Why I Closed My Law Firm To Start This Podcast

Darol Tuttle

Darol Tuttle

Darol is a Washington state admitted attorney, practicing in estate planning and elder law since 1996. He is founder of the BoomX Academy and Founder of LegalEdge Innovators.

I decided to close my law firm. I am still a lawyer. I will still help people understand and leverage the law. I do not own and operate a law firm and will not practice law as I once did. The legal services industry is archaic. Expensive. Information is often hoarded when it should not be. I came to the Caribbean to attend a business meeting. I was one of twenty-five entrepreneurs who were lucky enough to participate in a Master Mind with John Lee Dumas and his partner, Kate Erickson. John and Kate operate Entrepreneurs on Fire and Kate’s Take, podcasts on business and business efficiency. After the Master Mind, I stayed in Puerto Rico for a time and recorded the first and third episodes of this new Podcast. I closed my law firm for many reasons. I admit being burnt out. You wouldn’t think practicing estate planning would be stressful but it was. Lawyers take on the problems of others. Clients bring with them expectations and entitlements. They are seldom appreciative. More often, they are resentful of the fee they pay. I also had my eyes opened up to a new world I did not know existed. I suspect this world began to sprout when the internet was invented. The Law was invented in ancient times. Estate planning, my area of practice, began, in most part, during the Middle Ages. Lawyers are trained to look back into time to apply a legal rule of old to a current conflict. Naturally, so busy looking backward, I did not know there was a world out there in which young businesspeople used the internet to promote their product or service. With websites, podcasts and social media, thousands were solving problems for a fraction of the costs of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. I wanted to do that. My entire career has been about the laws of money. These laws can be complicated. Legal counsel is necessary to solve some problems but not all. However, in many ways, people seek reliable information. I will go one bold statement further. In many ways, people seek financial awareness that legal documents do not give. This podcast offers listeners information. It also offers some entertainment. Most importantly, it offers a solution.

Table of Contents

Sorry. So he tells me like, oh, the bay, the bay, the bay. Hey sweetie. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I swam in the bay last night and the people at the hotel told me, oh no, it’s not safe to swim in the bay. I told him I swam in the bay and they said it wasn’t safe. He goes, don’t know it’s safe. I go in front of my hotel and he goes, what’d you say?

You just saw something a little alligator. Some, maybe some bull sharks or nothing. Nothing. Nothing more, nothing like that. No, that’s not what you said you did not. He said alligators.

Welcome BoomXers let’s throw out the old playbook. It’s time to tear down the traditional way of looking at your life and money and leverage the laws of money to our advantage. That’s right. There are laws of money and those who learn and leverage the laws of money win. And sometimes win big. Stay tuned as asset protection, attorney Daryl, Tuttle, educator, and leader of the Boom X Nation shows us how. Beginners, investors, entrepreneur, fellow attorneys.

Are you ready? Are you ready? Let’s arm this bomb. Now here’s the Boom X Show: the laws of money. Welcome to the Boom X Show laws of money podcast. I’m your host, Darol Tuttle. I wish you could see, be here. I’m on a bio luminescent bay on the equator. The bay is absolutely beautiful. It’s not a breath of wind. It’s like a mill pond.

I’m having a little bit of difficulty because the sun has just come up. It is reflecting off the mill pond bay of the Caribbean and directly into my eyes. Just wanted to start by pointing out that three or four weeks ago, I shut down my law firm to start this podcast. So this podcast in a way is my reflections about the journey I’m about to participate in.

I am practically within a Stone’s throw of an abandoned sugar mill on the equator, on the Caribbean. Last night, I jumped into the bio luminescent bay for the first time at night. You have to do it at night. And what’s absolutely one of the most impactful moments of my life as I swam each stroke of my body lit up, reminded me of a Disney cartoon of Mickey mouse waving his arms as the Sorcerer’s apprentice and magic flowing from a finger tips.

So this is going to be an interesting project. I do not know what the result is, but the theme is hoping you leverage the laws of money. So you can build wealth that transcends your lifetime, but becomes generational. And I just cannot resist the urge to tell stories as I go along.

This morning, I walked out to the bay to swim again, as I had last night in the dark. Just as I was approaching the spot that I had selected to dive into the beautiful bay, a big iguana dove from a tree stump, headlong, a beautiful dive right into the location I intended to swim. I thought to myself, Okay.

I know that they are a vegetarian, but I turned around and came back up here and recorded this just for you.

Music means we have to take a break. Hold on. We’ll be back right after this.

Hey, BoomXers Darol Tuttle here. We all want to take care of our families. Being a hero to our families can sometimes be a little bit intimidating, conquering the paperwork, understanding the account statement.

What is the first step? For years I would say you have to meet the laws requirements must first start with legal documents. Well of course I would say that I’m a lawyer, but now in hindsight, I realize that meeting the laws requirements without the proper system in place to, in a sense, have a place for the legal documents to exist and reside along with your financial information, along with all of the important information about you and your plan to build family wealth is meaningless. But where to start?

Start by first organizing and conquering paperwork clutter. That’s why I put together the BoomX Vaults and Everplans system. This online and completely secure digital portal allows you to upload all of your important information. Your financial information, your legal information, your legal documents on top of it, I’ve added the ability for you to add family members, decision-makers to the portal, the financial command post shall we say so that when the time comes, everyone has the right information at the right time.

Let me show you how the boom X Vault Everplans system work. Go to boomxshow.online to learn more. I have added helpful step-by-step guides, checklist and then online community. That’s boomxshow.online. boomxshow.online.

Let me take you back to 1996. That was a busy year for me. I graduated from law school in 1996 and I’m always the rebel, I’ve always got to do things differently. Always the contrarian, by that point, I had already obtained two college degrees. I don’t mean to say that in a boastful way, but in a way of complaining after a while, you are just sick to death of ceremonies and classes and students, fellow students, and teachers. So for my law school graduation, I had met, I was in a pub the Pub in London as my law school colleagues marched down the island through their caps up in the air. And the weird thing about that experience was, that was back in the days of crunch, cringe, originated in Seattle, where I’m from, and I’m all the way over in London, hoping to have the pub experience, dark beers and the British, whatever.

I’d never been to London before. And I’m so disappointed because I look around the bar and everybody is dressed like Nirvana plaid shirts, stocking caps, and they’re all drinking American beer like Coors and Budweiser. They all, like, I felt like it was in California, in a surf shop. And that’s the wonderful thing about travel is that you never know what you are going to encounter at any given moment and location.

Part of this podcast probably will be something of a travel journal as I try to figure out exactly what’s over there at that abandoned sugar mill that I had referred to earlier in the introduction. But you’re probably wondering about 1996, why I bring it up? I do so for a few reasons, first I graduated from law school and lawyers, by the way, when they graduate from law school are entitled and licensed to do absolutely nothing except take a test. Three years of law school, relentless, sometimes 12 hours, seven days a week. Project that results in the privilege to take a test that about a third of the people, depending on the year, but 25 to 33% of the people fail the bar exam. It apparently is supposed to be difficult.

I say that because later in the summer of 1996, I took the bar exam. I was disappointed in how easy it was and I passed and I got the letter in the mail. I said, okay. Yeah, by the way. Yeah you did it. Now, once you receive that letter, guess what you are licensed to do? Absolutely nothing except raise your right hand and swear an oath administered by a judge to strangely support the constitution, not commit crime, not repush your clients and be a good lawyer. Now, once that occurs, you are licensed to do absolutely nothing until the Supreme court of your jurisdiction. In my case, Washington state approved your application and admits you as a member of the club.

And that as a lot, men with a lot of hoops, you’re jumping through from the moment I drank that first beer in that pub in London as my graduate or my fellow law students graduated to the point where the Washington state Supreme court said I was good to go was five months later. And the real reason I bring up 1996 is to give listeners perspective as to time and experience. 1996 was the very first year or the year the very first web based email platform was launched before that it was all server-based. If you do not know what that means the distinction. That means you’re young, younger than I am, but before Gmail and before Yahoo, AOL, and all these other Hotmail came out and Hotmail was made by Microsoft a little software company.

You’ve probably never heard of it, but it’s also in my neighborhood of Washington state, 1996 Hotmail. I have one of the very first Hotmail accounts. And I have since 1996, I’ve had one, one occupation, one focus, and that is money. I’ll explain that in a minute, but I’ve been a lawyer since 1996. I’ve had the same phone number and the same website and the same email address since 1996.

Now, if you’re an entrepreneur, a marketing person who is listening to my voice, and trying to understand why I’m making this important distinction. You have to understand that our concerns about spam and email marketing and opt-ins and double opt-ins. And all of these things that we think are so important as to communication in the modern world did not exist in 1996.

Like when I started, I have a email list of over 3000 names. The email list of over 3000 names contains email accounts of my clients and colleagues and people I have met in my brick and mortar law practice that I have worked on an established since 1996. Now before 1996, there were no rules and laws about spam.

Hotmail had just launched. We could email anybody we wanted to now in the modern world, these young whippersnappers in marketing, the entrepreneurs have these concerns and misunderstandings about spam. And I admit being a bit offended. I have become a student of marketing in the last 12 months.

I have been busy practicing law since 1996. That has been my focus, but recently I’ve had personal growth, professional growth. My eyes have been opened to a world that the legal services industry candidly ignores. The law service, the law biz, and that is an archaic originating from the medieval world.

And we think about communication, marketing and business in that way, which makes sense. Lawyers are trained to look back into time to solve a conflict in the present time, by looking at a court opinion. And a ruling about circumstances that are similar that date back sometimes a year, 200 years, and sometimes thousands of years into the past. The law does not look to the future to the law of the feature does not exist.

And so lawyers look at things differently than the rest of the world. Now in the marketing world. There is a myth being spread. Like it’s like a virus that in order to send an email to somebody, you must first have the email recipients permission before you can send it. Okay. So by the way that would be a violation of the first amendment.

Americans can say anything they want to email is like mail. We get to communicate if we want to. The other person does not have to listen that’s why spam filters were invented. Now, of course, we’re afraid of being inundated with marketing commercial advertisement emails. So we have, we’ve come up with this idea of spam.

I don’t know where that term originated. I’m going to look it up. And so there has been a law passed called can-spam. That’s literally what it’s called can-spam. And can-spam says a lot of things, it does not say that the email recipient must first give permission before an email sender can send the message that is not in American law because we’re Americans in America, like George Washington, first amendment don’t tread on me, baby.

Still a value that we have the point of this is simply this. When I send messages to my contact list. The last time I did so 56% of the people who received the email opened it. Now in marketing, that is an astounding figure like marketers who are so concerned about can-spam. God bless them.

I love it. I’m fascinated with marketing and marketers. I love their mentality. They’re creative people. I admit being a little bit annoyed by the misunderstanding in that industry about the laws of communication in America. However that aside marketers are trying to get, I don’t know, if you have a 20% open rate, that is like, you’re a superstar, but here I am with a 56% open rate on my email list.

Now I’m not going to be so arrogant as to hypothesize that what I’m trying to tell the people in my email list is of greater substance. Rather I’ve had relationships with the people on that list since 1996, some of them like there’s a relationship there. And that is the most important thing. Like all these fancy marketing tricks that you see everywhere you turn, here’s a free ebook or a download and all this baloney, but you’ve got to first give us art, your email.

That’s why guys, my age. I have over 25,000 unread emails because we’re being inundated with spam. I love saying that it was so emotionally satisfying and I only shared this somewhat grouchy complaining anecdote to simply state that I am an asset protection attorney who has been in the trenches since 1996, doing one thing.

And as an experienced, older, a little bit sometimes grouchy attorney worrier. I feel like I’m, in fact, I have an analogy for you. I’m here on the Caribbean, behind that door of the boom X studios here in on the equator is I can see the Caribbean. And when you’re in that area of the Caribbean, It does have a feeling like captain Jack Sparrow pirates of the Caribbean.

I just, especially when you’re a little bit older, a little bit, the term old salt comes to mind. And I, I give thought to that old salt, like an experienced person is an old salt, a veteran in British Navy terms. But something about that term that just so I did some research. Another term that was used in the days of piracy to indicate a person, a sailor of experience was the term Jack Tar.

And I am in a sense, Jack Tar. I there, there are lots and lots of podcasts about money. And some of them are very good. I really enjoy them. I am a student of podcasts and I listened to podcasts that are the host of the show have. They’re younger. They have, and so the message, like, how do we budget money?

How do we save money? How do we get out of debt? There was a prominent podcast. One of my favorites, the primary message is get out of debt. Okay. What about people who have now gotten out of debt or they know how to set a budget and they know how to invest investing is a broad topic there that financial podcasts on the marketplace are about those topics.

And we will discuss those topics on this podcast. Certainly. But tangentially, this podcast is for people who have already acquired wealth and want to think bigger about money. I have the money. What do I do with it now? I don’t need advice about a budget that was 20 years ago. Got it. Now I’m ready to retire.

Or I have retired. How do I think about Instructure money? So that it transcends and last longer than my lifetime, that is so important. The theme of this podcast is there are laws of money. The laws have requirement. They must be met. If they are not met you, you will pay a price. For sure. The law does not care whether or not you didn’t get around to estate planning.

Chief justice, the late chief justice Warren Burger, the United States Supreme court died without an estate plan. He lost 40% of his estate. The law did not care. Courts have a much lower level than the court that he was in charge of did not care one bit that he didn’t get around to an estate plan. That is how brutal it is.

My friends leveraged the laws of money to your advantage. But the goal is to show you a way to think about money so that your money is generational, family wealth. A lot of the people listening to my podcast I hope our business people, entrepreneurs, young people, acquiring wealth for the very first time in the history of their family.

Like I did, I grew up poor. I am the first person in the history of my family on either side to attend college. I grew up in a shack essentially. My grandmother grew up in the great depression in a granary. I asked her she’s 98. She’s still alive. Come up. What is the granary? My, my image of granary is a big silo, concrete filled with grain along the Puget sound, where the ships come and we send it over.

Like why do you in a granary? She described the granary after her description. I looked at her and I said, oh. You mean a woodshed, a six by eight wood shed. She goes, yeah okay. I don’t know why he just didn’t say woodshed because granary invokes a different mental image. The point is it doesn’t really matter your age.

It doesn’t even really matter if you’ve acquired wealth. If you were interested in avoiding this problem, last generation. Your family made money with work gloves on hard work. You aspired for something different. I want to have wealth, so my children can go to college and education and become live a different kind of life. Now, money and wealth like that takes a different mindset to think of it. As something that can be continued and sustained, even when you’re gone. Family wealth, avoiding this problem, going from work gloves back to work gloves in three generations that my friend is the goal. That is the trick. That is the game. Setting a budget.

Okay, good. There are podcasts that can teach you that. Once you figure that out this podcast, we’ll talk about a few things. We’re going to talk about the law. I can’t help it. I have a lot to say about constitutional law. I was also an infantry officer. It took me a while to figure out sleeping on the ground, is uncomfortable and switched to the JAG core where life is so Kush is so comfortable being an attorney in the United States army. But I swore an oath to that, to the constitution again. So as a lawyer to support the constitution as an officer in the military to defend the constitution. I can’t help it. I take it seriously. We will talk about the law in an educational way, just for fun. But we will also talk about the laws of money and how they can help you.

If you understand and leverage these little hidden gems. Now I have to confess, there are two other occupations that I took up in addition to my law practice on a part-time basis, sometimes for recreation. That’s one was a financial advisor. So because of my status as a money attorney I took the securities and exchange commission, Washington department of revenue requirements to become what is known as a financial advisor.

Now, a financial advisor have a lot to say about what a financial advisor is in other episodes. Just know that my version of becoming a financial advisor meant that I also had to found, owned and operate a registered investment advisory firm. You know, like once you’re a driven, motivated, entrepreneurial person can just be in a financial advisor, you had to own a firm.

And then the third industry in which I have experienced is radio. And I have had radio shows on 3 different radio stations in the Washington state, Puget sound Seattle area. And they have gone back since I think 2008, 10 years. Wow. And the last one was the most successful, the funniest. The most impactful.

And it was a radio show for two hours on Saturday on a traffic news and weather radio station in Seattle, Washington called Komo. Now, if you’re from Washington state, you know, that Komo is AMFM broadcast and it’s the big station. Like it’s the biggest has the biggest share of the market. It broadcasts a signal from Vancouver to Vancouver and it’s like the real thing.

And you had to audition, pitch the concept of the show. And I had to got to put it together and put her on audition tape together, and Komo agreed. And the show is successful. Now, the instructions that I had from Komo, like you should make sure our demographic Darol, it is essentially people 45 years and older. People in the retired market that’s, who listens to the radio on the weekend. And Monday through Friday, it’s a big commuter traffic station audience, rather, but for the weekend, think in 45 to 65 bracket. I thought about it. I go like well. So those are basically baby boomers, people born after world war II.

And people who were born after assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was called X gen generation X. Oh, I’m a member of X gen, just barely. And so baby boomers, an X gen. Hmm. I can’t think of a name. I’ll just call it boom X, like baby boomers, X generation. And it was just supposed to be a placeholder until they told me a better name.

I called it the Boom X Show. And I, for some reason they never have changed it. They just, we went on the air and that was what it was called on the first day. And I’m like, whoa, this sounds weird. After a while, I think the show became very popular. And the next thing I know everyone says, yeah, I listened to it.

I’m a BoomXer in the Boom X Show. And you’re the Boom X Show guy. And I’m like, wow. I just made a brand by accident. I do not mean to say that this podcast is limited and targeted and appropriate only for people in that age bracket. If you were willing to think bigger about money to get a head start, this show is for you.

If you’re curious about wealth, the show’s for you. Did you know that if you have $2 million, you are likely you are no, you are indeed in the top 2% of wealth owners in this country to be. That is shocking to many people. If you have $500,000, you’re in the top third of wealth owners in this country. And I have been at helping people with their money as a lawyer for so long.

I can tell you what you think you know about money. What you think other people in society, what they have and how all the messaging that you are receiving, like carpet bombing of messaging about money and retirement is incorrect, or at least misleading. I know this because I have reviewed and studied thousands of account statements in my career, income statements, tax returns of my class.

I’ve noticed certain patterns. I know how much you own. I know what you own. I don’t know you personally, I don’t know if your money’s at Schwab or fidelity or Vanguard. I don’t know if you’re still working in your 401k plan, offers this portfolio versus that. However, in concepts, generally, I’ve noticed some patterns and we can talk about that and we can talk about the way the law can help you increase the value.

The longevity of your money with just a few easy steps. In fact, hiring a lawyer to help you is far easier and far less expensive than worrying so much about which mutual fund to buy or which stock to buy or bond. And I, it is my mission. My mission to persuade you.

Oh, dear you music. Music means we have to make way for Jack Tar, who will bring us each and every episode. The laws of money, one by one, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you Jack tar?

Yeah, Rob money. Number one, the golden, the ancient rule. You cannot take it with you. All of the wealth that you acquire, all of the assets must be left behind. There is no exception to this rule. There is no loophole. If you do not follow the laws of money, the wealth that you leave behind will be taken, squandered, eroded by tax, by the government, by mismanagement, by administration fees related to probate. The Caribbean is surrounded and littered by towns that are half empty back in the heyday. These towns of course, were occupied with people conducting commerce, hurricane and misfortune now leaves half of the towns, empty. Homes and assets abandoned.

This is a constant reminder that if wealth does not have a plan to transcend your life, if it is not viewed as generational, it will be an empty asset, an empty home and wasted. If there is no plan, if there’s no vision for your mind, drink up mates, enjoy life. Do not squander it. Enjoy it. Too often land lovers out of fear or their money, psychology squirrel away money and acquire great wealth, but only out of fear of running out of money.

And so the money and the wealth is stored in silos, protected sure. But serves no purpose. Remember mates, the first law of money you cannot take it with you.

Why I Closed My Law Firm To Start This Podcast

I decided to close my law firm. I am still a lawyer. I will still help people understand and leverage the law. I do not own and operate a law firm and will not practice law as I once did. The legal services industry is archaic. Expensive. Information is often hoarded when it should not be. I came to the Caribbean to attend a business meeting. I was one of twenty-five entrepreneurs who were lucky enough to participate in a Master Mind with John Lee Dumas and his partner, Kate Erickson. John and Kate operate Entrepreneurs on Fire and Kate’s Take, podcasts on business and business efficiency. After the Master Mind, I stayed in Puerto Rico for a time and recorded the first and third episodes of this new Podcast. I closed my law firm for many reasons. I admit being burnt out. You wouldn’t think practicing estate planning would be stressful but it was. Lawyers take on the problems of others. Clients bring with them expectations and entitlements. They are seldom appreciative. More often, they are resentful of the fee they pay. I also had my eyes opened up to a new world I did not know existed. I suspect this world began to sprout when the internet was invented. The Law was invented in ancient times. Estate planning, my area of practice, began, in most part, during the Middle Ages. Lawyers are trained to look back into time to apply a legal rule of old to a current conflict. Naturally, so busy looking backward, I did not know there was a world out there in which young businesspeople used the internet to promote their product or service. With websites, podcasts and social media, thousands were solving problems for a fraction of the costs of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. I wanted to do that. My entire career has been about the laws of money. These laws can be complicated. Legal counsel is necessary to solve some problems but not all. However, in many ways, people seek reliable information. I will go one bold statement further. In many ways, people seek financial awareness that legal documents do not give. This podcast offers listeners information. It also offers some entertainment. Most importantly, it offers a solution.

For married couples, the most important legal plan they need is a Spousal Protection Trust. 

Click the Learn More button and watch the 60 min FREE masterclass on Spousal Protection. Â