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evening. My name is John Rizvi, I'm a type attorney. And I have a confession to make. And that that is that anytime I am asked to speak, I try to find the hosts to introduce me. And I try to get their attention in advance and I say, am I practicing for 15 years as a patent attorney, professor at the law school, for the past four years, I've been part of this group for years for this old small, firm network. And the reality is the reason I do this is because I have the fortune or curse, depending on how you look at it, looking like I've just graduated from law school. My wife, my wife, and I have five kids. And
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now, a lot of you don't know this, and that's because in this day and age having five kids and it sets you apart as being a freak. So I tried to keep that down, kind of hidden. The problem is and goosefoot in his left tonight, but when I didn't know him that well he would you ask him sit down, and how's the baby? And so I said, Well, fine. You years after that I've been part of this for 10 years, John, how's the baby? Fine. And then finally, my conscience got to me because I had a mediation that Bruce Goodman was part of it. I took Bruce aside as intrusive and asked me how the baby is I have a confession to make. I have five. Anyway, that's I'm a patent attorney. And that means is always had attorneys. I was an engineer before I was a lawyer. In fact, I was the kid that would take your screwdriver to a Rubik's Cube, break it apart, to figure out how it worked. And my my dream and ambition as a young child was to figure out a way to make a spherical Rubik's cube. And you can tell the nerds early. Anyway, I was devastated when of course it came out. It wasn't invented by me. But there is a spherical Rubik's Cube now and talk about a downer that in that game, that was supposed to be my invention. But what I wanted to talk about today, and one of the things I contemplate I simply speak about some of the fascinating inventions that kind of protected for my clients. Some of them have become multimillion dollar companies. A lot of my clients have retired off of their patents. But I won't talk about that. And the reason is, I have learned many years ago that engineers find things interesting and fascinating that nobody else does. What I will talk about is a difficult decision I had to make over a dozen years ago. We've my firm in New York, and start on my own. Now in order to understand this, you need to know a little bit about this firm. I used to work for efficient leave, which is a couple IP attorneys in the audience today. Fish neem is the oldest and best known intellectual property firm. In the United States. They patented the Wright Brothers airplane, they patented Thomas Edison's light bulb, Henry Ford's automotive innovations Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. This is probably the firm with the strongest pedigree and intellectual property that exist. The other thing about efficient EEG is they've got it could be cited as an example of golden handcuffs. The firm starts first year associates at $160,000 a year. The bonuses are equally staggering. In fact, they contribute to a 401 k miles will appreciate the benefit of bad weather more than anywhere else. When the year I left fishing leave my bonus was greater in my entire salary as an engineer ever was. Now that being said, the firm provides health insurance, medical and medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance. And this is where I'll just you know, I will tell you the reason they provide all of this insurance in my view is they can get a brand new, healthy, fresh graduate in about three months, they don't need no insurance. They are going to need dental insurance. Because in order to entice you to work, you know, you work through lunch to pay for lunch, you work through dinner to pay for dinner, you say you come in over the weekend, you can send a car service to your house xinyuan with the EU, wherever you wind, it probably gained about 30 pounds in the first three months there. But I did last there five years. So eventually I put a stop to that. I wanted to get out. There's nothing I wanted more. It's a we fish in EVE in New York. Now when you have orders for the top patent firm in the world, you know, you don't want to leave for some second class, up and comer. And of course, I guess the firm has brainwashed me well in that. So I thought if I'm going to leave, I'm going to go out on my own. Now, of course to leave a firm like that and go out on your own. It's tough. It's you know, so how do I convince and you know, one of the things that I looked at, I spoke to Elizabeth stack, who's the director of the University of Miami career planning office, I said was, you know, I can't get the courage to start out on my own. I went to University of Miami, I want to come back to South Florida. Can you find me a law firm that can kind of soften my landing here in South Florida. And then as I get the courage to go out on my own, I'll do it then. And I you know, I said, John, you need to speak to Spencer Ehrenfeld. And he's a well known personal injury attorney in South Florida, he started his own firm. I didn't, but I think my knees had a lot more rain than we have in Broward. He wasn't able to come. And Spencer is, and I see a lot of first year law or law students here. When everybody else is telling young lawyers and law students that you don't know your head from your rear end sensor is a guy that says you know what? Trust your instincts, trust your gut, and go for it. And I wish you were you were here today. And I certainly appreciate all that Spencer has done for me, in encouraging me and he did in so Okay, so I'm convinced I want to go out, I want to start my own firm. Those of you. You might think, okay, that's half the battle, if you marry, you have the second half ahead of you to convince your wife that this actually makes sense. If you're married 10 years, or more like myself, you know, the reality is that's not half the battle, convincing yourself especially if you're a guy is about 20% of the battle. The rest of it is an uphill battle that you know, the fight. So, you know, lawyers are supposed to be great at persuading. So here I am, you know, honey, only one of us have a job between us. We have a two year old and other ad on the way. We're not going to have any health insurance. The dental insurance is gone. Yeah, isn't insurance when is gonna go? My vision was, you know, because of working efficiently for five years, you're in front of a computer for 12 hours a day, the vision was going to last as well. You have no savings. I have no clients. And it's all you know, you know, I there's a couple of New Yorkers here to view. My wife's from, of course, from the New York area, you know, New Yorkers view of Florida, and they certainly don't think that as we're only in veterans with. So here's, I turned to my wife and say, Okay, this is something that I want to do, I'm convinced. And she said, Yes. She said yes. And that is something that I will forever, eternally grateful to her for. That's the second most important Yes, he's given me my entire life. The first one, of course, is when she agreed to marry.
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Of course you don't know about this, because then you would never come please stand up.
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I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me in a time when I could scarcely muster up the courage to believe in myself. Thank you so much. I am happier today than I have ever been a divorce firm in New York. I'm healthier today than I have ever been at a law firm in New York. And in fact, I even wealthier to a large firm in New York. And, of course, I'm preaching to the choir here because I'm talking to solo small, firm attorneys. And if there ever is a group that understands the beauty and power of working for yourself, making your own decisions, and the freedom that comes with that this group is it. I have found in the solo smartphone network over the past 10 years. I found my home here, and you guys are my friends. I definitely am very grateful to Loring for putting this group together. It's a group that I share a lot of ideas with.
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You