bob. The main reason lawyers get disbarred, which if you think about this, look at the data, is not because of their legal results. They mismanage their firm.

Bob Simon (34:17):
And usually it's unhappy clients. So if you keep your clients-

Jennifer Gore (34:20):
No communication. But those are systems issues, they're not really legal problems. And so I think operationally, again, I came into this, I was in business school, I have always had a passion for business. My parents were both entrepreneurial. My dad had started his own company when he was 18. So I grew up in business like you were saying.

(34:45):
And so when I went to law school, I was like, this is so weird because they never talked about that.

Bob Simon (34:52):
Such a shame.

Jennifer Gore (34:54):
And the statistics are that tons of lawyers end up running their own shop. So I think it's a disservice that the law schools are doing to never talk about... Because at the end of the day, if you don't have the cases, if you don't have a tight process for onboarding clients and a great marketing scheme, you know this, you're not going to have the cases to try.

Bob Simon (35:15):
And you also have to think about your longevity as a lawyer if you put yourself at the top and it's just you and you have-

Jennifer Gore (35:21):
If you're the product.

Bob Simon (35:23):
It doesn't scale, it doesn't sell if you're the product. You can never do anything with it.

Jennifer Gore (35:28):
I had the benefit of having a ton of business coaches in the past. So year two of my law firm, I hired a business coach. Even though I came from a business background, I was noticing the firms that were making a lot of traction, they had mentors and coaches. And over the last 10 years, I've had tons of mentors and coaches. I still have them today. I even just got some new ones recently. I love to look at firms that are five times bigger than mine, 10 times bigger than mine. And I want to be like, "What are you doing that I'm not doing?"

Bob Simon (36:00):
I would like you to come to mine and say, "This is all the shit you're doing wrong," because we should be set up more like yours.

Jennifer Gore (36:06):
Well, here's the thing. My first business coach said to me, "What would happen if you got cancer? What would happen if your mom got sick or your dad got sick and you needed to leave for 60 days?" And I always thought about the sustainability aspects. And then for me, I have three kids. My first two kids, I had no maternity leaves. I was taking calls in the hospital, not good. My third child, we spent six to eight months building with my CFO, a plan for me to get out of the firm. So I took a two-month, off grid, completely out of the firm, maternity leave.

Bob Simon (36:51):
And your firm was probably seven years old at this time.

Jennifer Gore (36:52):
It was seven years old at the time. It took eight months to engineer. Part of the plan was I left the firm for a week.

Bob Simon (37:01):
Oh, incrementally to see if you could do it.

Jennifer Gore (37:03):
And I let it see what broke. And the things that broke, I've made every mistake there's been, but the things that broke-

Bob Simon (37:10):
Then you make your mess your message.

Jennifer Gore (37:13):
Yeah, the mess your message.

Bob Simon (37:14):
I stole that from her last night. I trademark it as I said, mine.

Jennifer Gore (37:19):
The thing is that I was too involved in the money at that time. I was writing the checks. This is common with lawyers. I was signing the checks. So we fixed everything that I touched that broke. What was crazy, at that time I was in this program where they were like, you don't have a business if you can't leave for four weeks.

Bob Simon (37:41):
This is good shit.

Jennifer Gore (37:42):
You don't.

Mauro Fiore (37:42):
Well, luckily, I don't know, me and Bob have left the country for many weeks.

Jennifer Gore (37:47):
You guys leave.

Mauro Fiore (37:47):
For many weeks.

Bob Simon (37:47):
But we've been able to because we set infrastructure and my twin brother runs our office. By the way-

Jennifer Gore (37:52):
Correct.

Bob Simon (37:52):
... they handle all the kind of... My brother could have stole 10 million from me and I would've no idea.

Jennifer Gore (37:58):
Okay. But you could have reporting.

Bob Simon (38:00):
Correct, but there's reporting and there's safe checks. But us trial lawyers, we get so wrapped up in litigating, trying cases flame to flame to flame.

Jennifer Gore (38:08):
Living on the...

Bob Simon (38:09):
Correct.

Jennifer Gore (38:10):
But-

Bob Simon (38:10):
We don't go back into the system.

Mauro Fiore (38:11):
The thing that I-

Bob Simon (38:11):
You did, he hired a good COO.

Mauro Fiore (38:12):
Yeah, I have a good COO now. She's amazing, Sarah. But what I've always ran-

Bob Simon (38:19):
She actually won Law-Di-Gras Got Talent.

Mauro Fiore (38:20):
Yeah, she did.

Bob Simon (38:21):
She did, she won.

Mauro Fiore (38:21):
She's a great singer. She loves to do karaoke and stuff. She's the best. She has a microphone tattoo on her hand, so if she holds her mic, there's a tattoo right here with a microphone. But she likes to sing. She's crazy.

Bob Simon (38:32):
She's excellent.

Mauro Fiore (38:33):
She's crazy about singing. But the one thing I've always ran my office by, and somebody gave me this advice years ago, and this is what I still run it by today, is that if your office's success or your business success is tied to your time, you're in big trouble.

Jennifer Gore (38:50):
You're in big... Dollars for hours. Right?

Mauro Fiore (38:53):
Yes. You're in big trouble. So I try to make sure, I've always tried to make sure that the success isn't tied to my hours. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Gore (39:00):
Yeah. Because it puts golden handcuffs on you.

Bob Simon (39:03):
Correct.

Jennifer Gore (39:03):
And I do think there's a place-

Bob Simon (39:05):
How am I going to play golf, for God's sake?

Jennifer Gore (39:06):
Well, yeah, true. But there is a place for people who are these amazing trial lawyers. I think they have to build infrastructure around them where they just get to do the parts they really love.

Bob Simon (39:16):
That they love to do.

Jennifer Gore (39:18):
Don't you feel like that's the key?

Bob Simon (39:20):
We've been preaching a lot of this. We've developed a lot of trial lawyers that they're just like the assassins that they snipe at the end where they come in, they have infrastructure in place, they go do the role that they love, that they're the best at. They get a percentage of the fee and they're just like, I'll take that case. I'll spend three weeks in Detroit and I'll snipe. And you're like a mercenary. And that's what they love to do. And that's what you should do.

Jennifer Gore (39:41):
If you are like a sword and you are so sharp and you're dulling yourself by doing tons of activities, you're actually less effectively, you're really needed. But what was crazy-

Bob Simon (39:51):
Did we get that on video?

Jennifer Gore (39:53):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (39:53):
Okay, great, because that was awesome.

Jennifer Gore (39:56):
You know what I mean? When you're doing things that are not... What I learned when I was gone for two months, which I invite everyone to do. You guys obviously do it because you're on the road a lot.

Bob Simon (40:08):
I never leave off the grid, grid though like that.

Jennifer Gore (40:10):
I was completely off grid. What I did is I got reports and the reports were like these four things, and if these four things are green, don't bother, let it go. They made the same money when I was gone as when I was there. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing there 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week?

Bob Simon (40:33):
But that's how you know you can pivot and grow and trust your systems and your talent.

Jennifer Gore (40:37):
I do think the visionary needs to inject the visionary energy. I don't know that that would just sustain for eight months, but I do think being able to take recharge breaks, time off grid. What does Bill Gates say? He takes time just to go think. That's when you're most creative.

Bob Simon (41:03):
Yeah. That's usually when I'm going to the bathroom in the morning. Think tank.

Mauro Fiore (41:03):
We don't want to hear about that.

Bob Simon (41:03):
You ask so many questions about my bowel movements. You're such a weirdo.

Jennifer Gore (41:06):
But Bob, all jokes aside, you have built a firm that's pretty incredible that operates with a ton of other people's talent. And it's not just the Bob show.

Bob Simon (41:19):
No. And I think that's what every lawyer, and if you're watching or listening, fucking check your ego. If you're an ego person, you're going to be holding those golden handcuffs they'd be holding to your company.

(41:27):
So Jen, we're at the end of the episode here and first of all, we're looking forward to mentor Jen to do this for many, many other lawyers. Mauro and I will be the first to sign up to your mentorship program.

(41:40):
But at the end of the show, we ask you to pick your Bourbon of Proof. Now you had three distinctly different types of whiskey, very, very different.

Jennifer Gore (41:49):
And so thoughtfully selected.

Mauro Fiore (41:50):
They can't be any more different than this.

Bob Simon (41:53):
Can't be any more different. So you have to-

Jennifer Gore (41:53):
I feel like it was a-

Bob Simon (41:54):
You get to pick what your Bourbon of Proof, could be taste, could be story, whatever you like. This is your choice.

Jennifer Gore (41:58):
I'm actually going with the first one.

Bob Simon (42:00):
Really? Well...

Mauro Fiore (42:02):
The Stork Rose and Rye?

Jennifer Gore (42:04):
I don't know why.

Bob Simon (42:05):
It's awesome.

Jennifer Gore (42:06):
It was so unexpected.

Mauro Fiore (42:06):
It is amazing. Everyone likes it.

Bob Simon (42:10):
We're going to start bringing this back on a lot of shows because it sneaks up on people. We drank it for the first time, we're like, "This is really fucking good."

(42:17):
Well, Jen Gore, thank you for coming on. If anybody is in the ATL and Georgia in general, think green, think Jen Gore. She's an awesome human being and now a mentor to many. Jen, cheers to you. And now you must drink the rest as I, because if you have an empty glass-

Mauro Fiore (42:33):
My glass is empty as usual.

Jennifer Gore (42:35):
What a surprise.