 I want to be someone who's approachable. I want to be someone who's accessible and I want to be someone who at the end of the day, the clients are happy that they worked with. They felt like they got a fair shake at that thing. All right. So welcome to the podcast, Jonathan. Hi. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah. So to everyone that's watching, I'm Kyla DeNanio. You're watching the You Are A Boyer podcast. To everyone that's listening, hey, and make sure you go check out the YouTube channel. Jonathan, you mentioned that you also wanted to spotlight your YouTube channel. What's the name of that? That if you look up Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, you can find my channel. We've got tons of interviews, videos, podcasts. You name it. We got it. Take a look. Okay. All right. Cool. So I am going to put you a little bit in the hot seat because you were recommended to me as a guest. And I typically talk to lawyers with funky hobbies, really cool interests. Give us your best shot. What's something cool that nobody really knows about you or something that you would find interesting? No, this is not, you're not putting me in the hot seat at all. Actually, you know, I probably am not very typical of 99% of lawyers you talk to. You know, in the fact that I just my interests are really diverse. I like anything athletic outside. I mean, you name it, biking, hiking, swimming, running, hot yoga, love making pizza, collect wine. Do you want me to go on? No. But no, seriously, I have a lot of interest outside of the legal sphere. Yeah. So do you have like a pizza oven outside or anything? I do. I do. I do. I do. I've got a pretty substantial pizza, wood-burning pizza oven outside. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that counts. All right. Make the dough, you know, do it from, you know, soup to knots. Do it. Yeah. Okay. So without getting too much into the details, we were talking before and you mentioned that you have a property in Florida, but I know you took the bar exam in Illinois. Yes. What's the connection there? Are you from one state but live in the other or what? I just love, I love sun. I like heat and I like the water and been going to Florida my whole life and it's just sort of second home to me. Okay, cool. And are you in Florida now? I am not. I am in Glencoe, Illinois, which is about 20 miles north of Chicago. Okay. Very cool. So I'm in Ohio, so yay for Midwest. So, Jonathan, would you tell the audience a little bit about your background, your story, and what you are doing now for your career? Yeah, of course. So, you know, I went to college. I started in the business school. I went to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. And at the time, the curriculum, the core curriculum was a very heavy computer focus, programming, a lot of programming. And it was not something that really resonated with me, nor was I very good at. So, I quickly shifted gears, went, changed over to the journalism program at Lehigh, graduated. And then my parents said, well, now what? I said, I have no idea. And they said, well, how about law school? And I said, all right. So, in the absence of other options, I wanted to go into law school. I went to Chicago Kent in Chicago. And, you know, frankly, was not particularly fond of law school and really didn't do particularly well in law school. But I did wind up clerking at a personal injury law firm, I think during my, maybe my first year. And right away, that was, I just, you know, I had no background with it or anything. But that was just something that I just walked into resonated with me. And that was really the only type of law that I've ever been exposed to that I've ever practiced or whatever, in any way, fast forward to graduation and everything else. I did, I worked at numerous personal injury firms across the city. And I wound up opening my own law firm, probably, I don't know, 10, actually, probably about 12, 13 plus years ago. So that's what I do now. It's called Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers. We do different types of personal injury, malpractice cases, you know, in Chicago, we also do a lot of mass toward type cases all over the country. Okay. So are there other lawyers in your family? Was there anything that prompted your parents to say, I bet you would be a lawyer. You seem like Uncle Simon Ziller. You know, we do have some lawyers in the family. None of them really were practicing attorneys. They all, you know, went to law school, maybe, you know, they, they practiced law for a few years or something. And then they wound up gravitating towards some type of business or something else. And, you know, and they just, everyone sort of, you know, just said to me, Hey, this is a great background, no matter what you do. Yeah. Well, I think that's an interesting point, because you actually are a business owner, right? You own your own law firm. So how did law school tie into the business skills that you need as a law firm owner? To be honest with you, there's nothing that is taught in law school about business, the business aspect. About contracts. Maybe your, maybe your contract, maybe your contract, uh, professor taught, taught, you know, business. But no, seriously, I mean, you know, at the time, I didn't really have a whole lot of perspective or anything, but looking back on it, I'm actually surprised and shocked at how little they teach you about the, the business aspect of law. And, you know, you, you don't have to be a law firm owner or anything, but the reality is law is a business. And, you know, like anything else, and you, there are certain core skills that I think people need to have in order to be successful, you know, lawyers, again, whether, regardless if they want to be, you know, run their own law firm or whatever. But ultimately, you know, there's a huge premium on getting business, you know, unless you have a super, super, super specialty that, you know, there's just, you know, such high demand for the other 99% of us have to go out and, you know, get business. And I just think they do a really poor job of that, at least in my law school. Okay. Well, I'm sorry to hear that Chicago Kent. I went to law school in Louisiana, and I remember as a 2L, we had to take a course called Business Entities. Okay. Now again, it didn't teach you how to start a business, but it did teach us the differences between S-Corps, LOCs, you know, things like that. So I get, I get what you're coming from. And then I remember the courses, especially for stuff I'm interested in now, like I was working in intellectual property and trademark law. All of your trademark, copyright courses, all of those were electives. So if you chose not to take them, if you elected not to take them, yeah, you wouldn't have any background in it. So, you know, and a lot of people, myself included, you know, they don't really know what they want to do, you know, when they go into law school, you know, the first day, the first week, the first year of law school, you know, a lot of times people don't really have a direction or they may think they have a direction, but not the direction they actually wind up going in. So, you know, I think law schools sometimes need to be a little bit more broad with their core curriculum. Yeah, absolutely. So you started in trial practice and you said torts, and that's actually what you're still doing now. So do you think that what you learned while you were working is what really set the foundation for you on the type of lawyer that you wanted to be? Absolutely. You know, you can read tort books and you can take, you know, tort law and everything else. And, you know, there is some basic background that you have that you get from that. But the truth is, is that until you start practicing and until you actually see how the system works and see how really how people are impacted by, you know, an accident, you really don't have any appreciation for how to handle the case. And so the only way to do that as far as I'm concerned is by, you know, boots on the ground, trial and error, you know, working through those types of cases. So that's sort of what I've done, you know, and that's, you know, something I don't shy away from, you know, I think there's something to be said for learning how to do things in the real world as opposed to sitting in the classroom. Yeah, I definitely believe that. And so what ultimately motivated you to open your own firm? Were you looking around and you were like, Hey, I can do this? Or did you think you could bring a different aspect to this type of law that hasn't been shown before? A little of both. You know, obviously, you know, I've worked for other people in the past and I've seen how they run their law firms. And, you know, I've seen the things that I like about that and the things I don't like about it. But ultimately, I sort of felt like a lot of the law firms 20 plus years ago, they were still run in a really old, stodgy way, you know, in order to talk to your lawyer, you know, the client had to, you know, basically go through the receptionist and the receptionist had to transfer you to the secretary and the secretary to transfer you to the attorney. And it was sort of like, or the paralegal, or the paralegal. And it was just a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of elitness almost. And I felt like, especially in the world of personal injury, you know, people from all walks of life, you know, are typical clients. We don't really have a typical client. But, you know, at the end of the day, when someone has a question, has a concern, they want to talk to their attorney. And I felt like giving people access to me and to the other attorneys in my office was really a core value that we have. And that we really needed to serve. And so that was a huge vacuum, I felt, in terms of what I was seeing, how law firms were operated and how I wanted to be. I want to be someone who's approachable. I want to be someone who's accessible. And I want to be someone who, at the end of the day, clients are happy that they worked with, they felt like they got a fair shake at, at things. Yeah. So I think that's really interesting because you've mentioned, at least in your pre-recording questionnaire, that a JD is just a piece of paper. And I kind of get that now while listening to you, right? It sounds like, yeah, you've earned this, but you had to put the work into it after you earned it, right? You had to put the work into it to use the education that you received. Would you give a little bit more detail about why you think, you know, the JD is just a piece of paper. Everything that comes after is what you do. Yeah. I just feel like everyone, regardless of if it's just law or banking or whatever industry you're in, you know, you got to go out and prove yourself every day. No one cares if you got an A plus in property or torts or any other class in law school, if you're not serving them, if that doesn't help them, you know, that's great. You know, you can have all the awards you want on the wall and all the diplomas you want in the wall, but until you actually go out and use those skills and actually really help someone, I don't really think it holds a whole lot of weight. And the people I find who, you know, are genuinely invested in clients and genuinely out there to help people are really the people who tend to have more success as opposed to the people who just sort of, you know, point to the plaque on the wall or the diploma. And so that's just again, that's just another core value that I have in that, you know what, I don't care what your background is. I don't care, you know, where you're from. I want to provide the best service possible. Yeah. That is reminding me of a lot of my law mentor from law school, right? He was the guy who would go to the steakhouse in sweatsuits because he's like, who cares if you can pay? I don't have to wear a sleeve. And what you're saying sounds like that, right? Like, I don't have to lead with my accolades. You can see it, you know? Yeah. I mean, there's something to be said for people who, you know, they let their actions speak for themselves as opposed to wearing a fancy suit or having this air of elitness around them. And that's just something that, again, it's not me. That's not, these aren't traits that I've developed recently. This is sort of something. This is just who I am. And there's people, you know, out there who, you know, do things differently. And that's fine. But, you know, as far as dedication and sincerity, those are things that I just value tremendously. Again, whether you're an attorney, a doctor, it doesn't matter. These are just things that I want to portray to others. And I hope I don't deviate too much from those as I get older. Yeah. I think you'll stick true to it. I can hear the sincerity and I can tell that you really believe it, right? And I mean, to everyone watching, I'm in a sweatshirt. He's really, you know what I mean? Like, and we're lawyers, you don't have to be top hat, big, you know what I mean? You don't need all the fuss and pomp and circumstance. And that's making me think of something you were mentioning that you like to be outside, do all this stuff. You're giving these like surfer vibes. Do you surf as well? I do. I like anything in the water. I grew up swimming. I swim competitively from the time I was like, you know, eight through college. So there's probably something in my DNA with water. And I just love it. So when I'm doing all these things, I'm thinking about, you know, whether it's a case or a problem at work or whatever it is. And that just helps me work through those issues. So things being equal, would I rather be in the water? Hell yeah. But I mean, it sounds like you have some good work-life balance before it was even like a cliche thing to say. It sounds like you've had that going. I think so. If you ask my wife, I probably, you know, I probably do that too much. But no, it's something I just think it's really important for everyone to do something that works for them. You know, I'm not saying I'm not saying everyone should do this, but you know, you got to find something that works for you. Yeah. So Jonathan, last question here. I do think we learned a lot, right? You own a law firm, but you are not defined by being an attorney. You have all these other things going. Is there anything you would like to share with the audience about how they can create the life and the practice that they want? You know, I think the biggest misconception that people have is a lot of times people see something or they see someone and they say, oh, that guy, that woman, you know, it came easy to them. You know, it's sort of like, you know, oh, it's easy for them. It's hard for me. And the truth is, is that the people who are successful and the people who, you know, have long-term success, not just sort of a flash in the pan, but long-term success, put in so much work, most people would never believe it. And, you know, I always tell people, you know what, if you're looking for immediate success, you're probably not going to find it. So just be persistent, work hard, continue to work hard. And, you know, ultimately, if you do that, you know, you'll have some success and you can go in the direction that you want. Yeah, I love that. I often tell people, you know, I can't wait for five years from now when I become an overnight success. I'm hoping for 10. I'm hoping for 10, you know, but no, it's a grind. And if it were easy, you know, everyone would be rich and skinny. Okay. It's hard. Everything's hard. And the sooner you realize that, the, you know, the better it is for you. Yep. And the sooner you can become rich and skinny. That's right. All right. Well, thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's great. All right. Bye.