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AcadianaCasts Presents:
AcadianaCasts Presents:
Law Meets Content: How Chaz Roberts is Changing the Legal Narrative
Chaz Roberts of Law Have Mercy and Chaz Roberts Law joins AcadianaCasts Presents to discuss his journey from Cecilia, Louisiana to social media influencer, impactful podcaster and personal injury attorney. From safeguarding constitutional rights during traffic stops to navigating the complexities of the insurance system, Chaz shares valuable legal insights and practical advice. We also dive into Louisiana culture, entrepreneurial grit, and the challenges of redefining perceptions in the legal field.
This episode offers a mix of storytelling, legal expertise, and cultural appreciation you won’t want to miss!
AcadianaCasts Presents: Chaz Roberts!
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"AcadianaCasts Presents" is the Flagship Podcast of the ACADIANACASTS NETWORK. Lafayette, LA based host, Carter Simoneaux talks with entertainers, business owners, athletes, chefs, and more - anyone who can help tell the story of Acadiana.
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If you want to watch this episode on YouTube, check out our channel!
You protect the rights of the innocent by representing the guilty. And so when you see a traffic stop and it's somebody with drugs, but the traffic stop wasn't done correctly and that person walks free because of a criminal defense attorney, if you're skeptical, you're going to say, man, I can't believe he was guilty and this, and that that's not right. You're going to say, man, I can't believe he was guilty and this, and that that's not right. But that is a person pushing against the state to follow the Constitution. And you have a Fourth Amendment, right against unlawful search and seizure.
Speaker 3:Glad to have you. I'm Carter Semino, host of Acadiana Cast Presents. Today we have a very special guest. It is Chaz Roberts. Now, if you're familiar with Acadiana Cast Network and some of the podcasts that we've done, you've obviously heard of Law have Mercy, a podcast that Chaz hosts. He was actually my first client with Acadiana Casts, so really excited. It's about time we finally have him in the chair. I wanted to make sure things were nice and rolling steadily before you know, show off my production to Chaz, even though I've been doing work with him for the past year and a half or so. But we're going to get into his podcast, talk about his upbringing in Sicilia, some things with the law. We'll shoot the bull about some other stuff and just have a good conversation. Chaz is no stranger to podcasting, obviously, and talking. He's a lawyer, for for damn sake. So, with that being said, chaz, you're here in the chair over at the Acadiana Cast Studios where we first met. Uh, I can't even remember when that was. It just seems so long ago ago, but also like yesterday.
Speaker 1:It's come a long way. Thanks for having me, man, and thank you for all you do in the podcast space and producing Law. Have Mercy, I feel like you were in my closet this morning because you were in the exact same thing as me.
Speaker 3:Well, I picked up a little bit of merch along the way. Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:But it's been an awesome journey. You've been an amazing producer. And? But it's been an awesome journey. You've been an amazing producer and thank you for getting me into the space, because you actually reached out to me. I didn't realize I was your first client. Now I feel like the guinea pig here and look, I was thinking about doing podcasts. I was talking about it, but you know, I didn't have the capability and you had the cameras, the setup, the know-how, the knowledge. I mean, it's a it's, it's quite, it's a quote, unquote, the production, but it's quite a production to put on a podcast and you, you were able to get in there and streamline it and it's been awesome and it's been cool getting to know you and and yeah, man, thanks for having me, yeah, man.
Speaker 3:So let's talk a little bit about that before we kind of get into who Chaz is that, before we kind of get into who chaz is. So, with law, have mercy. I reached out to you, like you said, because I saw you on social media.
Speaker 3:I've been following you for a little bit, I think almost even, either right after or at the very end of my news days, when I was at news 15 and I saw this guy who was given just kind of legal tips but in a laid-back, impersonable way for my dumb ass understands you know, and and I was like man, this guy, you know he's got something going here with this, with this, the social media thing and like creating his own content, and I wonder if he'd be interested in, you know, shooting a podcast and you're, quite frankly, you're probably the only client I have that I actually reached out to first and you were willing to take a chance on me and I've always been appreciative of you for that. So, but law have mercy. What did it kind of start as? And then, getting into 2025, what does it kind of become?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I needed an angle right and and I thought it was going to be just a long form version of my social media, and my social media is I talk about legal tips and the whole laid back style. That's just me. I mean, I can't really fake that. That was just me trying to be authentic and so, um, the way you describe it as like that's kind of us. It just it is what it is. That's the way I talk, that's the way I act and I'm always big on like educating the public, like that's my way to give back if it brings business, great.
Speaker 1:But I feel a duty to give legal information because I've spent a lot of money on a legal education and not a lot of people have access to, to give back to the public, as you and we'll get into that later about where I'm from, but serving my people, right. And so the podcast was interesting because then I could speak kind of in long form right, because social media, you want to talk 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and it's like hey, you've been hearing a car wreck, you need to do these four things. Well, there's a lot of nuance there and that's a whole 30 minute conversation, hour long conversation. Then I realized like I had all these cool friends who are in other areas of law and I'd bring them on the podcast and like, ask them questions about their particular area of law, like divorce, like criminal law, like intellectual property and all those areas. And so that was sort of the first year maybe you know year and a quarter of what we did, and that was great.
Speaker 1:And then now I'm realizing, like man, I have a lot of other interests and I know a lot of other interesting people who can serve that same audience that I've built in. And so the podcast has sort of evolved. Just recently I had Joe Grunig, I had Cupid, I had different areas, just business owners, and they all have little nuggets that people can pick up on. And it's not some influencer in Miami on the beach, it's someone down the street from you, um, who's living the same life as you, who works out at Red's with you and and, and you can learn from them. And so that's kind of where the evolution has taken me and has been exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like to your point, yeah, when we first started it was almost a little too law heavy and that, like you could get caught in the weeds of two lawyers going back and forth, and you kind of put the kibosh on that and made it a little more personal, started showing more of your personality, less of you know, just putting it all on the guests to try and and do it. And don't get me wrong, you guys, it's question answer. Question answer question and you prep the guests a bunch yeah but, but I feel what it is now.
Speaker 3:You see more of your personality and I think what makes your content so great when it comes to social media and it's you, it's Chaz Roberts, showing yourself, but also Valuetainment. Right, you're getting some good information, but you're having a good conversation along the way as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a function of a couple of things. Number one, our guests are amateurs. They're not skilled podcast people and so when you put the lights on, you put the cameras on, they tense up a little bit and, quite frankly, I tensed up right. And so now, with the reps, just like on social media if you look at my old videos, terrible, now right, a little bit, better, maybe not, maybe not good, but better. And so as a podcaster, I've become better, just doing the reps, and so I realized like my personality needed to come through more to make it more entertaining.
Speaker 1:Because I'm a great guy to have a beer with, I'm a great guy to have coffee with. Right, I like to think so. Anyway, that's what my wife tells me. But, um, no, I mean in podcasts, I just kind of I thought it was more of a qa qa. No, it's not. Man, forget all this stuff is here and just have a conversation and about the law heavy part. Man, if you are in the, if you are getting a divorce or thinking about getting a divorce, you put on that episode of me and Wes Galjour. We had two episodes. It is a. It is worth $3,000 of value for you for free.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Period. I mean I can, I will, I will swear on a Bible. It is an immense amount of amazing information for you for free. But if you're happily married and not thinking about getting a divorce or whatever have no curiosity in divorce, you may not listen. If you're happily married and not thinking about getting a divorce or whatever, have no curiosity in divorce, you may not listen to an hour of q? A, and so that's kind of been some of the things that I've realized over time is like it's it's law heavy, so I got to kind of back up from that. You, you deal with a lot of artists. You are an artist, like people evolve over time.
Speaker 3:So you're not playing the same tracks that you play when you first started, right, so it's been a constant evolution and I think if you're not evolving, you're dying right I think there's definitely times when, to make your content more dynamic, to have those little more like in-depth conversations about a certain wall topic, that could be, like you said, three thousand dollars worth of value to someone going through that specific situation, but also having someone on like a cupid who's cupid's an amazing guy and he's a great ambassador of our community and he was really interesting.
Speaker 1:He opened up about some things that he never opened up about before and because no one ever sat down with him for an hour and talked to him, so I was super proud of that episode. But then he talked about getting almost getting killed by a bull and we talked about the personal injury case that he, that he was dealing with right or you know he's he deals with contracts and he deals with you know legal stuff all the time and so we could kind of offshoot some of that and it's still my lawyer brain still going to go to that. But there's an immense amount of value other than the law, right?
Speaker 3:Now, how does a boy from Cecilia Louisiana become an attorney?
Speaker 1:Man? That is a great question. Um, I'm super proud of my upbringing in Cecilia, man. It was a great place to grow up and probably 98% of the guy that you see today was developed there. I grew up.
Speaker 1:I was the first French immersion class Wow, I didn't know if you knew that. So we took science and social studies and even math some years in French, completely. They would bring in teachers from France or Canada and they would speak only French and if you're immersed in the language, you will learn the language and I can still speak French. I can still understand a lot of French. I can still speak it, but you kind of have to practice it. So, um, I was telling Lathus man, some of the most charismatic people I've met in my entire life across the world and I've been to a lot of places are still from Cecilia, louisiana. My dad would go to a grocery store and have 10 people around him and he'd be telling stories and so if you can get educated and take that next level like fortunately I had some resources, I became a lawyer. Thank you Tops, thank you student loans If you can harness those storytelling skills and the joie de vivre and the french background and growing up in a culturally diverse place and understand people's struggles. If you can put that all together, man, it makes you a powerhouse, and so I'm very proud of my upbringing and I still try to support that community.
Speaker 1:As I wave the flag and someone asked me one time, like, do you ever get worried that, like you talk so much about, like Cecilia, that you'll maybe offend Opelousas or Brobridge or Bill Platt, I said no, not at all, because I'm not an ambassador. I am an ambassador for Cecilia, right, but what I'm trying to do is inspire people to not forget where they come from. And I don't care what community you're from. Be proud of that, give love to that and go back and support it and try to inspire the next, the next guy. And you know, for a while I thought I was inspiring people to be a lawyer and that kind of thing or a professional, but now I'm inspiring people to get into podcasting hey, if I could do it, you could do it. Um, youtube, social media, all that kind of stuff. And and I think it's registering that's been the feedback I've had from kids going back yeah, and I've seen you know just guests come on your show.
Speaker 3:Uh, who are? I've heard them tell you to their face like hey, man, like I'm starting to get into content because I saw you do it, you know I'm not, I'm no Chaz Roberts, Right, right, but I'm figuring out. So yeah, so I can speak to that.
Speaker 1:That's funny, and you know, when people say I'm no Chaz Roberts, that's super flattering, super humbling, right, that's super flattering, super humbling, right. I'm blushing right now. But I was as insecure as anybody. Like you think I want to stick my head out the hole. If you stick your head like the whack-a-mole game, right, if you stay under, you're not going to get whacked. If you stick your head out, you might get whacked. And so I was filled with insecurity. Man, I don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 1:I thought people could say look at this guy, he's trying to be an influencer or something like. You got to deal with the trolls and the haters and everything else, but the best quote I have about that is Chase Bank call. They don't take people's opinions on deposit, and so if I can do something to help my business in any way, I'm going to do it. Man, because you know people's. Don't let other people's opinions stop you from supporting your business. Because I believe in my business, I have a duty and a responsibility to tell people about what I do, because I think I'm the best at what I do, and so if I don't do it, I'm letting them know well, I love what you said.
Speaker 3:You know, never forget where you came from. It's kind of a mantra of uh in this office. Where Acadiana Cast is is also a love of people nonprofit and the executive director, john Williams he speaks says that all the time. We just had our community Thanksgiving in Sunset and where he's from and that's kind of where it started. Just, you know, not forgetting where you come from Started with like 250 meals the first first year. Now in the 11th year we did 5 000 meals across acadiana. That's cool. And where I wanted to bring it back to is a shout out to poches right from your neck of the woods, because they kind of streamlined our entire uh rice dressing operation and it's one of the best pieces of the, the thanksgiving meal that we were able to to give.
Speaker 1:So yeah, gerald and I talked about poches when he was on the podcast and I said hey, you want to change your life. Go get a backbone stew during the week and it's one of the best plate lunches you're ever gonna have in your life I still need to go do that um he was. He was like he was talking about the crawfish and the catfish. I said man pochets, pochets has it going on man, yeah man, mr pochet rocks.
Speaker 3:uh, he's been such a good support for us. Uh, we got to get you involved and maybe bring uh community Thanksgiving out to the Cecilia bro bridge area. I would love that man. Yeah, I would love that.
Speaker 1:You know we don't realize how many people have like food insecurity, and you know there's some government assistance and but, man, it's tough. You know the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to and, um, there's kids that go to school just to eat, man, and, and I remember when they brought the breakfast program there, and you know so it's, it's affecting all of our communities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just goes to show the power of you know, not just social media, but doing good things in your community, um, or just inspiring things. You know for you doing some of the stuff that you're doing is inspiring others to step up and help their self or their business and creating content or whatever it might be, or learning a little bit more about the law, and then you know, from the love of people thing through, or community thanksgiving specifically, uh, other business owners kind of saw what john was doing and they wanted to get involved in cbm technology, from bro bridge heavily involved, we got industrial safety solutions, and youngsville heavily involved, taco sisters, acadian total security. So all these different businesses are coming together to help our community.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful man. Look, I'm 40 years old. I just turned 40. And yeah, and I bootstrapped my business from the time I was 26 years old to now and I didn't take a loan from a bank. I literally bootstrapped it and made $1 and $2 and $3 and then reinvested it and it's taken all of that. It was taking me 15 years to get where I am right now and I'm good. I'm good Like the Kurt Vonnegut quote I have enough. And so the next portion of my life, and so the next portion of my life 10 to 50, 10 to 60, 40 to 50, 40 to 60, that next time period of my life, I want to get into things like that. I want to give back and I'm going to tell you, man, when you give, you get back tenfold, hundredfold, thousandfold.
Speaker 2:You know just this is the way the world works. It tails all the time.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's because you're so spiritually and mentally fulfilled that you're open to the world, to the universe, and things come back to you, or if it's just good karma or blessings or whatever religion you are. But it just works, man, and I have the tools. I just need to build out the team to be able to get involved in those things and I plan on spending a large portion of my time the next couple decades doing those types of things.
Speaker 3:Well, we can definitely get you hooked up there. So we'll talk off camera about that. But you know, you mentioned, you know, bootstrapping your business to where it is now. What would be your advice to someone, if any? I'm sure that you've got a bunch of nuggets but to growing and start, or starting and growing a business with nothing.
Speaker 1:Spend less than you make.
Speaker 3:Easier said than done.
Speaker 1:Right. So you got to get out there Like you can have the best product or service in the world. If people don't know about you, they can't hire you. Right, and? And on the other side, so many people want all this business, but, but, but the back of the house isn't right. You know, if you, if you have a restaurant and you feel that you pack the place well, you're a great marketer, but the food isn't good. They're only going to come one time.
Speaker 1:And so what I did was I made sure that my foundation of the legal services that I represent, that I offer, was perfect or as close to perfect as possible. I was doing everything. I mean, when I started my business, man, I'd go to the post office, I would lick the envelopes, I did everything. So now, when I have a problem and my team has grown and it's still a small team for the amount of cases we have, in the type of cases we have Everything is just tight, because I know every part of the process. I know how to do everything, from start to I sweep the floor, I take the trash out. I know everything there is.
Speaker 1:So my advice is twofold. Number one is figure out a way to get your name out there, and I don't care if it's shaking hands. Go and talk to the senior citizens or doing social media front-facing videos. Find a way to get yourself out there, but simultaneously have a great good or service to offer and stand by it. And if you wouldn't buy from yourself, how can you expect someone else to buy from you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's great advice, and spend less than you make.
Speaker 1:I wish I would have reinvested more into my business earlier. I was the kind of guy that took chips off the table to diversify. Looking back on it now, I kind of wish I had doubled down because, you know, if I go in the style, if I put money in the stock market, I'm gonna hope to make 10, 12, 20, maybe xrp 150 lathe, I don't know. But uh, I'm kidding. Um, I I took chips off the table and diversified and I have a nice comfortable life now. But but if you invest in yourself, if I'd invested more in the chas roberts law, I could 100x that I can thousand x. It would have been unlimited. And so the people in my space lawyers that have done tremendously well, the guys that use the big firms is the huge firms that you see.
Speaker 3:They just reinvested everything well, I'm a part of a product of my time and I think everyone and you know we're in this, this social media world, and oftentimes it's a big part of our business. And when you start something with this world that we live in with, tiny little dopamine hits every single day. You create this idea, you fall in love with the idea, and then it's time to execute the idea. And then it's time to execute the idea. And that was like a slap in the face, a bucket of cold water on a cold morning type of feeling for me. I was like oh, it's not just the idea, people aren't just going to go oh, you have this idea, let me help you with it. No, you've got to do the thing.
Speaker 1:This is not a sexy response, but I learned this from my mom. My mom did not miss work ever, okay, so I had to pay my parents for my mom raised. My mom had me when she was 18 years old okay, a month after she turned 18. So I grew up as a single parent home. But my dad, you know, came back later in my life and he was super charismatic and love people loved him, but he I got to see two parents.
Speaker 1:My mom was just a straightforward. My mom had grit. She showed up every single day. If Kathy said she was going to show up, she showed up. And she's going to show up 15 minutes early and wait in the parking lot. She just showed up. And you know, my dad had the charismatic side, but he didn't really capitalize on that because he didn't have the discipline and the grit. And so my advice to people is man, you got to show up. You're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days. You're going to have six hour days and you're going to have 20 hour days, but you got to show up and grind every single day. And the key to success is consistency. You want to deal with people who are consistent and they're people of their word, right, and so that's another piece of advice is like just show up every single day, be relentless, show up every single day.
Speaker 3:Now, specifically with your business being a personal injury attorney, you unfortunately have to fight these certain tropes against personal injury lawyers ambulance chasers, billboard lawyers, whatever. What did you have to do, or was there anything that was intentional that you did to kind of separate yourself from that trope?
Speaker 1:If I'm going to be part of a group, I'm going to make it cool. I mean, that's just the way I roll, right. If I'm going to be from Sicilia, we're going to make Sicilia cool and people are going to go to the Piggly Wiggly looking around like what's all this talk about here? Right, same with personal injury lawyers. I know the stigma. I was probably in law school and thought the same way about personal injury lawyers.
Speaker 1:You see the billboards, you see the commercials, you see the gimmicks and it's off-putting, it's off-putting. And then you have the insurance industry telling people that the reason why insurance rates are increasing is all the personal injury suits, and you see people up there with a check and stuff like that and it's embarrassing. And so I'm in the trenches. So I see that good people, honest people, people like what we're describing, that have grit and go to hardworking people and have kids get hurt and they don't know what to do and the insurance company is screwing them over and so they've got to deal with how they're going to get their kids to soccer practice, how to get to work with a banged-up car, their neck's hurt, their back, backs hurt, they need surgery, like they didn't ask for.
Speaker 1:People get killed. I've had several death cases and I've cried with their parents and mourned with their parents, young children and that's what I deal with. And so I found I know that the reality is not the stuff you see on TV, and so what I try to do is just come at it from a very authentic, honest way and say, look, these people deserve help and I'm one of those guys that helped them. And if that message came across as something different than all that other crap, then I've done my job.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that answered the question, but no, I think it certainly did. Uh, I'm definitely intrigued about cause I I don't know too much about the insurance world. Uh, I see, like the headlines and that you know Louisianians are, you're just in a constant battle with the insurance companies and a lot of that is you know, uh, flood insurance and flood insurance and and and with the home with all the storms that we have, but but also, you know, personal injury.
Speaker 1:I mean a lot of people that I'm gonna cut you off, a lot of people that were anti-lawsuit and anti this when their homes got flooded after a storm and you could be the most staunch anti-tort conservative guy. They changed their opinion on that when they had to deal with the insurance companies, and so that's a reality.
Speaker 3:That's who you're battling in court always right.
Speaker 1:Insurance companies yes.
Speaker 1:And the way insurance companies work is they pool money. Everybody pays their premiums. They pool money, they take that money off the table and they invest it. They put it in treasury, bonds and stocks, stocks and they make money on those investments. And so the longer that they can wait to pay you out, the longer that money can sit in an investment. Publicly traded companies all state is publicly traded, state farm is publicly traded and and stockholders enjoy the benefits of the profits.
Speaker 1:Berkshire hathaway warren buffett's one of the biggest insurance owners, um, and he's the one of the richest guys in the world. So, um, it's big business and you know who, who is looking out for Carter. It's just Carter. Carter's got his guitar and his podcast mic and he's taking on Allstate billion-dollar company. The CEO makes probably $30 million, $40 million a year, and you got Carter and his guitar. What do you have? Well, I'll tell you what you have. You have the best court system in the world that we have to protect, and you have a guy like me that's going to say, hey, I've got the skills, I got the license F them, let's go after them. You know, and that's and that's something that we should protect, and I think people need to think about that when they're trying to gut individuals rights to take care of an insurance company under the myth that somehow that those savings will be passed down to you Wow.
Speaker 1:Tort reform has never. I think. Our insurance premiums only go up right. They passed tort reform a couple of years ago. They just passed another time. Insurance premiums keep on going up. Covid, nobody was driving around. They gave a temporary reduction because there was a lot of pressure on them from the government and then you didn't see that again right.
Speaker 3:So how do you, how do you stay up with the, the times and changing? Uh, I don't know the legal system or tort reform, or what the insurance companies are doing.
Speaker 1:Well, we, there's, there's groups that protect the rights of the individuals that were part of those memberships and and that's important and I think most people don't understand that, because most people aren't involved in a wreck and so they're just looking at that bill that they have to pay and say, man, this is terrible, this is a terrible idea we have.
Speaker 1:I don't like seeing these billboards and they and they have every right to. I don't blame them for thinking that way, but when you're involved in a wreck and you're hurt and you have to deal with that system, it changes your perspective quick and you're just as likely to get in a wreck as anyone else, certainly on these damn streets, as we're between advantage and through right now and we have to take pinhook on the way back to our office. But the way I stay up is obviously I follow, I keep myself abreast of all the new laws and new changes and I talk to them in a roundtable with other lawyers. How is this going to affect what we do? So I'm on the up, we get newsletters, we stay on the up, and then I'm using my platform to sort of educate the general public on those things as well.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of educating the general public, let's talk a little bit more about what folks can do from a personal injury standpoint to protect themselves before they get in a wreck. You've talked about it. We've made some clips of it before. I know you like your top five, your top three things that people should do, but list off a couple you know off the top of my head. I know you've. You've been big on dash cams, uninsured motor insurance, so what are some of these things that and kind of explain it why people need to be doing these things before they're ever involved in a wreck yeah, you have the guitar.
Speaker 1:I need to go get the drum and bang the drum yeah, uh, the number.
Speaker 1:The number one. I. I say this there's three things that you can do. Number one get the safest vehicle. You can get the safest vehicle you can afford. Then there's consumer reports. Before you look at buying a vehicle, do a, do a google search of the safety ratings, okay.
Speaker 1:Number two is you can drive defensively. Right, when you get to a stoplight, this is a. This is something that I said that went viral on tiktok recently. I said when you get to a stoplight, this is a. This is something that I said that went viral on tiktok recently. I said when you get to a stoplight, you're the first driver you got a red light. The light turns green. Take a second and pause, right, because how many times have you been at a light and you see the cars fly by even after you have a green light, and you're like I've been killed, I've been hurt, I've been killed. If I'd, I'd have sped off.
Speaker 1:So drive defensively and we can talk about driving defensively and merge situations. Leave proper distance between you and the driver. Put that damn phone in your console and look, I'm not saying that. I've always been innocent about this. Don't text and drive. It's the killer. I think that if you wanted to gut personal injury firms in louisiana you would ban all phone, like they would have some kind of app that would block texting and driving, because I think that's the majority of our um cases. Anytime you see a rear-end situation, somebody's looking down at their phone. People don't even people used to say I was looking down at my radio. They don't even say that anymore right, yeah um well, they got these, all these cars.
Speaker 3:Now I have, like apple play and whatnot, but with that you have, you know, like voice to talk and voice to text.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just makes it so much easier, yeah, but then you got, but then you got to check your typos so, uh, no, but um, drive defensively, yeah. And then the third one is buy uninsured motorist coverage and it's usually the cheapest thing you could add on into policy. You're actually presumed to have it. They actually make you write a rejection form and somebody's like hey, carter, your premium's $350. And you're like, ooh, that's a lot. Well, if you just sign this form, I'll get it down to $275. You're like, do I need to sign it twice? But some good insurance agents will educate you and say, hey, man, that's a good thing. A lot of they make it so mechanical now, some of the agents, they don't really care.
Speaker 1:They just want the sale. They don't want you to walk to the next guy. They'll encourage you to sign that rejection form.
Speaker 1:Uninsured motorist coverage protects you for the fault of others. So I've been seeing a lot of hit and runs man. Since COVID I've seen so many hit and runs. And the reason why somebody would hit and run is because either have a warrant out for their arrest or they don't have insurance, right, okay, mostly because they don't have insurance. And so you have a bumper on the ground, a hurt neck, your car's banged up and there's no recourse if you don't have collision on your policy and uninsured motorist on your policy, uninsured motorist will protect you and pay for your damages caused by somebody else. Okay, and so it's so important.
Speaker 1:When I carry a lot of insurance, I'm not worried about me crashing into someone else. That's the liability portion. I want as much uninsured motorist coverage as I can get to protect me from the crazies out there. And when I talk about driving defensively, man, do you really want to drive from midnight to 3 am around Jefferson Street? Is that really a good choice? Probably not. Drunk drivers, kids, whatever, and what kind of insurance do they have? So that's my three sort of pieces of advice Save vehicle, drive defensively. Get uninsured motorist coverage.
Speaker 3:Now, this is just an observation that I have and I could be completely wrong on it, but I feel like in the past four or five years or so, I've seen less and less than I did. I got here in Lafayette in 2012 for college and then, throughout those times, I saw a bunch of drunk driving stops or DUI checkpoints. I feel like I don't see them anymore at the usual suspect spots. I mean, I used to see them all the time around the Cajun Dome in front of Fatima. I don't see them as much anymore. Am I wrong?
Speaker 1:on that. No, you're not wrong. In my former life I handled OWIs and I probably had about 1,200 to 1,500 that I've handled over my life. I was a public defender for a while and that was my track. Plus, I did it privately and they had an ATAC unit with Lafayette City Police and there was grant money. They were specially trained. They were always on the lookout.
Speaker 3:I still see the truck parked every now and then.
Speaker 1:They still very capable of giving out OWis. Don't get it twisted, but I think that there's a function of there's not as much patrols and as much resources and manpower coupled with. I think the drinking patterns of today's youth is different than 2012 not to mention uber, and lyft, not to mention Uber when I was in college from 2002 to 2009,.
Speaker 1:College and law school Uber was just coming around towards the tail end and we liked to drink and I don't see the same drinking patterns now with kids. I think kids are more likely to. I say kids, I mean they're more likely to young adults adults. You know they don't go to the bars. In fact, this is off topic, but you see a lot of bars rebrand and cater to the 30 to 40 year olds than the, than the 18 to 26 year olds. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they're still trying to get that, that old nostalgia group, Um of get that old nostalgia group. So yeah, your observation is on point.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean there's so many different factors that could play into it some of the ones that you said but you know there's so much comfort. I mean we're both big sports fans and I know big sports leagues are having trouble with this you almost have a better viewing experience watching it from home than you do at the game. Yeah, and just just, you know, with netflix and all these different different streaming things and the access to fast, affordable internet, you know it just, it's more easier to stay at home and shoot door dash.
Speaker 1:You can order a case of beer to your house legalization of marijuana yeah, it's another one, right um enter at home entertainment systems, uh, facebook, social media, tinder. Why do you go to a bar to meet chicks, right, when you're 20 years old, right?
Speaker 3:I can get that on delivery Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that phone is more powerful than Marley's.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's all those things.
Speaker 3:So getting back into the road, right. I'm from covington and the thing that I hate the most about driving home besides having to drive drive through baton rouge, which is always a nightmare- yes, you went to lsu for both undergrad and for law school, so you get it. But i-12 um basically created, as from my understanding, as a way for 18 wheelers to not have to go through new orleans. Right, and so it is. You're like white knuckling a lot of the time going through i-12.
Speaker 3:So you know. But at the same time, the pandemic and what happened in canada a couple years ago has shown how how vulnerable our system is to collapsing. If we lose our truck drivers, the system will fall apart. Yeah, so quickly. So I don't even really have a question here. But do you have any sort of nuanced take about 18-wheelers? I mean, so many times you see these commercials and the billboards of a personal injury lawyer standing on top of an 18-wheeler. That's the one that everyone's being made the evil villain in all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have empathy for truck drivers. So they can only make so much money the fuel costs. They've had to deal with that. They've had to deal with insurance costs. They can only drive a certain amount of hours per day. The dispatch company is taking a piece of the pie, like they're getting squeezed from all directions, and they've got to deal with untrained drivers. If you get a CDL you have a good bit of training compared to how easy it is to get a license.
Speaker 1:And so I drove 12 coming back from Orange Beach a couple days ago and it is amazing how many cars will just speed by you on 90 miles an hour and cut you off between you and an 18 wheeler. It is super unsafe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, more often than not yeah, you mentioned it, it's more the other drivers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what I'm saying is that the truck drivers are getting squeezed. There's a lot of stuff that we need to transport across the country. The roads are in terrible condition. There's terrible drivers out there. Their costs are soaring the country. The roads are in terrible condition. There's terrible drivers out there, their costs are soaring. Inflation has has taken a toll on them, and so I I empathize with them. But there's also companies that cut corners and put bad drivers to cut corners and not get qualified drivers.
Speaker 1:We see, we see, guys, that I was involved in a big case in Texas. The guy didn't even have a US license, right, he had no business driving on American roads. He was supposed to drop off his load at the Mexican border, but he just kept on coming through. And there's all these shell games that were created and shell companies that were created. So, yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's a, it's the wild, wild West. But if you get in a wreck with an 18 wheeler, they should have a lot more coverage than the normal policy. So those are typically bigger cases, and they're also bigger cases because typically the injuries are worse, right, right, because you're dealing with a massive vehicle going at a high rate of speed. You need a good lawyer, man, and so you need someone like us. There's other good lawyers that you may not see on billboards or commercials, and you should get a good lawyer, yeah walk me through.
Speaker 3:You don't have to get super in the weeds. Obviously, with time constraints I don't want to put anyone to sleep, but just from the kind of start to finish what you're doing with your client when someone comes to you for a personal injury case oh man, um, there, you know what does nick saban do?
Speaker 1:you know, well, nick saban's retired, but what does nick saban do when he was the coach at alabama? Well, number one is he washes the uniforms. You know, he makes sure the uniforms are washed and about a billion other things. That's an analogy that my father-in-law told me one time and it's always stuck when people say, well, what do you do? It's a lot.
Speaker 1:But so we get people right after the wreck and, man, we help them get a rental, get their car repaired or totaled out, get them fair compensation for their property damage. We call it property damage but then also, like bodily injury, we help them get the best care possible. If you come with me and you've been in a car wreck and you're like man, my neck's hurt, my back's hurt, my shoulders hurt, my knees hurt, you're not going to know what doctor to go see. You're going to go to your the emergency. The emergency room is going to say, here, take these pills, you're good, here's $5,000 bill, right. So we help navigate all that system and get people the best care possible and we take care of all that for them to help, or help guide them through and help them through that, while dealing with the insurance company, while negotiating once they're completely healed or the best they possibly can a fair settlement to not only cover their medical bills, their time away from work, but cover their pain and suffering too. They got to get something out of it.
Speaker 1:It sounds bad to talk about money, right, it sounds bad, but that is the civil system. That is the best system that we figured out on earth to handle a dispute like this. Right, because we can't invent, we can't call Doc and say, hey, let's get into DeLorean and go back in time to pre-accident, and we don't want two people fighting over stones and sticks or shooting each other because they have a dispute. We say money. Money is the best way that we figure out how we can compensate someone for what they've been through, for a wrong which is called a tort. And so we walk through the client, and that could be three months, six months, two years, three, it could be whatever, depending on the size of the case, how badly they're injured, what insurance is available. That dictates the timeline.
Speaker 3:You had a client on I can't remember her name on one of the episodes. Yeah, crystal, it's a great episode. You kind of see from the client's perspective what someone's going through.
Speaker 1:It was very cool that she agreed and I think she offered to do it, yeah, and I thought that was tremendous and I just didn't realize, like the amount of time that you're talking with them about.
Speaker 3:You know what to do when you get this lump sum of money. Like you went to the bank with her, yeah, I love like the line you said, like, hey, you don't wait at the, at the teller, like yeah, yeah, she, she went with this amount of money?
Speaker 1:she had a big check and she was going to the bank and the bank was next door and I said, well, I'll walk with you, I'll come with you to the bank. And I'm sitting down in the lobby and she goes to me with a teller and I was like, hey, with those zeros behind it, you don't wait with a teller. We talked to the manager and we pulled her out into an office, but yeah, no, look, I don't. You know, give a man a fish eat for a day. Teach a man a fish eat for a lifetime. I want to take, I want to use this bad thing that happened to our client's life and I want to make it a positive and I want it to help start their financial journey. And you know, people don't Newsflash. By the way, they don't teach finance in school, nope right, they don't teach you how to invest your money in school. Then, and um, you might.
Speaker 3:I think they just passed a bill that, starting maybe next year, it's going to be part of high school curriculum, some sort of financial wellness.
Speaker 1:But and that's. That's overdue. Yeah, in my opinion, I had to learn this stuff on the fly you know, and I had a pretty good foundation. My, my aunt got me a bank account when I was four years old, so I, I had a good, she was a banker and so I had a little checkbook and I so, um, yeah, I mean I do anything I can to help people. Uh, even after the representation, I mean you spend six months with a client, a year with a client, two years. They become your friends.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I want them to succeed even beyond me, because I want them to look back and say hey, man Chaz really helped me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the reason these people are being compensated, unfortunately, is because of injury. But, with that, you've made relationships with different doctors in town and you know how did you? How do you develop and cultivate those relationships with people that you can trust?
Speaker 1:That? How did you? How do you develop and cultivate those relationships with people that you can trust? That's a good question, man. It's um, feedback, feedback from clients, and so it's nothing. Um, it's all above board, right, they're not doing any, they're not doing anything specifically for me or for the client, but you develop relationships by getting feedback from clients.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know, you sent me to Dr So-and-so. He was super nice, he was super thorough, he spent 30 minutes with me and so-and-so did a neck surgery. Man, I feel amazing, I feel great, I feel wonderful, I feel better than I did before Over 15 years. You see those patterns and then you say and then, um, one doctor on the other hand is like man, he was rude, he was ugly, he didn't do anything for me. Okay, well, is that a one-time thing or is that a?
Speaker 1:I've heard that from multiple people. If I've heard from multiple people, he's out. He's out because anyone I send you to um, and that's for financial help, doctors, gift baskets, I don't care. It has to be a positive representation of me, because when you refer a case to me, if you're a family lawyer and you send me a case, I'm going to make you look good. Your client's going to thank you for sending a recommendation. So it's just feedback and then you know, as the relationships have developed, I've had lunch with them and got to know their, their personality and who they are as a man or a woman, and, um, yeah, it was just experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a. That's a type of guest I'd like to see on your, on your show at some point uh, a doctor that you trust and can maybe talk about some of this. I have a joke right. Here's the joke.
Speaker 1:The joke says so when, when a client complains, because you know they, they come, they come in with me for an hour and I got my feet on the desk and I'm bs and about a high school football game or whatever, and they just they, they we're like old buddies. And then we send them to an orthopedic surgeon and it's they got the personality of a stick. I say, well, you know why they're doctors, right? Why? Because if they had a personality, they'd be a lawyer, and so that's a way to kind of break the ice with the client. Like, people are different. Some doctors have personalities, some don't. Like they work on brains all day. What do you expect? Yeah?
Speaker 3:A lot of analytical.
Speaker 1:Analytical man. I see blood and I get weak. I mean, I'm not a. It's a totally different skill set. I talk for a living.
Speaker 3:So do you have to look at injuries like pictures of?
Speaker 1:Oh man, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's kind of neat.
Speaker 1:In the last two weeks I've seen someone's head cut open autopsy. You know it was I've. I saw another injury that I don't want to share it here, but yeah, it's terrible, it's terrible and you don't really get desensitized to it. I have gotten desensitized about talking about large sums of money. I tell you that much, that that's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just just in the in, just in the mix, man, I have a lot of cases and so we're negotiating and the more desensitized you become, the better you become, because I could ask you for $1.4 million with a straight face and there's no hesitation, I'm not shaking, I'm not, I'm not scared, I'm like, no, this case, we need a $1.4 million and I'm not taking, I'm not scared, I'm like no, this case, we need $1.4 million and I'm not taking a cent less and I mean it. So I've become desensitized to large amounts of money and transactional and even some emotional stuff. But man, seeing blood and bad injuries, that's still tough, because that's a person's mom, that's a person's wife. You know person's mom, that's a person's wife. It's terrible.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad you're not desensitized to the injury aspect.
Speaker 1:No, I'm never going to be desensitized to the plight that people go through In everyday normal life and life circumstances and upbringing and childhood trauma and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:that's real yeah, it's good. I mean, it's got to make you work your ass off even more, seeing what I want to run through the freaking wall.
Speaker 1:Man, I want to run through the wall and it was cool, as I've surrounded myself with people in our office that want to run through the wall just as much as me. And if you don't want to run through the wall, you're probably not gonna be a good fit at our organization.
Speaker 3:Well, part of part of your brand, chaz, is this education component and just peeling back the curtain? Yeah, if that is the education level that you like to get to. And I've got a question for you, and it doesn't have to do with anything that you do specifically, but more so from an information standpoint. You know we have these elections for, like judges. I don't know a circuit, I don't even know what the term would be, but well, you got district judges and then you have um court of appeals judges.
Speaker 1:You got supreme court judges. Okay, it's elected yeah.
Speaker 3:So those elected positions I never am able to find. Maybe before, like a couple days before an election, I see they're on the ballot. I'll try and like scour the internet for some sort of information, but how do we find out about like, what do the? What do these people do? Why is it important for them to vote, and how do we find information about these human beings that we're electing to a very important position?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what the um public works official does, like I. You know it's. I can say that about most elected positions. I really don't know what they do, but I know a lot about judges and I think that a judge, what I look for in a judge first of all, to answer your question, I would talk to me or another type of lawyer who can educate you on why that person would be a good judge or not a good judge. But what I would look for is who? Who had what? What was the diversity of their training, of their experience before they became a judge? And were they a hard worker? You know, did they? Were they fair, were they diligent? Were they professional? Those are some of the traits that I would look for but you couldn't have. There's no public forum on that.
Speaker 1:You probably have to talk to a lawyer to see what type of interactions they have with those judicial candidates.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how to even go about doing this, but I would just spitting off the top of my head. I would love to have some sort of panel with unbiased or maybe there is a bias and it's more of a debate, but whatever it is some sort of forum via podcast leading up to these types of elections that just kind of put information about these people out for the public, to give the voters a little more education when it comes to what they're voting for who they're voting for.
Speaker 1:I think that'd be a great idea and I could probably help you craft some questions to see their insights right. They can't tell you about how they would rule in a certain way, but you can get some insights to see if that more aligns with your philosophy or not.
Speaker 3:So law have mercy. I'm excited to see what it becomes in 2025. We just had a meeting with the team to kind of, you know, create goals and expectations and what we want to do with it going forward. But for some episodes in the past, can you shout out a couple of your favorites, uh, for folks to go check out?
Speaker 1:you know, I'm really proud of the g park episode that we just filmed with hypno, uh innocence project new orleans. Like I almost see myself as a curator and like the things that I'm interested in and and I want to expose people that don't have access to that type of thing. Yeah, and I had a couple people reach out to me and say, hey, that was an awesome episode. I wasn't expecting that, but G Park she's the director of of Ibno and she talked about, like the, the holes in our criminal judicial system and she talked about some of the exonerations that they were able to procure for innocent people who were facing life in prison or even death, and so I was really proud about that episode.
Speaker 1:Obviously, gerald Grunick was brought the energy man and his story and his love for the community and that kind of thing was awesome. Cupid was fantastic. All of our lawyers were amazing. Like to to think that somebody would give an hour of their time, an hour and a half of their time, to come sit and basically let me scour their brain and give information to the public for free.
Speaker 1:It's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I desperately, and I want to get Benny Benazech on this show, because every time he comes on your show he's a friend of yours, you guys have a natural rapport. But just the nuggets that he's able to spill. He's a criminal defense attorney and my favorite line that he's ever said is you know, like why we need criminal defense attorneys and you could say it a lot better than I could. Like why we need criminal defense attorneys and you could say it a lot better than I could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said you protect the rights of the innocent by representing the guilty. And so when you see a traffic stop and it's somebody with drugs, but the traffic stop wasn't done correctly and that person walks free because of a criminal defense attorney, if you're skeptical you're going to say, man, I can't believe he was guilty and this, and that that's not right. But that is a person pushing against the state to follow the Constitution. And you have a Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure, and so he's really protecting Carter's bedroom from from a battering ram, kicking his door down and going get some things.
Speaker 1:And and it could be because you know they mistaken identity, it could be because Carter was on the wrong side politically of the, the, the people in power. And so I am very proud of the time that I spent in the criminal defense world and I think that a lot of those criminal defense lawyers are heroes, man, and growing up the way I grew up, being around the people, it's hard to imagine that I would ever be saying that, but I had boots on the ground and I got to see that. And yeah, you need strong lawyers that may not be representing the best guys, but they're protecting your constitutional rights, and that's all you have in this world, in America, is your constitutional rights, the freedoms that we enjoy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's such a great point.
Speaker 1:You need to put some of that patriotic music in the background while we say that part right Like off on a complete rant yeah, absolutely, just slowly zoom in yeah have some.
Speaker 3:Have an eagle pop on your, on your shoulder benny benny's a great guest.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get him back on my podcast. If he sits right here, he will. He will fill you up with an hour of rants and theories and you're gonna be like man, I want to run through that wall right now. Yeah, we had.
Speaker 3:We had a. The very first episode we did was a test episode that we did here.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:In the old studio and yeah, and that was before, like you were comfortable kind of interjecting and whatnot and it was just him basically just spewing for an hour.
Speaker 1:Man he can spew. Man he can spew and look it's probably 95% right. There's some 5%, he might take some creative liberties, but yeah, that's an A right there, that's an A, that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, chaz, I appreciate you joining us. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and work with you. I'm excited to see where Law of Mercy goes. Before I get you out of here, just a couple of some rapid-fire questions. First off, one of your big things that you like sharing on social media is this recent, the past few years avid love for running.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right now it's getting a little chilly outside. Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:What's it like running in the cold, it's way better than running in the heat. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I just remember soccer and like all the running we have to do during this time of year and it's like having trouble breathing.
Speaker 1:It's not the same like that sprint, like burn in your throat.
Speaker 3:It's not the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you want to run in the cold because you can always layer and take off layers as you start sweating. Running in 90-degree weather is a non-starter, especially here with the humidity, so I love the cold weather. Okay. Yeah, louisiana Marathon is MLK weekend. It's always notoriously cold and people have great times, because then, when it gets to about 9, 10 am, it feels amazing Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're from Cecilia, next to the Bro Bridge, the crawfish capital of the world. Yes, how do you boil your crawfish or do you dust?
Speaker 1:No, you do before and after you put you put, you put seasoning in the water and you dust it on top.
Speaker 3:See, that was one of the biggest misconceptions that I had to tell all my friends and family back in Covington is that they were like oh them out west and the Lafayette Acadiana area, they just boil in just pure water and then season it later. I haven't seen anyone do that no, we see.
Speaker 1:Look, when I was younger, I remember seasoning the water almost exclusively, and then the dusting became like last, probably 10, 12 years really maybe longer, but dusting on top as well. But in no scenario is it just no seasoning in the water, because you need seasoning for your potatoes and your corn anyway, right? So no, that that is a. That is a myth and I am busting it and trust me.
Speaker 3:Crawfish capitol or the same I know, yeah, that's what people in like alabama do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right um, do you see people putting orange juice and stuff? Well, here's.
Speaker 3:here's what we do. We take my family takes a recipe from, uh, the saint bernard, parish area, where we, before the boil, we'll puree like a bunch of oranges and a bunch of lemons, so a lot of people will just like squeeze them into it. But we'll cut up the rinds and that's where you get a lot of that zest and then create this kind of like we call it the slush or the slurry, but it looks like this bright yellow orangish slurry that you put when the crawfish are soaking, and so the juices really get soaked up and get that citrusy flavor into it. It's a game changer. I've done it around here. Every time people are like what are you doing? And then they taste it like, oh, it's actually pretty damn good.
Speaker 1:Pat's Restaurant in Henderson. My grandmother's sister helped open it. She was married to Pat the original, and so my grandmother spent. She worked double shifts every. She lost a husband at a young age. She worked double shifts every single day and so forever, and that was one of the first places that commercially sold crawfish in a restaurant setting. And so you got to think about that. Like, like crawfish is, you can get crawfish etouffee at Walk-Ons, which is a chain you can get it in Texas. Pat's right here in Henderson was one of the first places to serve crawfish commercially. Just think about it, man. It was a mud bug, right, it was trash.
Speaker 1:People ate that because they were starving, right, like most good delicacies now came out of yeah, right came out of a necessity and so um, yeah, fun fact um so I know what I'm talking about, about my ball of crawfish is what my point was hell yes, stand on it uh.
Speaker 1:Potato salad in or out of the gumbo uh, you got to go in and you got to go in, but I I can. I can put it out, but take a little spoonful and mix it in at the same time, so I can do either way, but I like. I think, man. My grandmother, who passed away a couple years ago, made the best potato salad. It was smooth, mustard-based. I mean, my mouth is watering right now, but I also like sweet potatoes in my gumbo too. Like not in it, but just on the side. Okay, a, also like sweet potatoes on my gumbo too. A good, like not in it, but just on the side. Okay, a good baked sweet potato on the side.
Speaker 3:Man, change your life um, here's a question I've asked people uh, recently the chow chow, lots of chow chow, a lot of chow. Okay, yeah, a lot of chow chow. Well, I've asked people their least favorite street to drive on in lafayette. But what I'll ask you instead being a personal injury lawyer what is the most dangerous street to drive on in Lafayette? But what I'll ask you instead, being a personal injury lawyer.
Speaker 1:What is the most dangerous street to drive on in Lafayette?
Speaker 3:Oh man, pinhook is a beast, I mean.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know that that road was made for horse and buggy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what Drake LeBlanc, the episode before you said that. Yeah, that's, it was for carriages. That's why it's so small.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't think they want to cut those big oak trees on the side Right. So I think that's just going to be the way it is right. So that has to be one of the most dangerous roads you know. For a while, until people got the hang of the roundabouts, those were pretty tricky.
Speaker 3:I was going to ask you about the roundabouts.
Speaker 1:Ambassador. A lot of wrecks on ambassador because people drive so damn fast on it.
Speaker 3:I mean, I can hear from my house people race all night long on ambassador gaffrey, so that's a pretty dangerous road too. Why, in a pile up, uh the person? Let's say car a is moving, car b hits car A, car C hits car B.
Speaker 1:Who is most at fault? So instead of A, b, c, we call it 1, 2, 3. All right, okay, so car 3 is the front car. All right, car 2 is the middle car, so number one. In that scenario, car three could recover from both people that hit. Okay, so this one is at fault and the one in the back is at fault. But typically what you'll see is the last car will hit the second car into the third car. That's more common. Okay, this one was able to stop just in the nick of time, and then one comes, just cleans out the whole clock Okay, and is car two at fault at all in that?
Speaker 1:No, Okay, no, unless, there's two hits. Card two is not at fault If it's one hit, it's just the one in the bag.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I could ask you questions all day about it and we're definitely going to get you back on sometime next year and we'll just keep doing this and keep growing these podcasts. Let's do it and create an opportunity in Acadiana for people to be entertained, educated. Because you know, media is changing. My old news station, news 15, just gutted half their programming, you know when do you see daytime television in the next couple years?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I mean, there's always going to be people who are sitting at home wanting to be entertained. I feel like, as older generations retire or die out, to be people who are sitting at home wanting to be entertained. Um, I feel like, as you know, older generations retire or, or you know, die out, to be blunt um, people who are, who have more been accustomed and grown up to the internet, will be more comfortable finding alternate sources, but there's always going to be a need for local news and information, whether that's through traditional broadcasting channels. I don't know if it will be that Maybe you're seeing these local news stations who are owned mostly by giant corporations. Try and figure out what that is in these viewing patterns.
Speaker 1:How can we spend the least amount? And get the most return right, yeah, exactly yeah. That's so many businesses so they gutted all their mainstay anchors. Do people not care about anchors anymore?
Speaker 3:Well, no, there's a lot of the evening. They're anchors. Do people not care about anchors anymore? Well, no, they there's a lot of the evening. They're pushing them toward the evening, um. But in the morning, you know, at the end of the day, most people it's a lot of times it's it's mothers who are getting their kids ready for work and they want to know one of two things. So do I need to what? What is my kid gonna wear today and did anyone get murdered in my neighborhood? And so that information is more readily available. The second they wake up and can just look at their phone, be like hey, got the weather, um. So I don't know where it goes, but I definitely see the, the power structure being shifted more towards independence, um.
Speaker 3:So it's going to take people like you, like myself, people like a chris logan, um, and others who are kind of doing this, this independent thing, and trying to be a voice that people can trust. And that's what I love about podcasting we were talking about it earlier. It's this fly on the wall thing. That's why I like the Q&A, q&a, q&a thing. It can work in some forms, but I think people really get value out of that fly on the wall, because people can kind of explain in their talking and just their banter where they come from, whether it's morally or politically or whatever. So you understand, it's not just a guy in a suit pretending to be objective. You can take it or leave it, depending on what this person is like, and it's just a matter of you know, louisiana's always late to adopt things and so it's just keep doing it and keep growing and getting people to buy in and trust and and make it more accessible and educate people how to find it and and uh, just go from there and just keep doing the damn thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would tell anyone listening to this, um, or watching this if you're considering a podcast, do it right, because, um, I'm at 50, some episodes now. Trust me, I was at one episode, I was at two episodes. Those three episodes I had imposter syndrome, thinking what the hell, the hell am I doing? Nobody's gonna listen to me. I had all those feelings, all those insecurities. But you have to have reps to develop your voice and to figure out the direction you want to go and in six months from now, after you start, you're going to be happy that you started.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Two years. Who knows what's going to happen to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, consistency is key too. You've got to be able to, or willing to be, consistent and put in the work, and that's much harder than you think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right To find the time. You know I'm a busy guy.
Speaker 3:I have two kids that take all my time and I have a very busy practice, but I still have to go up in the attic and film because that's very important yeah, I mean I have people all the time be like dude, like me and my partner's, like we're funny, like we just put a mic on us, like well, like people would love us. I was like maybe, but how consistent can you be? You're to do three or four episodes. You're going to run out of talking points and you're going to realize how much work it is and then it's going to fizzle Like what's like seven episodes is like the statistic that people get to.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was like 2.3 million podcasts were created. 700,000 made it past seven episodes, 200,000 made it past the numbers are staggering of of the drop off. Yeah, and so, and another piece of advice I have is, if you're thinking about doing a podcast, call carter. Hey, don't try to do it yourself. Okay, and and even if you have the thirty thousand dollars that it takes to buy the equipment, you still need someone to operate the equipment. You also have to have the, the hundred hours that it takes to learn how to work the cameras and the and the roadcaster and the mic and everything else in the front. Call carter, let him do it. Even if you buy, even if you have the cameras, I do have the camera, I have the cameras, the mics, I have everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, carter still does it for me yeah, in your case, yeah, I use my earlier equipment than I've upgraded since, but in the meantime you saw the value in buying your own equipment and keeping it in-house, and I just come and use your stuff.
Speaker 1:The reason why I did it and it was my thesis and it actually ended up working out is that Carter could just come in and it would take him five minutes to set up instead of 35 minutes to set up, or an hour or an hour or an hour and so, and going up those stairs are pretty treacherous. So, uh, with that flexibility we could, we could do more podcasts on a shorter, shorter uh heads up and he doesn't have to pull down all his stuff, and so, man, it's been great yeah, man, I'm excited to see where it goes.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you once again. Real quick, tell folks where to find you social media media website, all that.
Speaker 1:I've been told that you should tell people to no more than one call of action. Okay, but I'm gonna do two. Chaz Roberts Law on any social platform. Instagram is kind of where where the bulk of our content is published. Chaz Roberts Law C-H-A-Z-R-O-B-R-T-S-L-A-W. And check out our podcast Law have Mercy, you're going to hear Carter occasionally. It's great, it's been fun, and I'm just trying to educate the public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man and free. Third plug ChazRobertsLawcom. If you're ever in need of a personal injury attorney and he's also got a great resource center. If you just need someone to ask a question about some sort of legal thing that's happening to you, they'll point you in the right direction. He's got a wide range of friends and respected colleagues in the law industry that he can point you to. He's a great resource for this community. Great father, great husband, great business associates, great podcaster. Now, chaz, no better thing to do for you than roll out the red carpets, quoting, paraphrasing hot ones, but also taking a bit from Whiskey Ginger. I like to give my guests a platform, taking a look at that camera right there, and it could be a word, a phrase, it could be advice, it could be literally anything to end this episode with, to impart the Internet world at large with Some of Chaz Roberts' all right.
Speaker 1:Treat others how you want to be treated. Right and um. That's a golden rule and it's served me well in my career. So always treat others how you want to be treated hey, thanks for tuning into the show.
Speaker 2:Since you made it this far, might as well give us a like, a follow and subscribe. You know whatever you got to do to alert you that there's a new episode out. Look, it helps us grow and it allows us to give you the content that, well, you deserve. If you want to be a sponsor, if you want to be a guest, if you just want to berate me, hey, all goes in the same place. Info at Acadianacastcom, email info at Acadianacastcom and for more local resource podcasts, go to AcadianaCastcom. Bye.
