 Welcome back to another episode of In the Studio, and here during pandemic days we're not actually in the studio, we're doing these programs remotely. We're glad to have you with us. Just a reminder, you can access the full archive of In the Studio and other DMA programs online at DCTV.Davismedia.org, and you can also check them out on our YouTube channel, and we share them frequently on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, so lots of places to follow us. I'm really glad today to welcome my guest, Elena Fuel Howard, and she is an attorney of council with a new business in our area called Rational Unicorn. Welcome Elena. Thank you, Adam. So first of all, let's learn a little bit about you, and then we'll talk about the business and what it means to provide legal services for creatives. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm from Davis. I've been here basically my whole life, Davis Woodland. My family has actually been here for quite a long time. I always loved Davis. I left briefly to go to law school in San Diego and met my husband, Zuna B husband, brought him back with me, had a couple of kids, practiced some law, and then I took a hiatus for a while. And now I am ready to go back full force. Great. I want to tell viewers that we had a really fun way we connected. So I was on Instagram on my personal account one evening, just scrolling the feeds as you do. And I started seeing that somebody named Rational Unicorn had liked a bunch of my posts. And I thought Rational Unicorn, who is this? So I want to say it's not every day you meet a unicorn, but we connected because you had seen the Davis California geotag and it was a nice connection. And I told you about what we did here and invited you to come talk to us on the show. I do have to ask about the name Rational Unicorn. What's the story there? Well, that's the brainchild of the principal of the firm, his name is Michael Jonas. He went through quite a ride before he passed the bar he took it a few times. And once he was ready to open a firm, he didn't want it to be just his name. He wanted it to be and he didn't want it to be, you know, Jonas' justice firm. He wanted it to be something off the cuff. So he came up with Rational Unicorn basically saying go for your dreams, but do it in a way where you make a plan, steps in order to make that dream a reality, basically. Right. Right. Well, and it's effective. It definitely caught my attention. So all right. So the we named the segment Legal Services for Creatives because when I was researching the company, I learned two things. One, legal services are they can be very expensive and the Rational Unicorn has a stated purpose of affordable legal care for all. So let's talk about our legal services for all. Let's talk about what that means first. How does that play out in the business? Well, our motto is legal services for everybody in the business community. Right. Right. There's a disconnect between people that can afford the higher, you know, hourly priced firm and then the pro bono type services. So we're trying to fill that gap because we feel a lot of people could benefit from our help in creating contracts, reviewing documents before they sign in order to make their dream a reality. We feel that people deserve that sort of service. That's why part of our model is to be flat feet based. So you can kind of budget that out like, you know, middle classes real, you know, human beings do in a business. So let's let's pause for a second and define the term creatives because that could mean different things to different people. So for purposes of this discussion, how would you define that? Basically creatives as manifesting your creative thinking, whether it's in books, in performance art, in singing, even, you know, things like soap making, there's artistry in that painting, all of those producing music, sorry. That is all creative work and it all can be protected. Okay. So then what are some of the specific legal challenges for creatives? Well, some can be, for instance, if you sign with a producer to produce your music. Having that discussion of who's going to own that music, if you decide it's not going to be you, do you reserve that right to use it in your portfolio for the future? Things like that, trademarking, a copywriting written works, very important. When you do steps, when you take steps like that, you protect yourself in a way where if somebody infringes on something that you have created and registered, you are, you can proceed to get a certain amount of damages, which can be very difficult to prove otherwise. And the little bit I know about copyright law is that it's incredibly complicated and it comes up. Here's an everyday example of how it comes up. We frequently record community events here at Davis Media Access. We're out in the community. We record something where there's people do a performance to a piece of music or they play a piece of music and we don't own the copyright to that music. We put the video on YouTube and we immediately get, it's not a copyright strike, but we get a notice that someone has lodged a complaint that we're using something. In most cases for public access, if it's short, we can apply fair use and everything's okay and we move on. But understanding copyright, I mean, that's a specialty in and of itself and we often tell our volunteer producers, we are not copyright lawyers. We, you know, you're going to have to do the research or consult an attorney. Now I know where to send them. So that's one thing. So beyond copyright, what are some of the common problems? Let me give you an example. So I own an Etsy shop and I've never needed legal services for that. But for example, if I decided I wanted to take on a partner, how would I go about protecting myself if I came to you? What would you recommend for me? Well, if you haven't already formed a business like an LLC, we would look at that and also compare it to a corporation. It just protects you for liability and things of that nature. And then in that formation, you create what's called a partnership operating agreement and it kind of outlines what's going to happen when certain, like, for instance, if the partnership decides that it's no longer going to work, what are specific steps that we need to take in order to dissolve this collaboration. Additionally, it also describes whose duties are what. Some people are more of a manager type role in a partnership. So having all those things outlined really helps you in the future when there might be some confusion or disagreement over who is assigned to do what and who has authorized to do what. Okay. So going back to the beginning, the business is actually based in Portland and you have recently, I think in July, opened the Davis office. So you're here to provide these services. We're going to put your website on there so people know how to contact the business and all of that. When we were talking in the lead up to this interview, you also mentioned that Rational Unicorn offers a variety of seminars. So I wondered if you could kind of tell us about some of those. I believe there's actually one coming recently. It's basically business law by real professionals. Most of them are based on explaining the law in a very real way that pertains to this one is a general one, but there are some that are just to DJs, to wedding photographers, like specific concerns that people in certain industries may need clarification upon. That's one of our part of our mission is to make law accessible to everybody. It should be understood. We're very, we believe in plain language and, you know, get rid of the here to force and let's just talk about what we really are agreeing to here and what somebody else is really trying to say. Right, because most of us don't understand legalese to that extent, which is why we need to consult lawyers in the first place. So, yeah, so, so that's great. And we're glad to have you in in Davis and we're glad to know about this new business. And we're, you know, we're hoping that that I'm actually wondering if we can get a guest speaker in here at some point on to speak to DJs and specific concerns because we run a radio station. So that's something we'll have to talk about. What else would you like to know? My husband is actually a DJ as well. Ah, is he for a local station? Nice. No, he he just he does like corporate and weddings and things like that. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Right. I think one of the risks for creatives is that when you're when you're literally creating something from your soul and you're offering it out there, people are either going to like it or they're not and the complications come in when they hire you to do it and then don't like it. So I I think it really becomes a question of how do you protect yourself? I've even thought about that. I'm a jewelry designer and I've even thought about that making custom pieces for people that it feels risky every time I actually kind of don't like doing it because it feels like there's more risk to it. So all right. Anything else we need to know about the risk? I'm sorry. That's okay. Go ahead. That's that's a common feeling too is like and that's where contracts really, really come into play and to help you out in that sort of situation. Additionally, we also find that a lot of people because they're not sure if somebody's going to like it or if you know it's if whatever the product is popular, they don't think that they need to think about that right now. They think, well, I'll make some money first and then I will think about that. But a lot of times that can be, you know, detrimental and it may be, you know, inhibit you from creating more art because you're dealing with something um legal on the side. Yeah. And the reality is we live in a litigious society. So there's no there's kind of no getting away from that. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us today. We've been speaking with Elena Fuel Howard of Rational Unicorn Legal Services PC. I hope I got that right. And it's been a delight to get to know you a little bit. This is about legal services for creatives and a new business in the area that is focused on that. And we're going to make sure we put up their website at the end so you can get more information. And thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Adam. Thank you so much. All right. You've been watching in the studio here at Davis Media Access remote COVID version. You all take care, wear your mask, wash your hands, stay safe.