Understanding Attorney Compensation

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart.

Welcome to the podcast today, everybody. We're so excited that you're here and we're so grateful for you joining us again today. And before we get started, we have a really cool subject today. It's called Understanding Attorney Compensation. But before Before we go there, how are Lynda and Sarah doing today?

Did you do that so you wouldn't have to forget it?

What's that?

Did you do that intro of the topic so you didn't have to remember it 5 minutes from now?

Exactly. You know, when you get to do the intro to the podcast, you get a little nervous about saying it right. So just wanted to make sure it's there. But I think it's a really cool subject that we're going to talk about today. And what have you guys been up to this week, though? What's new and exciting in your world?

Well, it's sunny today. It's been nice fall weather all week. I'll just go on that personal side of it. I was just like, every morning except for today, I had gone for a walk because I had an earlier meeting.

Nice.

Yeah. So yeah, it's been nice.

And my husband— How about you, Lynda?

I just got back from Reframe, which was Hector's conference, and it was amazing. I already signed up for next year because it was just, it was, it was the best conference I've ever been to. And I've been to a lot of conferences and I think my most favorite before that was QuickBooks Connect Canada years ago, maybe in 2018, I think I went. This was even better than that one.

So I— What tidbit did you bring home with you that you can share with everyone?

I, it was about conversations and having, having to be able to speak to your clients, your family. It was about the whole thing, not just not just work. One of the tidbits that I would share that he— and we got a book on how to have these conversations. And the man Phil Jones wrote a book. I should remember the title of it. It's— so Hector and Carlos wrote the same book, only spun it to accountants. I'm trying to find my Audible here because I did download Phil Jones's book and it was— he was an incredible speaker. He was my favorite speaker of the whole thing. But the, let me see, his book is called Exactly What to Say by Phil Jones.

Oh, cool.

Loved it. Loved his topic, loved how he presented it. He spoke about the using the right words when having conversations and how to handle the whole conversation, not just the words of it. And then Hector and his brother Carlos wrote Exactly What to Say for Accountants. So they've got their own book. Was only for reframers. It wasn't for anybody that's not in their, in their program. But, uh, it, it really, I think the main thing was the first day we got in the conference, which was the pre-con, Hector said, turn your phones off. You're not gonna bring your computers here. We got pads, pen, and they had workbooks. We're gonna work handwriting style and not be, and, and be present. And I think that part really made a difference for me.

I really do. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's one of my, my pet peeves. I love going to conferences or, or things like that where they make you put your phone away. They make you focus. They make you be present, being in the moment, you know, and, and really. Mm-hmm.

And I'm terrible at that. I, I'll be honest. So one of the changes I made from coming back was I'm letting Tiara handle my email, which is really, really hard for me. You know, hand— oh, wow. Let's turn down— letting Tiara handle it and me not look at it all day. So I'm on day 2.

I can't think of anybody more qualified though than Tiara.

So this is— I know, but I just have to let go. That's the hard part.

So I let go.

She'll have to chime in to tell me whether or not she thinks I'm doing a better job. But— I think that Tiara is— Because I want to look and peek to see what's there. And I'm like, nope, let it go. Let it be. She's going to throw everything that I need to answer in a draft. She'll let me know in the channel if there's something that I need to handle. So I'm doing well. But I was gonna say, I was able to turn the phone off, turn the computer off, not watch TV. That was in a whole nother part of it. I mean, I was at a beach. So walk on the beach, admire the sunrise on the east coast of Florida, admire the sunset with the moon, moonset basically.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm fortunate I have Sarah as a partner, so she handled everything. And that part I never had to worry about. Like, everything was being handled. But if you're a solo, it's a little bit harder to do.

Hard. Yeah.

You can handle like all that bloody stuff and all a lot while I was gone. So hopefully I get to gift her back when she goes away too.

Nice. Nice. Well, thanks for sharing that.

It was really, it was really good. Next year's all about pricing. So yeah, it's gonna be another whole different topic, but it was great.

Couldn't say it. Talking about letting go, our subject today, understanding attorney compensation, we quite often are approached by our attorney clients to ask questions. They ask us questions about compensation, and they kind of get stuck in the same old model that's been out there for years and years, the eat what you kill scenario, or the, you know, let's get a warm body in here but not give them any workflow or any training or anything like that and just throw them out there and you've got to bill 2,000 hours this year or you're out. Mm-hmm. Let's talk about all of that, different ways that they're compensated and how that's changing, you know, from the hourly. I mean, we've talked about this a lot in the past, Lynda, and you've written about it changing from the hourly structure to the flat fee structure and how compensation and KPIs all relate to that. So who wants to kick that off?

And eat what you kill. The first time I heard that term, I'm like, oh, lawyers eat what you kill. Like, they kind of go, oh, like, But I also think of it as, so with Eat What You Kill, each lawyer's compensation is based on revenues that they generate. So it's very much a revenue-generated compensation model. It's usually, there's usually a formula. Most of the time, right, you guys? Spreadsheet? That it's calculated?

Which is not common. And how does it foster teamwork?

Well, that's the problem. Also, overhead might be part of it. This is where it gets sticky. So if it was just a percentage of what they— what they generated in revenue, that's one thing. But when you start to put in overhead and all these calculations, and we've— Sarah and I have witnessed it many times with attorneys, or they'll go, oh, our compensation— we'll ask them, oh, mine's easy. It's easy. It's— and we're like, there's no such thing as easy. When it comes to attorney compensation because they tweak it as they go and then it's going to all—

They tweak it as they go. Good point. Yeah.

Yeah.

They can mask it too as, oh, it's just a bonus at this time of year that I do it as. I'm like, but there's a formula behind that bonus. And you have on larger firms, of course, you've got tiered, you've got the originator, you've got the working attorney, you've got a whole complexity of things. If the firm is paying something on your behalf, will it be deducted out directly? There's a whole complex metric behind it. I believe what I do see in, in some of the conversations is that mix of you want to be able to pay them fairly, have some sort of structure, so a good compensation balance with the ability to grow, right? And inside that growth, that's got to be a metric that can be measured. And to me, that metric of measurement really needs to come— be completely designed from how well is the case handled? How does the client feel? It's got to be like a full circle. It cannot just be the ownership of the firm's solo earner or, you know, solo attorney that is the owner of the firm or a partnership or a traditional mid-market firm, which is multiple partners. It cannot just be on— rest on their shoulders to ensure that the maintenance of the client and the way that the client is being treated and held is just purely on theirs. Yeah. Just because you're doing the work. And we have got a generation gap change now. We have got a different mindset of what we want, right?

Like, yeah. Well, those younger attorneys, years ago, it was— I forgot the name of that method, but the one where you had to be in— you got your bonuses were based on how long you've been at the firm.

Oh, the term, like the longevity of your tenure there?

Younger people don't want to do all the work. And so the older ones would get all the money at the end. They worked all these years and now they get the bigger percentages where the younger ones, they just want to fast-track it. They want to get paid and they want to work hard, but they want to get their bonus out of it. And that's not set up on that type of method where you have longevity and you have to— you get more compensation the longer you've been there. If you've been there for a very long time, you get a lot more. And then newer people don't get it. You think about the— Well, and then if it's based on Rainmaker, your role, well, the Rainmaker is bringing the work in. But what about the Worker Bee? What about the other people there in the Originator? You know, how does that land in, in attorney world? So there's a lot there to follow. And I think also when you're starting out working in with law firms, you're going to find that these things are— they exist. You might not hear from the attorney until all of a sudden, maybe they bonus out at the end of the year and they go, oh, by the way, I need to cut bonuses. I need to make sure everything's done by X, Y, you know, XYZ date. And you're like, you have bonuses that are going to go out? You don't— they never told you about it. And now you're scrambling to get whatever they need for that. And that makes it harder, typically, if you— if they don't share that information with you to the very end.

Well, you know, one of the things that I've noticed over the years, too, is that starting in law school all the way up to the law firm, they don't teach attorneys numbers. Their goal is to teach them how to pass the bar and become an attorney, just like many schools in many different subjects do. But compensation is not just $50,000 a year that I'm paying you. Compensation is also your health benefits, your 401(k) 401(k) firm contribution, your taxes that the employer share of taxes depending on how the payroll is. All of those things come into your compensation package. And so, $50,000 suddenly becomes a $70,000 or $80,000 expense to the firm. And I'm passionate about, that should be shared with each person working in the term. This is your value. Not in a bad way. This is a positive.

Can I add two more things to you?

Yes.

Continuing education and state bar dues.

Exactly. Exactly. All those things are an expense that we're putting out on your behalf that become now your value to this firm is $80,000. Now, Now, let's use that as the base for the number of hours that you need to work and the revenue that you need to bring in and all of that. And when you start sharing that with people, it changes the whole environment of how things are approached.

Right.

Instead of just saying, okay, you're fresh outta law school, we're gonna beat the tar out of you. You're gonna bill 2,000 hours and we'll be lucky if you're here in a year. I hate that. That approach to law firm practice.

I love when you meet a firm that is truly systematic, where a new associate walks in the door and is like, thank you. I can just sit in and I get my earning potential. I understand what I need to do because they're— to me, it's like there's a mix of a healthy base and what is this earning potential? And that's the hardest part. Like, that's what Lynda and I found really kind of interesting with these spreadsheets. And every time they're like, yeah, it's super simple, and we're just looking at it going, gotta be a catch inside of this.

Oh, not only that, Sarah, how many of them have we tried to tie back to the accounting records? And then there's an outside spreadsheet that doesn't actually align with the numbers. They were pulling numbers out from somewhere and they're putting them on the sheet and they don't align with the revenue totals or they don't align with the overhead totals. And it's like, well, where'd they get these numbers from? And then you start to book all that stuff in properly in the records. And then it's eye-opening that you see that things weren't correct and now you have to make corrections because maybe somebody was overpaid, somebody was underpaid, and then you have to have those conversations and they don't even know that because they're doing it on a spreadsheet and sometimes the formula is going— and we've seen it all. And as soon as they say spreadsheet, we always go, oh, okay, can we have access to the spreadsheet? And then it's kind of diving into what we are. Yeah. And I think what you said, Sarah, earlier too is When you're looking at it, I always think of it, you want a happy client, right? A happy client will bring you more business.

Yeah.

And that's a client-centric-based type of model, a formula you can create in a more modern law firm. I think that's a good way because like I said, the younger people want to work hard, but gone are the days of working hard and getting and being in the firm for 30 years. Nobody stays in a job for 30 years anymore. So model doesn't really work in today's world. So gone are those days. Now you want to work in today's world. Why not make it a happy client focus, focusing it on a client-centric model, making it so that it's kind of a model that will work with anybody new coming in that's working real hard, bringing the work in, getting the work done, has a happy client. You got a great Net Promoter Score. Why, why wouldn't you not want to have that for your firm? Because that's really a better way going forward because you're going to be able to build your law firm on that. It's, it's more important than doing that and I think that that's a better way of managing it then. And then also having a way to track it that we'll talk about. Exactly.

Here's my question, because it's a mix too. We're in this day and age where wellness benefits, mental stability, health, all of that is forefront. And Steve brought it up too, is we talk about this, Lynda and I do, is like, what are the tools that you can offer your team of value? Because sometimes you will offer what's considered the traditional model, like, I don't know, Lynda, it's like the long-term insurance, like the health disability life kind of stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And that sometimes doesn't feel of same value. And to your point, Steve, I've always agreed. I'm like a huge proponent of— I'd love to change the pay stubs to be a truly value-added, like what's done for you kind of thing. But in totality, when we're looking at it with the thought process of like, what does this look like? Because we are dealing with a demographic that is not going to— if you're hiring somebody today, that person may not be your long tenure, 20-year person riding the bicycle with you. You hope so. You want that. You want that. But What does it look like? What do you guys think about that? Like, this is such a big movement right now. It's, it's been a big movement with COVID but it's becoming a bigger movement, and the demands of remote work for those people that have offices. We're hearing the bigger companies switch, right? They're, they're going back to in-office. But I don't know, what do you think of that, that forethought? Because a lot of law firms do 100% on benefits. But I don't think that there's the value of the employee feeling like—

Well, it becomes expected instead of— what's the word I'm looking for— instead of—

Appreciated.

Appreciated. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. You know, I, as an employee, as a brand new attorney, I'll be like, oh, this is really cool. I'm getting this benefit. I've got to be part of the team that's pulling this cart along to make it happen because it is an expense. And the worst thing is to turn around and go, oh, our labor cost is now 70% of every dollar because—

Right.

Because we have all of this rich blend of benefits that don't— doesn't mean anything to anybody. You know, if you have a parking benefit, but all of your employees ride the bus, Or if you have a bus pass benefit, but nobody rides the bus. I mean, I've seen it all. Like you said, Lynda, I've seen, I've seen all these things that they throw out there and they have to administer, and a lot of people don't even want them. So it's, it's putting the work in and the thought into what makes your operation tick and makes it attractive to people. And you're dealing with, you know, using the newbie environment, you're dealing with attorneys who get out of school and they're like, I scored, I'm an attorney and I just got a job in a cool law firm.

Mm-hmm.

And, but they don't know what to expect. And I think it's on us as business owners to really share that with the team and say, this is what it really means to be here. This is what it costs and this is what we all have to do to pull it along together.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, it is, it's like every, probably every time a growth spurt happens in a firm with technology or something based, right? There's this growth. And this new entry. Every generation brings a new challenge.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And so it's, to me, it's, we've talked about this, it's like there's an expectation just in general, I'm going to get a year-end bonus. Is it truly a year-end bonus or is it a compensation model that we're delivering at this year-end time? But we have, we're looking at it through metrics of some sort.

Exactly.

I don't, I feel like we're in a stage of so much change as an owner, and I can't imagine as a law firm owner, you're competing with getting the right talent, a shortage of talent, a talent that you want to invest in, 'cause it's a pure investment on the ownership side. And then, and it goes with the employee side. I don't want to demean the employee side of it. It is also an employee side. It's a risk on both, right? You want to make sure you're working for a firm that aligns with your values and goals.

Right.

Interested in being with.

You want to go there every day for a reason.

Exactly, right? So I don't want to misspeak that, but it is this fine balance. It's always been there, but it's rapidly shifting currently in this market. And I just wonder what this looks like. And the best way we can support, I feel like, is Assisting with looking at the benchmarks and the metrics and finding out what is it that you're doing deep down. Do you have some sort of productivity metric? Do you have people that are interested in wanting to know what that is? Because you have groups of categories of individuals, personality-wise, and that generally falls outside. That's not bookkeeping. You know, that's tailored services to support you, because again, all the 3 of us here, we're firm owners. Know what it's like. So we could speak to that value. But then how do you, how do you make sure it's tailored and fits your vision and goal and, and supports what you'd like to do for the staff? We have so much that wears their heart on their sleeves and gives so much to the point where I'm like, okay, pause, let's reevaluate.

Like, you're only compensating the attorneys. I mean, a lot of times in some states, be very careful how they compensate anybody else underneath the attorneys. But it's funny how You think about it, if everybody paid, it was part of this work getting done, why wouldn't the paralegal get a compensation or the legal assistant get some form of compensation or bonus because some big, maybe they have a class action suit they're working on and they just had a windfall. How do you put that together? And I just remember the name of the one that is the tenure one. It was the old school word was lockstep. It was called the lockstep.

Lockstep.

Oh yeah. It just came into my head. I'm like, 'cause I knew it had a funny name. That's the one where you're tenured, where you work all the years, you get the, you get the bigger bonus. But as you're younger and you don't, and you're probably working twice as hard when you're younger, you're just not compensated to put the years in. And that, that makes a difference.

But yeah.

Yeah.

And there's some firms that we see, it's really tight ownership, right? So there, there's several owners. They have a, it's very similar eat what you kill model in a sense, right? They have a traditional way of dividing out expenses, but inside of that, how they choose— it's almost like they're choosing to, to run their individual teams. It's a, it's a collective group of people. So I think of them as pods. So my team consists of these associates versus it's not you work for the firm and you could serve any of the attorneys, uh, the original owners, no, or the partners. That's not how it works. It's like, this is my section, this is your section. It's fascinating to me because then that looks— that feels like, okay, I'm one cohesive of firm, but I'm pillars inside of it.

That's such an old school model of running a law firm. It really is. That used to be the way it was. If you were, if you were Susie paralegal, you stayed in your cube and you worked for these two attorneys and you didn't do anything else. And to me, that's not a healthy environment. You know, it's, it's all hands on deck when certain things come along to the law firm. And, you know, we're all pulling together to make it happen, to make that outcome positive.

Well, can I ask you though? Because it is a little different, right? It, it sometimes if you are a multifaceted firm, multi-practice area, and that associate is really tailored to one section, they're not, it's, it probably wouldn't benefit you to have them all hands in that situation because—

Sometimes you do need all hands on deck though to, to get it all done. You know, if there's, there's, you know, a judge has done some sort of order and You know, there's discovery and all kinds of things. I mean, discovery is the same, depend— no matter where you are in the law firm, you know, so.

Yeah.

That comes into play. And also, we're working with a really cool law firm right now that is just going gangbusters. I love these guys. They are— I just love their energy. They're young. They spun out of another law firm. They have a really cool niche that they're working in. And they want to do class accounting. And we've been gyrating around on the class accounting this year. And I had a conversation with one of them the other day, and he said, "I'm just so frustrated on what I want to look at." And I said, "Well, don't get so granular that it drives you nuts and doesn't give you any information that you need, but really drill down." And I gave him examples. Think about what it is you want to look at for compensation and your percentage and what that KPI means to you.

Okay.

Because they have a pretty— they're a type of firm that has a really steady flow of income. That's really cool. So, it's not like a PI firm or something like that. I mean, they've got a nice steady flow of income and they can get their arms around this. As an example, I worked in a law firm that had 50, about 50 attorneys, and it got so granular on the compensation that I had to go and measure the size of each cube that each attorney sat in. And—

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And then we would allocate the rent to all of those cost centers and the utilities and all that sort of stuff. And if they took they had to check it out and it was charged to their cost center. But you know what? They were working on a huge, it was all from the financial crash in 2008. And they were working on recovering money that banks had defrauded people on, which was a really cool—

Yeah, yeah.

Real cool client for them to have. But we were able to break it down by those, all of those attorneys, and the work that they were doing and what they were being compensated. And we found out where we could tweak and where we could move and what we could do. It created this whole environment of fixing things and maximizing the dollar instead of just saying, oh, Lynda, you brought in $200,000 and Sarah brought in $100,000, but you're both getting paid the same. Shame on you, Sarah. You know, it wasn't that kind of environment.

Mm-hmm.

It was proactive. It was like, okay, we're going to shift some work. Over here to Sarah now, and we're going to, you know, we're— that gives you strength in running your business, and everybody can benefit.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I get so passionate about this.

I think it's a good conversation to have with your attorney clients because they may have just some stuck program that they think is working, but maybe they need to realign it to realign with the firm's goals, their, their mindset of where they're going in their firm, maybe even just overall. What the firm means and what they're trying to accomplish as just their—

Mm-hmm.

What their mission, what the company mission is in values. So maybe they might need to realign it. Maybe they're stuck in an older model that isn't really working with the newer generation that's coming on board. And I think it's a good conversation to have with your clients, which is more an advisory conversation. But I think having yourself armed with that knowledge, you'll be able to help your client out a lot.

Which is— Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, Lynda. I mean, it's— you, you are coming from a space. I mean, if you remember, you are a business owner yourself. You may or may not have employees, and you're coming from a space of where you need to help them maybe reaffirm or design something, or slightly tailor what's being offered right now. And so maybe it's just— it's like those annual things. You're supposed to look at your insurance annually. You might have to do that on a more frequent tick because Are you having a lot of turnover? Are people grumbling or asking for a little bit more?

Yeah.

Are they calling in sick a lot?

If you're losing staff or you can't obtain good staff because you're not offering what the firm down the road is offering, I mean, that's a good point, Sarah, that you want to be able to at least have a good compensation package that includes bonuses so they can get you. And don't tie it to something that's not real. Don't tie it to how many consultations that are walking in the door that don't become clients. Make sure it's something that makes sense, that the firm gets a client, the client pays.

Always make— Measure metrics.

Yeah. Measured on those metrics. You don't wanna be paying out on something you didn't even receive for sure. You know, make sure you have it and, and you have a way to track it that ties back to the reconciled accounting records.

You know, it makes, it makes me think too, Lynda, this ha— this has happened to us a few times where a disbursement happens and it's the wrong amount, but you've already awarded the junior associate or somebody like a certain dollar figure. Now it gets to be undone and redone, right? And this has— this happens. I mean, and it will happen kind of on the quick. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes it takes a little while. It's— and then for us accounting professionals, we have to make sure we can't pay that out twice.

Mm-hmm.

What is the difference? Like, there's all these things that we have to do to help co-manage this. So if we are involved in understanding it, not to be judgmental about it, but just helping us understand it. We know what we can work to. To your point, Steve, where you're like, I had to know exactly how much square footage was each cube. We have to know what we have to work to as well to support whatever this side spreadsheet is. You don't have to share it with us, but just give us the metrics to help us.

Well, you know, so often the partners, the owners of the firm, feel obligated to give that bonus at the end of the year. And they're kind of like deer in headlights sometimes. They're like, oh God, I'm going to lose all these people or 2 or 3 of them. And guess what? Number 1, they compare notes anyway. Sarah, how much was your bonus?

Yeah.

Oh, Lynda, how much did you get? And they hang on until year end and they're ticked off about something in the firm and then they quit. And so you just paid out that $5,000 bonus and they're gone. And you as the owner are wondering what the heck happened there, you know?

Yeah.

And so if you're involved in those metrics and you're involved in that path of understanding how this business operates and not having the attitude of I'm up here and they're over here and they're just going to work and we hope that we'll have all this money at the end of the year and pass it out and that they all stick with me. That's just not a healthy way to operate. And that's where, to your point, Lynda, that's where we come into play. You know, we can have those conversations and say, this is your labor cost as of June. We're in July now. You know, what, what can we do in the second— Absolutely. What can we do in the second part of the year to really bump up that revenue or whatever we need to do to make it more healthy for you so you get more money in your pocket at the end of the year? Or you can buy that building or you can, you know, buy all the new furniture you need for the firm or whatever it is, we've got to create the path to have those things happen. And it doesn't just happen by magic.

You said something that just triggered a thought too. And I, I know that Lynda and I've talked about this privately on our, in our own stuff. It's perception too.

Yes.

As if, you know, you walk into a firm and it's lovely, right? It's established, it's got beautiful furniture, and then you see changes happening. Are we buying new equipment? What are we investing in? The employees are evaluating that.

And why are there empty offices when I walk down the hall?

Yeah. The employees, the perceptions are so key to that. They look at what's going on and they're making their own perception identities of like, what does this look like? Do I see myself here? So it's very interesting. I mean, we had on the podcast Somebody that you used to work with at a time, and lovely place, beautiful art, really cared about his office environment. And it clearly showed because the staff really cared about it too. They had nice spaces probably to work in. I imagine if we had a whole tour. So, and, and what was his heart vision? Like what he likes, what art is on the wall? What is that perception? So it's all, it all, it's funny. It's, Because compensation is so— it's a validation of who we are. It's tied into so many things. It's so intricate. It's this fine line. And when you're reevaluating it or need support or need some measured metrics, we have to see the whole picture with you. We can't just give you, oh, this is how much gross and this is how much this person does. And that's not— you know what I mean? Like, to Lynda, what Lynda brought up earlier is like, are you a rainmaker? Are you this? Are you this? Are you that? Well, take the labels off. Who are you to the firm and how can we help you with your growth? And checking in, what is it that they want? What is their growth? They might be totally different than the person next to them.

Well, in my heart, in my own heart, I would rather feel really good about myself as an employee of the firm, knowing that I earned that bonus instead of expecting it.

I love that. I love that you say that.

This is what I did here. I'm so proud to be here.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah. I love that you say that because I wish more of that in our world.

I do too. Everybody pulling in the same direction. So great subject today, you guys. That was very well done. I think it's something that we have to bring up every once in a while, different times of the year. Have you looked at your compensation? Where are you going? What's happening here?

So is it interesting that you— we do it around maybe when personal taxes are due?

Yes.

Oh, I'm just—

And why are you on extension?

Yeah. And also, I mean, you think about it, even with one last thing, if you think about it, if you are a bookkeeper doing back work, kind of figuring stuff out, tying everything to the returns, and also connecting everything to the data and the accounting. If you have to make changes, you have to do that in the open period, not going back and making changes in the closed period.

So—

Right, right. Yeah.

Great discussion today.

Yeah, definitely.

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That was, you know what, she just said something that reminded me, we had such a great session today on the Law Lab.

We did.

And it's a friend of ours who talks about cybersecurity, all the protection. I, I know that we've invited them to be on the podcast too, but Oh my God, what a lively conversation.

I enjoyed it. It was. My head's still spinning on that one. I do.

I got a lot of notes.

Yeah, I was going to say, I did 2 pages of notes on that one. So thank you, everybody.

Yeah.

Bye.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.