Probate FAQs, with Las Vegas Probate Attorney Lee Drizin

0:01 Welcome to Probate Weekly, where we regularly interview probate attorneys, do probate administration, probate attorneys do litigation, estate planning, and vendors. And the thing I like about this is I know I have the right person when instead of complaining about problems they have or difficult files, they brag about them or their face lights up when we talk about it. And I have to tell you Lee Drizin and I were just chatting a little bit before we started and I said have you ever had properties where there's a fire? He His face lit up and said well hold on to that, let's talk about that in the podcast. So I'm really excited today to have Lee Drizin who is a probate attorney in the state of Nevada located in Las Vegas, Clark County, Las Vegas. And so we met him through top real estate agent and good friend of the program Rennie Millmaster who's a one of the best real estate agents in Las Vegas as well. So Lee, thank you so much for joining us today. Great. Thanks Bill for having us. So I think that the bread and butter of your practice you say is probate. What drew you to this specialty versus all the other areas of law that you're licensed and qualified to participate in? Well, that's a great question. I actually had started out working as a tax attorney at what was then the tax department of a big eight accounting firm. And after a couple years set up my own practice as a tax attorney in Boston. And was doing actually a lot of criminal defense work. And eventually I came back to Las Vegas where I had grown up and joined a firm where we were doing a lot of civil litigation. But when I set up my own practice probably more than 22 years ago I think it was, I really gravitated towards probate work. And quite frankly, the reason because I find it some of the most gratifying work. It's clients that are coming to us when they're incredibly overwhelmed, their stress levels are enormous, they've lost a loved one, they've just been devastated. Right. And the ability to take the time and help them get through these problems.

1:59 It's been incredibly rewarding and that's one of the things that I think stands out in my mind of what attracted me to probate work. You know, that's it is true and I feel like the same thing with real estate and this is why I'm in this is, you know, it's gratifying people at their worst. I think they need somebody a person who's at their best and I feel like this is the area that I built in my business expertise. I know you're referred to me by, as I said, one of the top Realtors® that long-time friend, top producer, but more importantly, does a really good job. Randy Milman and I asked him, "Hey, do you know a great probate attorney or two in Las Vegas?" Your name came to him like that. Those relationships are important because I don't know necessarily that attorneys understand how things can go sideways if the real estate agent isn't paying attention to the details. Talk a bit about your relationship with Randy and or other professionals that you work with as opposed to just randomly, if you're not experienced, starting from scratch and trying to do your Google search to find a vendor. Well, I can tell you Randy's great. We've had a lot of transactions that he and I worked on together. And what I look for in an agent is very similar to the way that we practice probate work, which is recognizing we're a service industry and I think a lot of lawyers unfortunately forget that and so we train, whether it's my receptionist or the legal assistant and the paralegal, everybody to understand the stress that people are under and how we can help deal with that. In fact, it's interesting cuz I just had a client yesterday where we were closing out the probate and we always do a post-closing interview to explain to them the last steps and they just were so thankful of everything we had done and even went out of the way to make sure to thank me and described for my one of my legal assistants how she was an amazing ambassador for the firm. And so, that's been my nickname for her now. She's my ambassador.

4:02 And that to me is the rewarding, that we get that kind of feedback from the clients. But, we look for that in the agents all the time. And, sometimes it's really difficult because some probate sales are a little bit different than regular residential sales of real property. And sometimes I think that the agents don't realize the stress that families are dealing with, and they're a little cold, or distant from the agent and not sympathetic to Look, it's tough for them to go into mom's house and have to now clean out all of her belongings. And we understand those kinds of delays. And I think it goes a long way with good agents that handle these kinds of probate sales to step back and think about this. And I and I and I always think to them, "Look, what if this was one of your parents that passed away?" Put yourself in the client's shoes and take that perspective cuz they need a little more hand-holding with these kinds of transactions. You know, it's interesting what you say because, there's really, I think, two diametrically opposed, skills are important to be great at your business. I think the same is true with me as a real estate agent, which is on one hand, a detailed knowledge, depth, experience on the technical side of what to do, how to do it, the systems, procedures, the processes, the team members that can that can deliver consistent good service. And then there's the soft skills, which is understanding we're dealing with human beings. And so, you can have the most perfect system in the world, but they're emotionally not able to get started, our job, that doesn't necessarily mean you personally, but your team's job is to help that person emotionally. And so you describe your ambassador as being that role. I know it's I'm sure you could do some of that, but with the size of your practice, so it seems to me you must have kind of a couple sets of people. You must have some really sharp paralegals. You must

6:04 Have some really sharp ambassadors. It can't It's not the same person, is it? It can't be the same person. Well, we Or it's hard to find the same person. We work as a team. So, they will be assigned. I handle and oversee each and every probate in our office. So, the clients know they're going to be directly with me. But they also have a paralegal that's assigned to it and a legal assistant. And so from the top down, they know that if they can't get a hold of me, they know who's the next person that they can contact. So, that

6:35 Well, that's the other thing that we're sensitive to is this issue of communication because they may have something that pops up and for them it's a crisis. We may not necessarily think it's a crisis, but we still respond as quickly as possible. So, having them to be able to have access because interestingly enough, year in and year out, it's one of the biggest complaints that's made to the state bar about attorneys is that I can't get a returned phone call. 100%. 100%. And That's in California, too. It's not a Nevada thing. It's not a Las Vegas thing. That's the number one complaint of customers that I get about attorneys is I can't get a hold of them. And then like, but he's the attorney. That's not really his job. Why aren't you calling the paralegal? Why aren't you calling the client assistant? Or whatever the other the I find that you know, your pattern seems similar to the ones I work with the most, which is they have like the technical person, the paralegal, and they have the client advisor, or I would call kind of the soft hands to help people. And why they not pushing people towards the right solution? Not offensively, but you're not the right guy for those phone calls. They are, right? Right. And then that's the case. Then so, I think having an a law firm that the attorney is accessible as can be. And there are times, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. There will be times that a client may reach out to me, but that just isn't an issue that warrants my time. In other words, I'll push that right to the paralegal and request that they get back to them immediately. And I think that's the big thing that I found after 30 years of doing this is that in most instances, clients just want someone to get back to them in a reasonable amount of time. And even though they may initially reach out to me, if they're hearing from the paralegal or the legal assistant, they're thrilled because they know that I've looked at it, directed an answer, and that it responds to their problem later.

8:28 I have a standard explanation for my customers when they complain about the Realtor® I mean like the attorney. I say, "Well, you know, there's attorney time and Realtor® time." And so, when you call me, you know, I'm probably going to at least text you within the hour or two. I probably I'm but I'm for sure going to call you back the same day or tell you why I can't and make a time that we can talk. But it's hours in the same day every time. Attorneys are like the only profession where I'll call and leave a message and they'll call back like a week later and say, "Hi, I'm returning your phone call." I'm like, "What the hell is this guy talking about?" Cuz it's been a week. Like that property already sold and closed escrow cuz we had to solve the problem. And I think that's that might be normal when attorneys have things like depositions and court hearings and court cases. But with proper staff, there's no reason a phone call's not returned. It just doesn't need to be returned by Lee. It should be returned by Lee's team member. Yeah, I always in our practice, what I always do with my initial meetings is I provide my direct email as well as the assistant and the paralegal. And I tell the client, "Look, anytime, even if you're reaching out to the paralegal or the legal assistant, copy me." Yeah. Cuz if they're not getting a response, and I will see that promptly. It gives me the ability to monitor, jump in, and vice versa. If they're trying to reach me and like you said, I could be in depositions, I could be in court hearings, but if they copy a legal assistant, they'll be able to respond right away saying, "Hey, you know, I'll get this in front of Leo as soon as he's back from court." But it's a process and I get the client's perspective Yeah. Because they want prompt action and they deserve it quite frankly.

10:05 In LA County where primarily worked in Southern Riverside, I have a data of all the filings. And so when customers call me and say, "Well, I'm having problems with my attorney, can you help?" And you know, I ask who they are, I look them up. What I learned by analyzing the data is that 90% of probate filings are done by attorneys who've done one or less in the prior 12 months. That's Southern California. It may not be true in Vegas. My guess is it's close that there's a couple top performers that we do 500 filings a month in LA County. So the top performer is doing 30, 40, 50. There's a guy probably at 20, 30 and one at five and 10, but there's a lot at one or they've never done one before. And as a result, I think customers don't know how to make that decision because either the person handled their DUI the attorney handled their DUI or they handled their questions on something. And on their website it might say they do probate. In California, we have specializations for the bar that they may or may not have. But there's a difference even there between somebody who does a couple versus I think you told me you have at time about 100 active cases at a time. Right? And if you do that many, you at some point have to do them well or else you would be out of business, overwhelmed with problems. So talk a bit about the you know, I'm sure you've as you've grown and as you talk to colleagues, there's differences in your systems and structure versus the sole practitioner that you see maybe in litigation that's not doing as good a job. What are the differences in the procedures, processes, and infrastructure that the customer is not really aware of, but as a professional I see that and more importantly I see the results from that.

11:44 I think that look, there are lots of firms that claim that they do probate work and we've been seeing this in our estate planning practice also where lots of firms will crank out a will for somebody or a trust, but they really don't have the experience to understand the kinds of pitfalls that client can easily get into. And so the attorneys who maybe dabble in it and we run into this every once in a while. Yeah, we'll get calls from somebody who will ask us, "Hey, I think it's time to change jockey because the one is not getting it done." Yeah. I always our approach is really simple. I would much rather tell people about the good things about our practice and our approach than ever try and say anything that casts aspersions upon anybody else. And if the client decides they want to make that move, that's their decision and then we'll look at it carefully. But I would tell you as many times as I've had clients talk to me about wanting to retain our services and change from another firm, that we've accepted those cases, I would say that as many of those times that we've accepted, I've also taken the time to talk to the person and say, "Look, here's the issue. You're this deep into the probate. I know who that attorney is. I think they're a good probate attorney, but you need to get a hold of that and explain to him this, and this." And I try and give them a pathway. And if I can spend 5 or 10 minutes on the phone redirecting them back to their attorney, you know what? In the long run, I that's the way that we do business and that's really successful many times because I've never had them come back and say, "Well, that SOB won't take his won't take my call. Yeah, I did what you told me." Well, I just never had that happen. So, to me, the proof's in the pudding. I would You know, to me, my view is sometimes the client gets impatient and yeah, the attorney probably should have returned the phone call sooner, but if I get them back to where they should be,

13:48 In the long run, that benefits them in the long run. They will stay. I guess because of the nature of my podcast, my business now, I see I see the opposite. I see more often, nine out of 10 times, I can give them some advice, not legal advice, but business advice, what to how to approach attorney, what to say to them, how to document it, how to get the maybe get the information that they're looking for, and so on. But, occasionally, it's like, "Your attorney's just not doing the job." I mean, I had a case where it's a court confirms required on a limited authority hearing in Los Angeles. You've got to publish that you're that you're selling the property before you accept an offer. And meanwhile, he's saying, "No, this is list of property." And we need the inventory of repairs report to know what the property is valued by the court cuz we need to sell for 90% or more of that. And he hasn't ordered it. I said, "Well, you're going to have to do that." "Well, let's wait till we get the offer accepted." Well, that doesn't work. That was no good. And this is an attorney who has a pretty large practice. He said, "Well, to be honest, they just don't want to pay the money until we have a real buyer." And like, you can't get a real buyer. And I really just said to the customer, "The attorney's just not doing his job." Like, I'm not here to give you legal advice, but I can this is probate court. Read it yourself and you make a decision what you have to do. And so, we do change horses. But, what I find often is they don't have systems and procedures.

15:06 They don't have staff that's trained to handle these things. And that's where the difference. So, talk a bit. I know that, you know, you're a businessman, so you must spend some time generating business, right? You I'm sure your referrals are repeat business, but you do something like this podcast that gets business. You do the actual legal work. I'm sure you're involved in different hearings and filings and reading and reviewing documents. But what percentage of your day is really working with your team to make sure they're delivering the services and procedures that you need done? It is a never-ending ongoing nail-biting process. I mean it just I would say 90% of my day is working on the cases, supervising what's being done, giving directions. And I think you hit the nail on the head. We have systems to do that. Because with so many ongoing cases at any one given time and so many different hands touching that file, Right. I learned a long time ago if you don't have those systems, it's difficult. And the analogy I always make and explain to my staff is think of it as the work goes through the pipeline. And their job, I call them the draino. Some of them are so young, they're like, "What's draino? I never heard of that before." [laughter] Hey, I tell them, "You guys are the drain. Your job is to help me unclog the pipeline so that we can move this work as efficiently as possible."

16:36 Yeah. And there's a lot of reasons for doing that. Number one, first and foremost is it reduces stress on the clients. But quite frankly, we have a financial incentive for doing it. Because we're going to work on a case. We're one of the firms in the Valley that I'm aware of that we don't charge any fees up front. So, we're not going to get paid a nickel until I get that case closed, get everything approved by the court, including the approval of our fees. We therefore have this financial incentive to make it go as efficiently as possible. And I always share that with clients because sometimes I think there's this misperception that attorneys drag their feet because somehow they make more money. I Is it possible in certain cases or certain instances that could occur? Yeah, but I really don't believe that. I think in 99% of the times attorneys are trying their best to be as efficient as possible, but if they're not organized and they're only dabbling in this, yeah, we see undue delays on cases all the time where we don't understand why they didn't immediately get creditors notices published, why they're holding back on moving forward with getting it in the hands of a good agent to get the property listed as soon as possible as soon as the probate is open. And in a market like what's going on right now that is very soft, even declining, to me that is just makes no sense to me to have those kind of delays.

18:07 You know, in LA County we have we have our challenges. One of the things we have as positives a great system of notes where the cases, you know, available and then the judicial assistants or probate attorneys for the court review documents and will write notes before hearing dates come up. So, it's kind of I feel like it's kind of like getting your homework reviewed by the assistant the teaching assistant that you know what the judge is going to look at and what problems they're going to ask about. And in the in the days before COVID I used to go every day to court and I would listen and there'd be attorneys who'd say the judge would say, "Did you look at the notes?" And the attorney would say, "What are the probate notes?" I would have to stifle my desire to want to laugh. Like, you're collecting, you know, 10, 20, $3,000 in fees for this. The county has this great system that makes your job better, not worse, and you didn't know it exists. Like, how is that not malpractice? I still to this day don't understand how attorneys can get away with that. Such a fundamental mistake in the process. Now, again, I guess we all have our shortcomings and I'm sure they could nitpick my business mistakes as well, but that one to me just seems fundamental. Well, I don't disagree with you. It is frustrating from a client's perspective if the attorneys don't look at that.

19:26 Here in Clark County, what we have is a pre-approved list. And a little bit different, I think, than the way it works in LA County. Everything here flows through one of two of our probate commissioners here in Los Angeles. And they have a list that about 2 weeks before the hearing, they've gone through the cases and posted if there's issues with the case. So, at least 2 weeks out before the hearing, our paralegals are looking at that to see did we miss anything? Was there something Right. Some concern? Because I agree. I think it's a huge problem with the way people don't do that. So, again, we just build that into our systems that we're constantly reviewing every Our hearings are on Wednesday and Friday. So, we're constantly looking at those two dates to make sure there isn't something that's going to jam up our filing or the hearing of that matter. So, the fun part of this interview I was looking forward to, you know, when I was introduced to you by Randy and we chatted a little bit, I can always tell a real probate professional, attorney, or Realtor® versus the fakes. The fakes will complain about how difficult the cases are. They'll complain about the problems that come up, and they almost make it sound like they're doing a public service because they went through a bunch of challenges. The real professionals brag about it. I remember I was talking to you and I and I was asking you cuz I knew I had a case that Randy was involved with I'd referred to him where the attorney did his assessment of the value of the property to discover that the house had already burned down. And as a result, there wasn't enough equity to cover the loan, let alone attorney's fees, probate fees, and so on. And we got caught short. Then you came back with a bigger problem. Like you one-upped me, which doesn't happen often, that you had one that burned down during the escrow. I'm sorry, during the probate process.

21:19 So talk a bit about, which I love. You know, if you have a bigger problem than me, I want to learn about it, and I'd rather learn it from you than go through it myself. Talk a bit about the case of the house that burned during probate and what that how that affected the probate process. Well, I think that's where the use of experience and then insight really pay off for the clients because somebody kind of dabbles in the probate might be find that so daunting and not know how to deal with that. But these issues unfortunately arise. And as you mentioned, this probate the at the time that we spoke with the surviving I think it's a son. You know, we had a pretty good handle on everything, opened up the probate, and then he called me and said, "You know, I can't believe this, but the Clark County Fire Department was at my mom's house, and there's significant damage." And he was overwhelmed to begin with, but now you throw this into the pot. And unfortunately, in many of these cases, the house is the single greatest asset for most people. So it's devastating in terms of so now what happens? It created some unique challenges, particularly with the agent that I was working with, because there was significant damage, but the question was how can we still try and maximize the return on that property? Those kinds of properties are generally going to And oh, by the way, there was no insurance.

22:52 So not only did we take the hit, but there were not going to do on the sale price, but there was no insurance to do repairs. So this was a prime opportunity for an investor to come in and you know, they love these kind of scenarios where they can buy low, fix it up and turn a significant profit. But it presented a unique challenge which was from my perspective we wanted people to go onto the property but we told the agent, "Look, you cannot let anybody on there Right. Without certain types of disclaimer." So we ended up having a bare release where we made sure that we explained the dangers of coming onto the property and that they had to take reasonable steps. We shared with them photographs ahead of time so they could actually see and know what they were into if they walked onto the property. So it raised some really unique challenges of how to get it sold and you know what? Eventually we got it sold. We got an offer, we got it in front of the court. We hit obviously have to explain to the court why the sale price is so low. Right. Have an appraiser, you know, and so help us support the dispo- in the estate's best interests. And it all worked out. But these probates it's funny. Somebody the other day was saying, "God, probate God, isn't that a little dry and boring?" I was like, "Are you [laughter] kidding me?

24:15 This is a soap opera. Every time I think I've seen it all, some new wrinkle comes up and I welcome those kind of challenges. I think that's where experience really pays off. I fantasize about doing a reality TV show on probate real estate around the country cuz there's cases like this. I had one where it was the back half of the house was burned down and the front half looked normal and people died in the fire. It was horrific. I think the decedent and two or three children passed in the in the fire and that also caused problems. And there's certain investors who like who look for fire properties cuz they have certain expertise on what can be restored, what can't be. They have certain expertise in the permitting process and what can be, you know, reused and such. And we were to find the right investor for that, but I feel like same thing where, you know, we had to disclose, we had to tell people they couldn't see the property cuz it was dangerous, and they'd drive by and say, "Oh, no, it looks fine." Yeah, that's the front half, the back half burned down, so it's funny how I always tell people it's never a problem until it's a problem, then it's a problem. Yeah. And so I think the other the other point of success I see of attorneys do well in probate administration versus those that struggle is I think properly preparing the administrator executor for what has to be done because I think often people feel like, "Oh, my mom's house, you know, is we're going to sell it, and there's some paper there's some paperwork involved." And I say, "Well, you know, there's a lot of paperwork just to sell the property. That's just a real estate deal. There's a whole 'nother world of stuff when you get into probate." And I you know, in California, the executor administrator can you know, get and usually will receive fees equal to the attorney's fees. And people say, "Well, that sounds like a lot. I mean, the attorney's going to get a lot." On a million-dollar property, that's $23,000.

26:07 Yeah, it's like a job for, you know, 2 years on average in Los Angeles County, and you're running a business. You're running a million-dollar business that has to liquidate. But you must have some systems to set the executor up front because if you get the wrong executor administrator, or if they don't get the right help in the beginning, it gets off the rails. I know it's hard to get them back on. What's your system like to prepare that executor administrator? Well, it starts in the very beginning with the initial phone call, and I will tell you and I and I teach I think I have it's now 16 different courses for continuing education approved by the Nevada Real Estate Division. And so, we teach a lot of agents. And one of the things I always see with the agents is that in my industry, I have the exact same problem that I have to contend with that a real estate licensing does. And that is clients' unrealistic expectations. And if that is an issue, it's our fault, not the clients'. And the reason I say that is because when we have that initial meeting, we really try and set the tone. And I explain to them whether they're appointed under a will as a personal representative or executor, or whether or not they're stepping into the position of an administrator where there is no will. I tell them, "The first thing you got to understand is this.

27:26 Being a personal representative, an executor, or an administrator falls into the category of no good deed goes unpunished because it's not simple. There's ups and down It's a roller coaster." I tell them, "Strap in. Are you ready for that?" So, I tell I talk to them about those issues emotionally emotional roller coaster. We give them a good idea of the time frame of what they're looking at. In many instances, these cases are taking 12 to 18 months here in Clark County. And when they say, "Oh my god, that's outrageous." I say, "Really? Just think god it's not in a California probate. It's going to go several years." so, we try and you know, give them realistic expectations up front. Many years ago, once the client retained us, we used to send them like a six- or seven-page letter that explained what the duties of an administrator are and how the probate proceeds. It just it wasn't They were They were so overwhelming they didn't even read it. And so, one of the ways we manage expectations is I tell them, "Look, think of probate as 1 through 100 steps. We're on step one. I can answer about step 99 for you, but it's to kind of confuse you. It's it won't make sense because we're not there yet. We break probate down into four pieces where we say, "Here is the steps that we get and we have to address. And quite frankly, probably 70-80% of my client count they're out of state where they had a loved one in Nevada that passed away and they may not be here. So, you know, Zoom interviews have been worth wonders for us. It's amazing post COVID how it just changed my business. Made it made everybody has a Zoom account. Everybody has a camera a webcam of some sort now, it seems like. Yes, and even our courts have updated and allow Zoom also.

29:14 Yeah. In most instances, sometimes like the contested cases we still need to be in court, but otherwise the particularly the probate courts have been great. But what happens is we will give them an agenda ahead of time. So, before that meeting they know exactly what we're going to talk about, what we're going to cover. It helps them organize their thoughts. It helps them reduce their stress. Oh, he's going to talk about that. I didn't think we were going to bring that up. Yeah. And so, those are the things that we do from the beginning all the way through each stage of this of this process. Even, you know, eventually or and it happens occasionally that a client says, you know, you know, Lee, I really don't need to know all that. I just want to file and I will say to them nicely, "Listen, I appreciate your confidence in me, but it's still important for us to make sure you understand what the process is so that you understand why we're doing things because you're the one that's in the firing line as the administrator. The families are going to call you and say, "Well, why is Strauss not doing this? Or what's going on? When do we get to sell the house?" And so, again, that communication and taking them step by step through the process, that to me has been a winning presentation for us that I think is one of the reasons we've gotten such great feedback from clients.

30:39 That communication again, I think that's the soft skills. You can be the world's greatest attorney and know the probate code by your fingertips, but if you can't communicate that to your customer so that they act appropriately, you're just not going to get anywhere, I think, at the end of the day. So, you know, I'm coming up in the end of the time, but I do want to just want to kind of throw out cuz I want one of the topics that's so prominent throughout business news these days is the effects of artificial intelligence. And it is amazing the tools and the things that I can use to help me be more effective, but I can see a horizon. I feel like I'm at the beach and there's a wave or two here, but I can see out there's like a tidal wave coming in. And the question I see is the AI is the artificial intelligence going to be more integrated into the tools we use every day? As a Realtor®, we use a transaction tool and an MLS tool. I'm sure as attorneys you have case management tools. Do you see the AI being integrated through tools like that, or do you see yourself as a practitioner having to use these tools on your own to devise a better workflows and processes? I can tell you that today we primarily see an AI pop up in two aspects of my practice. On the estate planning side, we see where people are trying to do their own trusts. How could that go wrong? It's we do at least once a year a blog post called do-it-yourself disasters because and a perfect example, we had someone about 2 months ago come in.

32:05 Their mom had done a great trust. It was actually a pretty solid document. And she did a good part of the will. She had She had everything nicely done. Everything was designated. He forgot to transfer any of the assets into the trust. So, we still ended up having to go in and probate to do what's called a set-aside procedure, and they spent a significant amount of money to have us do that and get all the assets into the trust. On the probate side, I have clients every once in a while or prospective clients that say, "Well, you know, this just doesn't seem that difficult to believe. I you know, I think we can win that." I Okay. And more often than not, those clients would then call me back and say, "Well, the commissioner keeps rejecting me order. Right. Why this is happening?" And I And it just happened. I had a case within the last 6 months where very bright guy, was an engineer, and you know, I mean, very methodical and was able to read the rules, but he couldn't get it over the finish line because something kept getting rejected. He asked us to come in and on an hourly basis, we just were able to get him over the hump and it worked out great. Right. I you know, AI is a great tool, but I don't think it's at a point where we're ever going to see it actually replacing the attorneys because so many issues can come up and arise in these probate administrations that it is our experience that can say, "Well, here's the best way to solve that." And quite frankly, we've had a number of cases where we have in litigation cases resorted to AI, but I will tell you about it's an alarming amount of instances where we see the citations to the statutes are incorrect, the citations are incorrect, or it is phantom quotes that don't actually exist in those cases.

34:03 It is really dangerous. And so, for the lay people who think that they can replace an attorney by using that, it can really complicate things. There's a famous case here in LA where one of the leading tenant eviction attorneys that would represent landlords, I'll call the largest eviction mill in LA County by far, was is facing sanctions by the court because his filings included allegedly some fake citations and mistakes and such. And this was a couple years ago when the AI wasn't as good as it is now. And there's now tools that you can use to protect yourself. But I see this as you know, just like what we covered, the AI should allow us to both go deeper into our specialization areas. And as attorneys, I think, you know, going specializing in probate admin or litigation or if you have a firm having departments that cover them separately, but practitioners focused in those areas. And I also think it allows us to work at the edges. Like on estate planning, you mentioned that people don't fund the assets, don't title their property, and then get it recorded. And so that used to It used to be attorneys never did that. They just would tell the customer and maybe do a give them a grant deed. And now I see more attorneys who give the grant deed and either get it notarized and record it for them or follow up with them and make sure it gets done. And the AI makes those procedures more economical, more effective. It but also makes the attorney, I think, more viable to the customer cuz you're getting more job done because technology than you used to. And I just seems to me that we should be looking for these things as how do we use these as solutions rather than worrying about being replaced.

35:41 Yeah, I agree. I think that the biggest downside to the AI is you have to know the right prompt. Because if you don't know what funding is of your trust, how would you necessarily figure that if you don't

35:56 Right. Use the AI to create a trust? Right. For me, what I see AI is being a great ability, as you said, to assist where I can use that to help you create a checklist Right. The client still has to do the funding. We'll do the deed, but here's pretty good explanation and detailed checklist to assist them. Right. And then what we would normally do is follow up periodically with them and say, "Hey, where you at in your funding process? This is kind of like

36:22 Right. I call it nudging. We're trying to nudge them Right. To get those things done because in the in the end we don't want to trust the third party because then the family's going to come back to us and say we didn't leave them anything. Well, that's not within the scope of what the attorney does, but we want them to be able to complete that process as easily as efficiently as possible. I just had experience this week where, you know, we have a I have an estate with several properties and we need it's just one administrator and this brother's only heir, but we have full authority, but we need notice of proposed action where the administrator says we're selling the property for this amount of money and anybody who's noticed, which in the case is just his brother, has to sign it. And the attorney's office mailed him the forms. I'm like, "Dude, we're ready to close this escrow. I know you know, I'll e-sign it if you want me to do it. But I know you can e-sign we have the email addresses. Why we And the and the paralegal asked me, "Well, are you sure you can e-sign that?" And I had the probate code and I searched it and sent them the information, but it's like, "Why is that not in your process? Like, of course the notice should go out You should be bugging me for the sales information and sending them out right away to get them done now. It's so much easier to e-sign it. It costs you less money. You're not paying for postage. You're not printing out the forms. You're you know, why would you not have that as your automatic and default?" Well, we're fortunate and one of the things that's in Nevada that's helped us is most of our counties now have electronic filing. Yeah. The ability to send a client a file if we don't have it set up where they can e-sign electronically sign, they just sign it, print it out, sign it, scan it, and send it right back to me.

38:04 Yeah. Don't need a wet signature, so it's worked out really well for that. Yeah. And that's been a lot more efficient in terms of the speed that we can get things filed. That's another post-COVID, right? People weren't really doing that. Professionals were, but not your average consumer. And of a sudden everybody had knows how to e-sign doc I talked to some lady today. She's you know, in her 70s. Yeah, I know how to e-sign stuff. You send me the email, I'll do it. Great cuz that just eliminates hours and mistakes and missing pages and scanning and so many different things. Well, look, I'm way over time here with you for what I for what you charge me per hour here for this. Just kidding. I appreciate your time for free. Lee Dryzen, it's always great to talk to a real probate professional who's actually in this business and I takes pride in doing it and doing it well at the highest level. Located in Las Vegas, Nevada serving all of Nevada and the website if you want more information is dryzenlaw.com. That's on the banner down below and his phone number [phone number]. Call the office and you can get an appointment. Talk to people live. Lee, thank you so much for your time today sharing with us your best practices and some of the keys to success for both attorneys and Realtors® and professionals looking to work with you. I really appreciate your time today. That's great. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. And for the rest of you, this was Probate Weekly. We get together every week usually with a probate attorney, many times with vendors to help us be more effective with our customers and building our businesses.

39:29 If you like this, please like, comment, email me, let me know how you feel about it. And love to get more information. I'm available at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.