Attorney at LOL: The Corporate Meme-Dealer – Bill Moore – S6E26

00:08 Rob Hanna:

Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast. You are now listening to Season 6 of the show. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week I’m delighted to be joined by the creator of ‘NonEquityPartner’, Bill Moore & Associates LLP. NonEquityPartner is a corporate generalist. They are also a mid-level associate at a top 5 firm in Vault 100 rankings. Dubbed ‘Attorney at LOL’, they are a ‘corporate meme-dealer and deal-memer’. With a huge following over 164,000 followers on Instagram, they are the page to follow. So, a very warm welcome Bill.

00:46 Bill Moore:

Thanks Rob. It’s great to be here. And it’s great to be back I should say.

00:50 Rob Hanna:

Absolutely. And before we dive into all your amazing projects, experiences to date, we do have a customary icebreaker question here, on the Legally Speaking Podcast which is, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality?

01:09 Bill Moore:

Well, I want to give credit where credit’s due largely because Suits is just in my world at least an absolute goldmine for meme content. So I’ve got to give them a couple points there even though they’re even realistic, it does contribute to my bottom line. So I’m going to give them a 5 and the remaining 5 points are only because I’ve never seen Harvey Specter go on and all my diligence slog. I don’t even know if they’ve shown him getting you know, a paper cup of coffee or anything like that. As soon as I see him staying up late creating diligence schedules, I’ll give him a couple extra points.

01:40 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, I think that’s a very valid score and valid justification. And with that, we shall move swiftly on my friend. So would you mind telling our listeners just a bit about your background and your career journey?

01:51 Bill Moore:

Yeah, absolutely. So I had a bit of a non-traditional introduction into the world of law. I never really wanted to be a lawyer growing up, I never even really considered it. I always was on an entrepreneurial path, I was considering and then sort of getting involved in the M&A world. In my undergraduate studies I was studying finance out on the West Coast of the United States, and was looking into the world of M&A, and did an internship with a private equity fund. And the managing partner of the fund kind of took me on as a mentee and introduced me to the world of law and thought that might be a better fit for me. I thought it was the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. This was my penultimate year of undergrad. And regardless, he convinced me to at least take the entrance exam, to take the LSAT and I wrote my application essay, which was affectionately titled, I don’t want to be a lawyer and I was talking about, and it was effectively an essay about how I saw my place in the legal world, how I wanted, I could see sort of my career trajectory, and I liked sort of the work they did, and I thought it fit my skill set well. And anyway, a lot of law schools responded well to that and ended up picking a good 1, the 1 that gave me the best combination of scholarships, proximity to the market and wanting to work in, and as well as prestige to get me into the right, the right firms. So beyond that my, my road to law school is a little untraditional and then my road into the legal profession was, or at least into the ranks of big law was perhaps even less traditional. I was the recipient of a scholarship award that they gave me a placement at a top firm, the firm that I’d eventually call my home or you know, the entirety of my legal career to date. But that was before, that was without interviewing, that was without going through the entire OCI process. So my knowledge of that entire process was a little bit limited going into law school, I was just really, really fortunate. Now I recognise that, that’s not a traditional path for most folks, but my advice is always to, do what you can and make something work, craft together whatever kind of story you can. So, with that sort of as my background, I always felt like a bit of an outsider in the big law world as, as many people do beyond just imposter syndrome. I literally had a very different path to, to even getting there. And that sort of, I think inspired the roots for NonEquityPartner. I think I could play out my second year as a junior associate some friends and I were always sending memes back and forth as, as 1 does late night at the office, and we were inspired by somebody, sort of Wall Street, you know white collar professional services accounts like Quiddity and Arbitrage Andy, especially this finance oriented blog, there was just so much crossover in this space you know, making jokes about yuppies wearing the patagonia vests and, and deal sleds you know these, these old fashioned loafers that people wear and bragging about their, their horrible lifestyles and who, you know who works the longer hours and friend of mine pointed out you know, that I, my sense of humour was very much oriented towards this. I was kind of making my own memes in the office and said, you know, there’s a, there’s a gap here for big law. Nobody’s making jokes about this yet. So, you encouraged me to start the account. I, I wanted to create an account and I knew I wanted to do it as a character profile, kind of like Arbitrage Andy or Trust Fund Terry. I wanted to create this sort of, you know, parody projection that was an exaggeration of like, who is this kind of, you know, big law attorney who’s just a caricature of what everybody thinks a big law attorney could be sort of the cartoonish version of 1 of the characters from Suits or something like that, who just gets off on working too hard and, and making the juniors, you know, work late nights, and then just really gets more into their work and loses the forest for the trees. So, that was the birth of the original account, which at the time was titled William dot Moore dot Esquire, which I quickly realised was not going to be nearly catching up and had to think of something a little bit funnier and quippier. And we were having a talk with 1 of my friends at Kirkland & Ellis and they were talking about their goal to become a non-equity partner, and somebody just made the joke, what is a non-equity partner that makes no sense, that’s a meme in and of itself. And it was that moment on I knew exactly what the name of the account was going to be. And we shortened up the account character name to Bill Moore, which is much punchier, and which I still to this day think maybe only 5% of my followers even realises upon. But we were off to the races from there. And if by off to the races, I mean, we were exceptionally slow start, I think the count kind of meandered around less than 100 followers for months on end. But it was really a passion project, it was just sort of my you know, personal little art studio, I didn’t tell anybody about the account, and I was just making memes for fun, they were just for my own enjoyment. If you know, couple dozen people happen to find out about them as well, that was great. After about 5 months, I was an extended, I had to take medical leave from work, it was very bored. And this I look, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make this something bigger, I think I’m gonna, I think more people deserve to know about this, and I think it can be fun, so. I started learning more about how social media works, especially, you know, premium amateur content which is kind of where these homemade, you know, original memes fall into. And I started working to, to build the brand. And over the course of a month, I think it grew from, you know, 75 followers to about 1000. And that was in late, or I want to say mid 2019. And from there, the growth has just been really fun to watch and totally unexpected. I mean, I never thought it’d be this big and never thought it would have the impact that I have seen it have, I never thought I’d be on a podcast with the legendary Robert Hanna, but here we are so. That’s sort of how I came up in the ranks both career wise and how that sort of inspired the origins of this account. So, hopefully I can give you know a reader’s digest version of, you know.

07:19 Rob Hanna:

Thank you so much for sharing all of that Bill. And I love it. And I love that you think only 5% of your audience only know what Bill Moore actually, actually stands for on the undertone. But just to go back as well, I want to really, it’s something we stand for on the show, you know embrace being you being different. You mentioned maybe not such a traditional route into the law or things within the career as we’d expect it. I think the whole reason we wanted to start this show is to share as much wisdom related to legal careers. And actually you can come from all different angles, avenues. And if you have the right network and tenacity and mindset, then you can be successful. And it’s great that you’ve gone on to be this huge social media presence. So it’s our pleasure to have you on the show. And I know you hold good friends with other fellow guests we’ve had on the show Alex Su, and you probably follow the likes of Matt Margolis and all of these huge stars we’ve had come on the show, because like you, we had to start somewhere as well. But we’re grateful to have you and I’m a big fan of what you’re doing. And you know, the fact that you’ve amassed up to 164,000 followers is incredible. And you’ve talked a bit about sort of where the idea came from, sort of a little bit about how you, you’ve grown your, your following. I want to sort of get a bit more into your, in your head if I like about how do you actually come up with the content ideas for your memes? Where do you get that inspiration from?

08:33 Bill Moore:

Well, I’m very flattered that you’re asking yeah, you mentioned Alex Su especially, you know, are good friends. And it’s been really great to sort of see you know, guys like him, Matt, you mentioned too, and some of my other peer accounts, Big Law Boiz, especially sort of, you know, really take the reins in social media and add a lot of transparency and laughs to 1 otherwise, otherwise dreary industry. So I’m glad to hear that they’re getting some more publicity and you know, huge fan of their work as well. But the creative process that you asked about is when I struggled to define. I’m a firm advocate, that memes, even in the big law world are categorically art, and so defining, you know, the art creation process is a fun task in and of itself. But I mean really most people I think will tell you this the, the meme’s just write themselves at this point, I think there’s kind of the bottom down and bottom up and top down approach. And from 1 angle, you know, some hilarious current event will, will happen where there’s a great format and you try to find a caption that matches it. You know, I remember when the Mandalorian premiered on Disney plus baby Yoda was the hot thing and if you didn’t have a baby Yoda meme up within, you know, 20 hours, you were just you know, leaving chips on the table. And on the other hand too, it can be event driven within the industry itself. So something wild happens there’s a scandal at the sperm or Yale you know, drops out of the US world news report, law firm rankings and that’s just ripe for content. Me personally I think my mind just works with a pop culture recall that has otherwise very annoying, it doesn’t have any real world value, but I think I find myself often sitting in meetings and you know, my initial knee jerk response somewhere in the back of my brain when someone comments something is I’ll think of a SpongeBob quote, or some other, you know, line from a movie from my childhood or some other, you know, pull from anything, and have to shut that voice down. And, you know, proceed with the professional, regular tone, but it was nice to finally, you know, the meaning themselves are sort of, I guess, an artistic expression of this sort of, you know, creative voice that you try to suppress during the day. So, that’s sort of how the creative process I think begins and ends on my end, I’m sure, if you asked 100 meme creators where their memes come from you get 100 different answers. But, I was just happy to finally find an outlet for this, this strange reaction I usually have to, day to day interactions, because there’s a lot of humour in the legal industry if you’re able to sit back and reflect on it.

10:55 Rob Hanna:

It’s so true. And it’s lovely to hear different creators where they get inspiration from and, you know, there’s always something that you can always draw from other creators. That’s why I’m so keen to also selfishly have you on today to, to learn from you because I think that’s 1 of the key things I’ve learned as I’ve moved into content creation, social media and community is, is collaboration and actually learning from 1 another and, and sharing ideas. But I’m a huge advocate for what you, you have done and what you’re continuing to do. And this is a really hard question. I know, I need to be specific with the question, what has been your favourite meme that you have created to date?

11:32 Bill Moore:

Well, I’m glad you asked because these are always my favourite topics to talk about is the content itself. And 1 phenomenon that I’ll introduce with is how it’s interesting that you know, when I come up with a meme that I think is going to be absolute gold, that often doesn’t align with the actual audience’s engagement or reception of it. It is sort of a rule of thumb that if, you know you make something a meme especially that makes you laugh out loud before you post it, that’s just a guaranteed tell that it’s going to absolutely bomb. I, maybe I consume too many memes compared to the average person, but I think maybe it’s desensitised my taste where I laugh too hard at something it’s probably a good indicator that’s maybe a little too niche, it’s a little too off the wall, and it’s just not going to hit home, you know, the right audience sometimes I’ll have something hilarious happen at work and I think this is the perfect meme to describe this situation and then I realise, you know, less than 2% of my audience has ever been in this exact situation. So it’s not going to land because you know the NonEquityPartner brand doesn’t appeal just corporate M&A attorneys like me, but you know, the whole spectrum of people on big law, but also other, you know, people in the industry, litigators, people in non-profit work, a lot of law students, a lot of international attorneys and people beyond that to, there’s some professional services. I mean, kind of the way I got started there’s a lot of clickable jokes there. So, it’s hard to, to sort of find a meme that appeals to everybody and just, you know, head of appeals to me enough. So that is the background, I’m always surprised at the ones that, that are received well. I remember half away making some meme about a, a monkey, gig like reaching into a passenger side window of a car, and the person handing him an orange and it’s just 2 frames of the monkey receiving the orange. And the second 1 is him smiling, and I added a caption about it being a junior associate receiving a simple thank you. Very simple meme just I don’t think a lot of thought into it and the thing just absolutely blew up, it did 10 times better than my next best performer of all time, which, which made me disappointed. But it also ended on the other hand, was a very decent surprise. So as far as you know, there has been a long way of kind of circling back to your actual question, which is what were my favourite posts. And I think my favourite meme by far is a sort of this ongoing joke that we posted a number of times about this character named Tara, who’s a 5^th year associate who’s just getting abused to her career. It’s kind of become a series, it’s kind of a series at this point. It’s usually a meme, including clips from Marvel movies, but Tara’s always kind of the standard name I use for a female associate who’s just got problems going on at her firm. The most popular 1 is this 1 of her, you know, looking I think it’s at a penance the character from Marvel and saying you took everything from me. And then Daniels is the partner and I’m saying I don’t even know who you are. And the caption is Tara fifth year associate realises this job has taken her 20s, her figures, her hobbies, her personality, and her ability to stomach any lunch that’s less than 25 dollars. Now that 1 is just a, appropriated and always gives a ton of great feedback so, I’m gonna put that 1 as my favourite.

14:24 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, and I love that and I love evergreen content as well, which is a well, a well-known phrase amongst creators out there as well. And you touched on it in terms of your, your most liked meme which 1 is that?

14:37 Bill Moore:

Most liked meme currently, that’s you know, that’s a good question. I try not to keep logs on this anymore, but I believe it is a tweet posted back on Instagram of airline you know, it’s kind of a script back and forth. Apologies for the sound there of an airliner saying you know, is there a doctor on board and then, the same, and then my dad saying that should have been you, me saying not now, that him saying not asking for a corporate attorney are they, me saying dad this is an emergency and then dad saying, go ask if they want an indemnification clause written on the guy’s chest. And that 1 just, just I think hits the funny bone with a lot of people and I’ve seen it repurposed across a lot of other meme accounts, sometimes with credit, sometimes not. But regardless, it’s fun to see the content, get spread out there and see other people adapting it and hopefully striking a chord with lots of different audiences.

15:29 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, I love that 1, I can just, you can always visualise the image in your head, in terms of being on the plane with a dad and that dialogue going through it’s, it’s so good. And I guess, you know, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, the fun, the creative side of, of the work you do, you know, and it’s important to highlight, you know, this is a, it’s a skill, it’s a talent, I personally believe it’s needed. I’m a big advocate for humanising the professional working world, but the stress of pressures and years gone past that people have had burnout, anxiety, stress levels through the roof. And I think, you know, bringing this injection in this new wave of fun, creativity is important for all in and around the industry. So I want to ask the question around whilst it, does make fun of the profession, would you say there is some real truth in the memes about working in the legal industry?

16:17 Bill Moore:

Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, some of the source of all humour is the fact that it’s based in truth. I think if it wasn’t based in truth, it wouldn’t strike a chord with so many people. You know, I was just commenting with some other readers in a group chat earlier this week, and yes we have these group chats with all the meme accounts. It’s a big, it’s a big cabal, where we all conspire together and review best practices and talk about trends and you know ways Instagram managing to try and squeeze every ounce of creativity out of us without giving us engagement. But be that as it may, 1 phenomenon we were, were talking about as a thing you see sometimes where a post will get those kind of ratios you begin to like sort of, you know, realise between likes, comments, 10s, etc. And every now and then you’ll get a post that gets shared, you can see insights about how many times a post has been sent to other people, that will get shared more times and it’s actually been liked, which represents an interesting phenomenon, and can be described a number of different ways. But the way I choose to interpret that is, when you make a post that, that hits home so hard people are afraid to put you know, their, their account on it, because you can see who’s liked it, but they, it hit them enough that they took the time to sit there and send it to somebody else because it’s clearly resonating. And it just sort of, is, I think a testament to the fact that you know, these memes, these short little messages that can capture so much of, of a piece of culture can sort of be a voice, it can say things that otherwise go unsaid. And I think the legal profession and I think that you’ve talked about this other times in your podcast Rob is, an industry that suffers a lot from you know, opaqueness and from sort of suffering in silence and admiring that as a, a virtue and so the hope with you know NonEquityPartner and a lot of other memes is that you know, you don’t have to at least suffer in silence I don’t think I can fortunately, you know, change anybody’s day to day work outside of my immediate circle but hopefully either a sort of shine a light on sort of some of the shortcomings of this industry and hopefully, you know, influence the next generation of leaders to be a little bit more conscious towards the culture that they’re propagating and if nothing else provide some laps along the way and let them know that they’re not alone.

18:18 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, really good well phrased answer and I love that you wrapped up with not alone because that is the power of community so thank you for that. And you know, you talked earlier on you know about you wanting to do a character profile cuz I know you were featured in ALM Law.Com International where you state “I knew I wanted to do a character profile, a person whose profession was a joke”. I found that quite amusing. And you also touched on earlier I’m “sure 90% of Bill Moore followers don’t know Bill Moore is a pun”. So again just to explain it in simple term because we get people from all different industries listening in, not just entirely legal. Tell us more about that.

18:52 Bill Moore:

About the pun itself or the.

18:55 Rob Hanna:

Yeah, the Bill Moore pun for those that may not be too familiar.

18:58 Bill Moore:

Well the idea here was I’m a big fan of puns which I think drives my co-workers and family absolutely nuts. But Bill Moore, bill more hours was it just a simple joke. And like I said I attended to overlawyered at first and you both have this whole character named William Moore Esquire and quickly realised that nobody got the Bill Moore joke. Nobody was going to get the William Moore joke. So Bill Moore is where we landed, you know, a NonEquityPartner at the imaginary firm Moore and Associates LLP to which I consider all my followers loyal associates.

19:28 Rob Hanna:

And I include myself in that as a loyal associate. And you’ve also previously mentioned, you know, “the best part about running the account is when people you, I, know in real life from law school or your own firm when they text you your own meme”. So tell us about that. What’s your initial reaction?

19:49 Bill Moore:

Oh, it’s the most satisfying thing in the world. I mean, I kept the account, largely anonymous from my peers and from my you know, law school colleagues. It’s very much an inside circle people who are in on it with me, which makes a lot of fun. You know, I’ll say as a side note, 1 of the advantages to you know, remaining anonymous is it allows everybody to sort of project their own qualities onto the account, you know. I’m sure there’s a large fraction of accounts that still think I’m a, I could be a woman, or go on to, you know, blogs like Fishbowl every now and then there’ll be some commentary about like, does anybody know who NonEquityPartner is and some people will say, you know, oh well, they post these, repost these articles from these, you know, female oriented satire sites and they have these like certain comments, I’m pretty sure it’s that and other people be like no I’m positive that, you know, he’s from Afghanistan because he posted his news about the Supreme Court over there. And everybody likes to sort of, you know, assign whatever they relate, because they relate to it and so they kind of take that relation to the next level and assume some personal characteristics, which I think is great. And I don’t want to inhibit that and let people’s imagination you know, we’re going to run wild with the account just like it’s, it’s done for me. On the other, you know, and then in my personal life, yeah, I get no greater joy than seeing the account, you know, do well, I think even when I follow my own friends on my personal Instagram account sometimes I’ll see them, you know, reposting NonEquityPartner posts on their stories which is flattering, but nothing is better than in real life seeing somebody mentioned it or send it to a group chat or something like that. It is just so satisfying and the 1 story that I always like to remember on this front was once I was first starting the account, a colleague of mine, and I went to an interview for a summer associate position and I think it ended earlier or something like that and we decided, I think we were only you know, 3rd year associates to go to, to get a lunch drink before we went back to the office and we thought we were being so sneaky and, and sly and came back to the office and then I saw a clip that was kind of being purposed in the memes that was on the show Parks and Rec, of 2 of the goofy characters kind of slinking around, making this little jingle about being, about saying, don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious. And so I repurposed that immediately and added a caption, and I was like when you and your work spouse go out for you know lunch drinks and try to come up back and posted well but it was so satisfying the next, a couple hours later, when said colleague comes into my office and goes, oh my God, look what NonEquityPartner just posted. It’s so us, it’s so us. And you know, little did she know it was us, was literally us. And so that just feels the best. The other fun part is I you know, when I do decide to let somebody into the, into the circle, and I’ve told them my work colleagues, either they’re leaving the profession or, or some other circumstance kind of takes the professional context or risk away, usually there’s this look of, you know, oh wow that’s, I’ve always been curious like, kind of wide eyed, like, wow you run that account, and then usually just followed by kind of, you know, exhale and being like, you know what actually this makes so much sense that you, you would run this account, and that which is always kind of a fun interaction to have. And so it’s, it’s been great. I hope this you know, I’m sure it’ll be a point at which either the account’s public or all my friends know and it’s, you know, these moments won’t come by as often so, you know, sure to cherish them as much as they can be done.

23:20 Rob Hanna:

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25:55 Bill Moore:

On the creative front? Well, you know, it’s, I’m glad you asked because I’m all for more content. I think the world is a better place. I think social media is a better place when, you know, there’s more thoughtful creativity put into things. And I think people are happier when they find those avenues. And, you know, I’m certainly a testament to the sort of, you know, joy and sort of mental health benefits that can bring from having a healthy outlet, and 1 that benefits others as, as well. But my advice is, you know, that, hopefully this isn’t too cynical, but you know, content is king. And I have the best, you know, thesis or the, you know, the funniest most quippy account name, but you know, a part of the social media as a feed and so producing lots of content continually is sort of what separates sort of, you know, the entry level hobbyists from sort of the, the mainstay names that that really stand the test of time. I think, I get a lot of DMs from a new account, you know, that it’ll open up like, you know, corporate law meme guy, and I’ll send me a DM saying hey I just created my account would love if you followed me, and they’ll have 4 posts up, and you know, you come back 2 months later or they DM me or 2 months later, and they’ve still got the same amount of posts up. I think a lot of people have a moment of inspiration, create a bunch of memes, and it could be funny, they could be great. I, you know, I, I personally invite everybody to have a little bit of skepticism when they first get into the content game about their first couple of content, but their first you know, entry level content to, you know, be professionally, be humble, and just realise that you’ll, you’ll, you’ll get better at what you’re doing and better at this, you know, as a craft like anything. Over time, I look at my own first posts when I started doing this and just cringe on a deep deep level that I thought that was so good that I, that that those posts, I thought were so funny that was worth creating an Instagram account over because you just learn about, you know, what, what does well, and then you get better at making things too. So, but the reason, you know, I was able to stick through that despite you know meandering engagement for months on end was just really a love for what I was doing. Ultimately, it has to come from a place of wanting to do it for the sake of doing it not just for, you know, if you’re sitting there needing the commercial engagement on the other side, then it’s gonna be an unsatisfactory, unsatisfying game. There’s certainly a business to this and I’m sure there’s, you know, plenty of guides online on how to be a successful influencer. And a lot of I’ve seen a lot of people do it very well. And I think there’s people like me and other sort of content forward creators who, who I leave a lot of that engagement on the table because they want to sort of preserve the, the, the art of it, not to get, you know, too melodramatic or anything like that. But, I think, you know, my number 1 advice on that front, is, you know, if you want to do this because you enjoy memes, do you think you’d be good at it, I would say go into it with a professional amount of, of humility, and, and just want to stand the test of time it’s going to really come down to your love for the craft itself and for doing it, regardless of the engagement and then, you know, an ability to learn and, and, and adapt. Like I said when I was starting off and when I, when I started to grow, you know, a sort of a, a more critical rate was when I started really looking at what other accounts are doing, adopting best practices and really just being as receptive to, to feedback as possible and just realise a lot of my posts were these guys thought they were dragging bigger accounts to repost me which you know, takes swallowing your pride a bit to beg and, and then when they did, just being grateful and reposting them a bunch of times you know, there’s very much a community here that’s, that’s pretty supportive if, if you’re willing to engage in it in the right way and, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t sort of you know, mention the community. I, I talked about a guy a Big Law Boiz earlier, he and I think we realised retroactively that we started our account within I think 10 days of each other and we’ve kind of grown up side by side and we’ve very similar content. I’ve been on his podcast live we’re good friends now and MBA Mikey toos and other guy and he gave us about a group chat going since we were all sub 100 followers that sort of come up in the space together but support from you know, people like that is really sort of 1 of the, the fun parts about you know, growing an account is, there is a, there’s a community within the community, so to speak. So being open, you know, on a personal level and on a, you know, artistic level I think are sort of keys to success. And then yeah, and then being dedicated, I think not getting discouraged early on with meandering engagement, I think people put a post out there and they expect it to do as well as the other things that they’ve seen before. And then, you know, their, their bout of inspiration sort of flames out. And that’s sad to see because there’s a lot of great creators out there and love to see new people pursue it more with more dedication, but I think, yeah, the good, the good part is, is you keep seeing new people come up all the time. I see new accounts come up that are doing really really well. Some of the accounts that started after me have now eclipsed me in terms of following size. And what’s really cool too is I see creators adapt to new technology. I mean if you really want to be on the bleeding, bleeding edge and get a follower to quickly is to just see what is the coolest, you know, trendiest teenager thing going on. All credit to Alex Su for getting on TikTok and putting his face out there, that was something that a lot of us just aren’t and weren’t willing to do. And he’s reaped the rewards of taking that risk. So learning what the new sort of formats are and being willing to, you know, dive into the deep end is, is certainly a way you can accelerate your path forward as well.

31:06 Rob Hanna:

I love that. And so many great nuggets of wisdom, you share just a few things. I wanted to highlight the importance of community which we’ve talked a lot about on this discussion but also consistency, you know, there is no such thing as an overnight success. Even if you have 1 viral post that happens just on the off chance really to get that trust and that authority online, you have to be consistent, you have to put in the work and keep showing up and creativity, like you said, content is king, you need to ensure that you embrace creativity, seek inspiration from others. And also make sure you mentioned before, there’s no harm in sharing other people’s content, maybe putting your own spin on it but credit the original creator, there’s nothing worse in terms of bad practice or ethics online, if you’re going to share other people’s content and not credit them. So, look it’s awesome what you’ve achieved to date. And I know it’s only going in 1 direction but, for people who want to know more about Bill Moore what are the plans for the future? Will you be expanding your meme empire to other social media platforms? Tell us more.

32:06 Bill Moore:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first and foremost, the brand is here to stay as is on, you know, on Instagram, at least that is the sort of flagship and hopefully there’s many more years of good content to come. Hopefully, there’s a lot of things I’m really excited about some things that have already been launched, we launched the NonEquityPartner shop last year and looking forward to making some fun updates on that front and that’s, that’s really reached an interesting audience and sort of a really cool way to engage followers is sort of getting pictures of you know, the gear being worn around the world. Either a really interesting thing we launched this last year was legal talent services, you know, the, the lateral market is a scary place and the recruiting sort of landscape is a difficult 1 to navigate. There’s a lot of noise and there’s a lot of perverse incentives can be really distracting for somebody who’s trying to navigate this scarier world, especially if you’re somebody like me who didn’t come from a big law, you know, traditional recruiting background. And so, just like the media kind of tried to apply or, or provide some transparency and authenticity into your kind of opaque of culture that sort of behind the ball, we tried to apply the same sort of principles into the recruiting space to and we provided a market and different recruiting services for people who are in big law, especially trying to lateral. Ee have a lot of open roles posted right now on NonEquityPartner dot com and are trying to breathe some fresh air into that space as well. We got a couple of interesting things coming down the line too recently, this last year, actually really in the last month and a half, we expand, I expanded our private investment group, you know, a lot of the advertisers I work with are, I mean, every advertiser I work with has to be a strategic partner and in some front. I say a lot, no to a lot more advertisers than we say yes to. And that’s because we don’t want to obviously dilute the brand. But really, we want to be able to provide, we want each ad that we run to, to provide some kind of value to our followers. So that’s really opened the door for a lot of interesting legal tech companies and other law adjacent sort of start-ups to, to find their way. And through that I’ve been able to become a consultant for some of these start-ups, especially with their go to market strategy, you know how to reach big law attorneys and I’ve invested in several of them as well. And I’ve wanted to open that opportunity to my followers as well. So recently did a call for people who are accredited investors and might be interested in learning about some of these opportunities to invest in, in private opportunities, in private companies, because it’s not kind of deal flow that you get when you’re working 100 plus hours a week at a big law firm. So I’m really excited to open that to my followers. And you know, if you’re listening to this and you are interested in becoming part of that and you’re accredited investor and want to learn about some of this, feel free to reach out to me via DM or email Bill at NonEquityPartner dot com. So really excited about that. I have some other interesting things in the works to, possibly some podcast related work. But that’s, you know, a little bit too early to announce yet.

34:49 Rob Hanna:

Well, it’s all very exciting from merchandise to things going around the world to podcasts and everything else in between. It’s certainly been a journey but that’s the magic of content creation and where it can take you to all these different avenues. So it’s been an absolute blast learning more and you touched on it there, but if people do want to follow or get in touch about any of the things we’ve discussed today, is it the best way to send you a DM or what is the best way? And shout out your website as well, so people can go to the website.

35:17 Bill Moore:

Sure, sure. Yeah, that’s where to get in contact with me as usually DM I try to get to them within a week, I do see all of them, I don’t respond to all of them. Otherwise, I’d be responding to about 50 people who you know, accidentally reply haha to a story that their friend sent them when they meant to send to their friend. I get a lot of those. There’s a lot of just scrolling through the inbox looking for somebody whose actually trying to reach out about something substantive, but I will see it. Otherwise, you can shoot me an email Bill at NonEquityPartner dot com. We’ll be able to triage those. And then yeah, and then if you actually go to the website, NonEquityPartner dot com right now, you can have access to our in-house compensation survey that we ran last year. I guess that was another project that we’d love to do again. We surveyed 1000s of people about sort of the landscape of going in-house and what that can mean for your career compensation implications based on what year you transferred, what industry you exercise and what city. And it turns out, it sounds like it’s helped a lot of people. I recently received a quite expensive gift actually from a follower who sent it because they were able to use my report to negotiate a 20% raise based on market standards. So that was really, really cool to see that’s able to help people in a really material way that they might not otherwise have had access to. But I digress, that, that report is available for free on the website, as well as merchandise and the job portal as well. So NonEquityPartner dot com spelled the same way as, as it is on Instagram and the links in the bio as well.

36:36 Rob Hanna:

Awesome. Well, so many great things so much value you’re bringing to the community. So I would like to thank you ever so much for coming on the show. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you, I’ve had an absolute blast really enjoyed it but wishing you lots of continued success with your content creation, community building and various other entrepreneurial ventures as you pursue your career. But now from all of us on the Legally Speaking Podcast over and out. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you liked the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website www dot Legally Speaking Podcast dot com for the link to join our community there. Over and out.